Last week, I listened to a webinar from a professor of education at the University of Melbourne and Kansas named Yong Zhao on how we can best support and ‘lead’ our children coming out of the pandemic. This man’s words were like a breath of fresh air amidst all the narrative of ‘learning loss’ due to home-schooling and online learning, potentially threatening the future of our children.
Zhao explained that there is a widespread misbelief that we LOST something during COVID. Yes, kids have missed some of the curriculum, may be more distracted and have not spent as much time in social settings with friends as before. But there are other, more important LESSONS IN LIFE AND LEADERSHIP that they will never forget:
1. Resilience and adjusting; they have learned that we can study and work from home. We can create alternative and new ways to do the things we want or need to do when the circumstances around us change.
2. They have invented new ways to ‘be’ with friends. They have learned how to keep relationships going without being in the same space.
3. Biggest lesson of all: They now know that there can be major disruptions in life. Things will happen that are out of their control AND they know they will get through it.
I would add that the sense of loss that many of us feel for their children is in fact a projection of our own unfulfilled expectations and beliefs about what we would like to see happen for them. That it has more to do with our own DIFFICULTY TO ACCEPT that the pandemic has messed up many things in life that we thought we had control over. But children are much more resourceful than we may think.
I was about 10 years old when after 6 weeks into the new school year, our school teacher became seriously ill and would not be able to teach for the rest of the year. Our class got a replacement teacher who only stayed for about 2 months. She was replaced by another teacher who had to leave because of a burn-out. By the end of the year, we had two substitute teachers who took turns teaching us. That year had been chaos, the class was noisy, many kids acted out, parents complained because we learned very little and our class average scores were historically low. What was the impact of this learning gap on my future school life and professional career? Nothing.
Two years later my father passed away. A profound, disruptive and emotional event with a life-changing impact that I had absolutely no control over. Although this was an incredibly sad and painful time for my family and me at the time, it has taught me skills, given me strength, confidence and perseverance, and shaped me into who I am today.
Of course, we would rather this pandemic had never happened. But it did. It affected our life, our family, our work, our leadership.
What have been your life and leadership lessons?
- What unique skills have you learned in the last 1.5 years?
- What have you successfully created that was not part of your original plan?
- What was the biggest obstacle and what helped you overcome it?
- How has the pandemic improved your leadership performance?
- What is making you come out stronger on the other side?
Let’s Lead!
