#BTColumn – COVID’s silver linings

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by this author are their own and do not represent the official position of the Barbados Today Inc.

by Julia Hanschell

Since March 2020, I have reflected on an old Bajan saying, ‘No bad don’t happen’ and what the ‘silver linings’ of Covid are. Among them, education has had to wake up and reset its structure and practices in every way, literally overnight.

However difficult re-designing education is, having to ‘turn on a dime’ rather than gradually, it is students who have had the hardest job – managing their response on an emotional-psychological level.

Their world of certainty, and complacency, has been decimated. The ‘no man’s land’ of unprecedented change has constantly shifted into relentless maelstroms of unpredictability. The recent extension of examinations has been the hardest knock students have yet faced.

The irony of this happening to the Gen-Z generation, the ‘multipotentialites’, has been inescapable. This tech-savvy, socially-focused and entertainment-embracing generation is incredibly unprepared for adaptation. Rules and precedents have become fluid and they simply are unable to cope, far less to adapt positively.

Charles Darwin would find perverse validation in this, I am sure. Over the past year, teachers have had to do extensive emotional scaffolding; teaching has become an accessory to this job. ‘Baby-Boomers’, knew this day would come and that our mental skill-set would be required to help Millennials navigate their coma of contented inadaptability.

So, what are the principal tools in our antiquated skill-set, which we must retrieve from the bottom of our generational bag, dust off and imbue in students? Resilience, circumnavigation, positivity, independence and endeavour. The tool of security has been shattered beyond repair.

Baby-boomers, descendants of the World War II generation who faced extraordinary hardship, uncertainty and sorrow for five years, had expectations placed on us to ‘suck it up’ and ‘grow a backbone’. Life ‘knocks you down’, so get up, ‘dust yourself off’, ‘keep calm and carry on’. There really is no better preparation for life than this.

Sadly, whatever gifts subsequent generations of parents have given their children have not included this mindset.

In the 1990s children received ‘participation medals’. What did that teach? Since then there has been an endless stream of wants fulfilled, without children having to work for them, with little appreciation instilled for having their needs met.

Consequently, independence and endeavour have all but disappeared. There has been no ‘school of hard knocks’ for over forty years and that is the school which taught resilience and circumnavigation; how to creatively solve your way out of problems.

There has been no need to focus on a positive response to life’s difficulties because, generally, there have been few life-shattering hardships in which children have had to accept that ‘the show must go on’.

We have all become too emotionally comfortable since the 1970s and a Renaissance was inevitable. With comfort has come acceptance and powerlessness.

Governments have become increasingly corrupt, leaders are not worth following, wrong is right, we teach our children the cost rather than the value, we focus on acquiring social presence and ‘stuff’ and are pleasure-bent. But, ‘at least I have my phone’.

Earth’s creatures are becoming increasingly extinct, global warming is decimating the only planet we are designed to live on, fossil fuel and big-pharma industries are controlling human destiny without conscience, the sweet thrill of drug use is commonplace and increasingly acceptable and the media is brainwashing us all, successfully telling us how we should think about the wrongs taking place. But, ‘video games are real’.

Does any reality enter the conscious thought of Gen-Z, far less concern them? Not in my opinion. Only a few realise the power their voices, choices and responses have.

This latest exam-shifting imbroglio, has woken Gen-Z up. Finally! It is the proverbial ‘straw’. The problem is, they do not know how to respond, other than voice their malcontent now that they have awakened to the discomfort of having to wait for summer holidays to begin.

Perhaps their parents, or schools, should have ensured they read Spencer Johnson’s, ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ because together, we have utterly failed the Gen-Z’s for the Covid recalibration. What I feel is dismay, but I will not wallow in this for long. I am going to do what all ‘Baby- Boomers’ do. Act!

From September all students at my school will have ‘Adaptability and Endurance’ classes. Someone’s got to do it, before we lose our Nation’s ‘multipotentialites’.

Someone has to start instilling resilience in students: teach them how to circumnavigate life’s ‘curved balls’, focus on positivity, grow independence and choose endeavour. I hope that my parents support this but I am doing it anyway.

Every movement begins with ‘the Power of One’. It is time for action; a meaningful and pragmatic response to combating the doldrums.

We are living in a war; just of a different type. It is time for teaching courage – guts and grit. The heady days of ‘summer games’ are over. Winter has come and our students have no coats to put on.

They must learn to survive – and thrive.  As Frank Herbert wrote in ‘Dune’, “The price we have paid for achieving a paradise in this life, is the price men have always paid – we went soft, we lost our edge”.

Julia Hanschell can be contacted on smartstudying @gmail.com.