We All Share The Same Journey

     This will not be a post about the stupidity of stockpiling toilet paper. Instead, take this moment where we are all sharing the same reality, thinking similar thoughts, and largely have the same topic on our minds, and remember that it wasn't that long ago that these moments happened much more frequently than they do now.

     When we had fewer media outlets, no 24-hour news cycle, no capacity to educate out children online it was harder to deviate from the accepted views of the day. We seemingly shared the same journey, were taught the virtues of being civic-minded, and we all learned our lessons in the same prescribed order in the same age-restricted classrooms.

     Ridgewood Public Schools will go completely online very soon and all the lessons we used to learn from one another in the cozy confines of brick buildings will cease to be the same. No locker combinations to remember, or school bells to awaken us from our lethargy at our desks, or commutes to and from school on foot, by bicycle, bus, and car.

     It will all be vary different from what came before. Online education will set the stage for vast amounts of working outside of traditional offices. We will slowly but surely create new types of interaction along with these new types of learning and working. It is exciting and scary at the same time, but at least we will all be doing it together for a pleasant change. What will draw us together again after online schooling and working at home become the norms? Hopefully the same thing which used to draw us out of our houses: the coming of spring, the boredom of being inside, and a certain curiosity about what our neighbors are doing will be the impetus for a new collective understanding of what it means to be in a civil society. How we treat one another when the dust settles will be very important as we on walking on new ground and making new paths for future generations to follow. Tread lightly and with great care. These moments do not come along often.