Third dispatch from home - The Office basketball game

So, this video showed up in my YouTube recommendations last night. Being a NBA fan who bleeds Green (yes, I followed the Celtics religiously during their 22-year championship drought from 1986-2008), watching The Ringer's analysis of the classic Office basketball game is about as much hoops as I'm going to get during the 2020 corona closure.

The analysis is spot on, the game footage is captivating, and the dry humor just adds to the overall enjoyment of the viewing experience.

The Office television show premiered in the spring of 2005, during my first year as a high school English and journalism teacher. Suffice it to say, I was pretty consumed by the demands of the job, and had little time to watch TV. Things didn't change much over the next few years, and The Office just ended up being one of those shows that passed me by.

About a year ago, my wife and I started watching Office episodes on Netflix. We still have a few seasons to go, but should have no problem finishing them before the show is removed from Netflix by the end of the year. I will say, the characters have grown on me, and are always good for a laugh - even when I'm not in the most amiable mood. To see them engaged in their warehouse game of roundball brought a smile - and more than a few laughs - to my face. 

Second dispatch from home - Trail maintenance

I spent about five hours today outside in the woods behind our house clearing and refining a series of trails that stretch for about two miles and connect with the Belchertown High School complex. I used a pair of clippers to trim small trees, shrubs, and branches along the route. I then took to the trail with my electric leaf blower and cleared off all the leaves and debris. This photo shows the trail before I hit it with the leaf blower. It's pretty well defined now.

It felt good to be outside, creating something. I know that getting outdoors is going to be essential for getting through this with my sanity intact. Fortunately, we have this fantastic wooded resource right outside our back door. I eventually plan to build a campsite with a firepit, wooden stools, tent sites, and a picnic table.

First dispatch from home - Coronavirus closes schools and changes life as we know it

Donning protective gear before going shopping.

It's been 11 days since all schools in Massachusetts were closed by Governor Charlie Baker, as a new form of a virus called COVID-19 made its way to the U.S. from China, infecting nearly half a million known people as of this writing.

In an effort to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus, the governor issued a stay-at-home advisory and closed all non-essential businesses.

As a high school teacher and parent of two girls under six, my days have been spent trying to provide enrichment activities for my students while also trying to fill the role of my daughters' teachers. And this is in addition to performing our normal household tasks. As my wife is also a teacher, she's in a similar boat, feeling the pull and tug between our kids, her students, and our regular roles as parents. It's been a challenge.

As we work to deal with this new conception of domestic life, folks in the medical field are taking on the Herculean task of helping those afflicted with the virus amidst a shortage of basic protective gear and necessary medical equipment. And a host of people, ranging from police and firefighters to grocery store clerks, postal deliverers, restaurant employees, and utility workers are trying to keep the basic tenants of civilization going despite the ever-growing risk of infection.

Given that we'll be out of school until at least May, I figured it would be a good idea to start documenting my thoughts and experiences during this unprecedented time in some kind of formalized way. I plan to invite my students to do the same.

Fellow educators like Kelly Gallagher and Kevin Hodgson have created some suggestions for journaling here and here. With schools unsure of how to proceed with remote instruction, I can think of nothing better than encouraging students to create written records of this time which could serve as primary source documents for the future. In my opinion, this is not the time to be doing packet work or trying to do what we normally do virtually. Nothing about this time is normal, and we should lean into that, rather than grasp vainly at old paradigms in hope they'll give us the meaning and structure we're looking for.

A friend posted the following list of questions on her Facebook page today. I feel they speak to what's important at the moment.