The One About Connectivity in the Time of Coronavirus

Dear Upper School Students,

I hope everyone is well and carrying on under these very weird circumstances. Nothing like this has happened before in my lifetime. How do we adjust to a pandemic that postpones weddings, closes schools, prevents the Nationals from taking the field, and refuses to conform to a reasonable schedule of going away?

As individuals, we have no control over the virus: how it got started or how it spread so quickly throughout our globalized world. We do have some agency over our own health and well-being now that it is here. And that is why we closed the campus (but not the online school). By closing the campus, we have the opportunity to stay away from crowds, follow the advice of doctors and public health specialists (wash your hands!), and reduce the speed of the infection, if not the number of us who will eventually be infected.

For anyone who has been cut off from all news sources, the reason it is important to slow the pace of the coronavirus is that for those who experience serious symptoms, particularly respiratory-related, the requirement for care and for specialized medical equipment is intense and, when the system becomes overloaded, there are shortages, causing treatment and recovery to be delayed. Closing the campus is our contribution to "flattening the curve."

As we practice social distancing, intentionally staying apart, becoming even more involved with our digital devices, we are noticing how much we miss each other. Connecting and staying connected are not just nice things; we are genetically wired to be together, to support one another, to hold hands, to have each other's backs, to be in touch (literally). 

Sixty years ago, there were some folks in Sandy Spring, many of them farmers who had lived here all their lives, who believed this so viscerally that they up and started a school built around the idea that we are all connected (see "SPICES"). 

Feeling connected to each other is a major contributor to both happiness and health. Schools can contribute to building connectedness between people. Schools also help us see another kind of connectedness: the connection between ideas. By connecting ideas, we are able to discover, to invent, to build webs of complex thoughts, and to deepen our understanding of the world and how it works. Connecting ideas creates bigger ideas which are almost always interdisciplinary, crossing boundaries and transcending narrow specializations. 

We are connected to each other. Ideas are connected to other ideas. A third kind of connectedness is also vital: connecting ideas to action. Action, doing things with purpose, is how we build a sense of community so that we may live in the world we want.  

So here we are. Perhaps experiencing boredom (no sports, no malls, even SNL is cancelled). Perhaps experiencing disappointment (no prom, no hanging out, stuck with your parents). Perhaps making the best of it (sleeping in, catching up on Spanish, discovering the joys of baking homemade bread).

If so, then what you are experiencing is normal, expected, and, wait for it… actually good for you. It turns out that boredom is essential to thinking, to wondering, and it is often an important step in unleashing creativity. Boredom means we have time to consider our purpose, to figure things out, to imagine, even to write a blog to 300 upper school students (guilty).

Essential to the acquisition of wisdom, of courage, of understanding, and of empathy is to experience disappointment.  Can you imagine how awful life would be if you received everything you ever thought you wanted, effortlessly and in real time? How distorted your sense of self would be? How personal growth, resilience, second effort and happiness would all be missing from a life that required nothing special and, in turn, offered nothing special? 

Oh, by the way, I'm not crazy about working at home. The dog wants out, wants in, wants out, wants in all day long. Lunch is the equivalent of "simple meal."  I keep forgetting to unmute myself on Zoom. I miss the view out of my Scott House window where I can see students walking to the Meeting House. It's kind of boring, and I'm disappointed that I can't be at school where I belong. 

Still, I know that hard things happen. Difficulties arise. It can rain too much, or not at all. Cavities develop even when we floss. Not all papers get a B+ or higher. And sometimes we really have to brace ourselves for the unplanned and the unexpected. For some of us, the impact of COVID-19 will upend lives in a way that will go beyond self-quarantining and all of the other inconveniences. Black swan events do not result in equal outcomes. We may not all snap back when we are told that everything can return to normal.

We, together, are finding ways to connect to handle this global pandemic. We will look out for each other, and we will grow stronger together. This is what we do. And, wherever our path leads us after Sandy Spring, you will handle the next set of challenges with grace, understanding, and confidence.  And the next time the unexpected happens and we are knocked off balance, we will look back at our second semester of the 2019-2020 school year and know that we can fight through boredom, we can outlast disappointment, and we can continue to build community. So our job now is to remain connected with each other, to continue to connect ideas, and to find ways to connect ideas to action. And to make something beautiful.

I miss you all.

Talk soon.

Tom