鈥淗ate is a very strong word, Dr Harris鈥�, commented one of my Year 3 students last year as I looked out of my Science lab window and muttered that I hated the rain.听 Had he spent years suffering from the misery of constant Welsh rainfall, he would doubtless have been more empathetic and understanding.听 Nevertheless, he was right 鈥� hate is a very strong word.

听But there have been days when I have hated this wretched coronavirus.听 Or perhaps viruses in general.听 And wearing a mask.听 And having to persuade others to wear a mask when they don鈥檛 want to. 听And the fear and worry that it has engendered in so many people.听 In fact there are many aspects of a pandemic which do not lend themselves to fond feelings of warmth and fuzziness.听 As someone whose family lives overseas, I know how it feels to miss them deeply; I also know of the suffering they have endured during the last two years whilst I have enjoyed health and relative freedom here in the sunshine in WA.听 I am genuinely grateful for this.

In terms of COVID-19, we in Western Australia have been in a different situation from elsewhere in Australia during the past two years and we have watched the experiences of the eastern states with some trepidation.听 In some ways I suppose we have been lucky to have the opportunity to learn from their experience.

I wanted to write about COVID this week because despite its well-documented disadvantages, it could be considered that some good has come of our experiencing a pandemic and contemplation of a silver lining in this particular cloud could perhaps be helpful.

For example, COVID has brought up a number of ethical issues.听 As an educator and a parent, I want our children to have the ability to think through various curly ethical and philosophical problems and draw their own conclusions.听 The ethical issues involved in vaccinations, public health measures and mandating medical procedures can lead to fascinating debates which I am sure have featured at your dinner table in recent times.

The pandemic has also contributed to interesting discussions of resilience in recent times 鈥� are the children of today actually more resilient than we old folk were, or do they crumble at the first sign of something unfamiliar?听 And if this is the case, what are we as a school and as a society doing about it?

At school, I鈥檝e been thinking a lot about adults modelling behaviours to children.听 As the leader of the School, I have had to not only do the right thing at all times, but to be seen to be doing the right thing.听 Yes, I hate wearing a mask, I have convinced myself that I am oxygen-deprived through struggling to breathe through it and I have already developed an unsightly spot on my chin.听 But if the medical advice is that by wearing our masks indoors we can slow the spread of this virus, then we will follow that advice and we will model this rule-following to our children. 听The support of parents in backing us up and also modelling this is invaluable.

There are some unexpected and rather wonderful stories which have been a consequence of the pandemic.听 Some people met their neighbours for the first time as they called in next door to check up on the elderly or those who were alone.听 Biology and human biology teachers rubbed their hands together with excitement at the thought of the vast quantities of data, graphs and real-life scenarios that lend themselves perfectly to being incorporated into beautiful future exam questions (or was that just me?).听 Schools have collaborated and worked together to share COVID communications and the measures they are putting in place to keep their staff, students and community safe.听

Today I purchased a gadget from one of the Year 10 entrepreneurship groups which holds my mask in the right position on my nose and stops my glasses fogging up.听 Impressive to see our students grasping the opportunity to innovate, I thought!听 And people have shared their generosity in different, appropriate ways according to their skill set 鈥� a generous Carmel parent who is a ventilation engineer, donated their time to support me in my quest to ensure that our classrooms are safe places to learn and this was genuinely appreciated.

I think it鈥檚 important that we remind ourselves at this time that there is a full diversity of opinion and thought held by the people around us regarding COVID-19.听 Some people amongst us have not a worry in the world and say 鈥渂ring it on 鈥� I鈥檒l be fine鈥�.听 Others are just bored with the whole pandemic.听 Others are living every day with a genuine fear either for themselves or for someone vulnerable they love.听 Sadly you can鈥檛 tell who fits each category of thought just by looking at them.听 So we need to be empathetic and think before we express opinions about the border, the mandated masks or the vaccination programme.听 We have no idea how our words could affect others and as we proceed through 2022, we therefore need to choose them carefully, respect everybody鈥檚 opinions and follow the guidelines to keep each other safe.

What lessons have I learned from the pandemic so far?听 The measures we must put in place may be slightly restricting, but they are there to ensure we can keep on teaching face to face for as long as possible and they will not spoil the fabulous things I have been seeing around the campus.听 It鈥檚 important for us to follow the new guidelines, but equally important to not allow them to become our focus.听 Our focus is on providing excellent learning opportunities for our students, enjoying their enthusiasm and energy and educating those with whom we are working on a daily basis.听 If we have to wear a mask and Zoom our parent/teacher meetings, we鈥檒l do it and we鈥檒l keep it in perspective.听 And it will be good to write about things other than COVID, next week.