Remote learning has a few casualties, and one is the loss of the hallway. Even if I couldn’t visit every classroom, my daily goal was to greet every staff member every day. I didn’t always meet that goal, but I certainly accomplished it much more often than I do now. It’s also where I learned about the school, staff concerns and joys, and how I could help. I find it easy to miscalculate now on decisions and perceptions, and I would argue the same is true for my colleagues. Google Meets, texts, emails, and phone calls are minimal replacements for face to face interaction that contains natural give and take and displaying of non-verbal cues.

As such, it’s more important than ever to combat both the anxiety of the pandemic and the loss of personal interaction by keeping in mind these points:

• Assume best intentions.
• Forgive. As often as you can.
• Give each other some grace now more than ever.
• Care for one another. Look out for each other.
• Take care of yourself. Water, sleep, exercise.

“The hallway” should be coming back soon, but in the meantime, we have to be mindful of these core personal actions more than ever.