You can feel it. The air has a crispness to it, the sunlight slants at a different angle, the breezes mean business. Summer is coming to a close and autumn is on our doorstep. Usually, this is my favorite time of year. Soup and pumpkins, sweaters and cider. Usually, this is when we are stocking up on pencils and notebooks, buying a new sweater and snazzy pair of corduroys for heading back to school before one last fling with fresh lemonade and fried dough at the harvest fair. But this year is different.

Brunswick resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

This year, our fairs are on hold and our full attention is required.

Our nation is grappling with the big conversations about who we are, how we will behave and what our future might be. These are the big conversations. They matter. They are vital. Some of these conversations are decades, if not centuries, overdue. Others are so new they are still shaping themselves, the result of a catastrophic global sickness.

Happening right now, teachers in Maine are preparing to greet their students – and no one quite knows how that is going to go. Yes, people are worried (justifiably) about getting sick. But they are even more worried about getting it “right.” This is one of those big conversations. This is the education of our youth and there is no blueprint, no sample lesson, no “best practice” for the situation in which we find ourselves.

Every teacher I have ever known is a teacher because they love it. That magic moment when a student suddenly glimpses an answer – or better yet, a question – they hadn’t seen before … But in truth, those moments aren’t magic. They are the result of hours and hours of thoughtfully and deliberately planned learning experiences, delivered within a relationship built on trust. It is both a science and an art. OK, maybe that is actually a decent definition of magic after all.

So much of the relationship between a student, or an entire class, and their teacher has relied upon being in the classroom together, laughing or conversing as a group. The class culture. No one quite knows how it will work in this new world of distance and masks and virtual attendance. This is the fundamental unknown that, I think, is the root of a lot of the angst. At least, it is for me.

I was sitting, chewing on this very problem, when a friend and co-worker sent me this quote from Fred Rogers, “… the space between communicating human beings can be hallowed ground.”

The sentiment isn’t new. I believe this. Fred Rogers isn’t new. Love him. But the combination … like that old Reese’s ad where chocolate and peanut butter accidentally combine to make something new. Because, of course, the vast majority of the hallowed ground he created with children, he did through a screen. A one-way screen no less. Somehow Mr. Rogers was able to harness the power of “shared space” and communicate deeply with children he never even met.

No one wanted a global pandemic. No one wanted to start school this way. This is not how things “should” be. However, over the course of human history, there have been many unwanted moments and unasked-for situations. In moments of strife and in moments of great exploration we do not always have access to the resources we want, or even those we need, but we do our best.

Now, I’m no Mr. Rogers, but he has made me think about what my goals need to be this fall. He has reminded me to keep my focus squarely on communicating with the human beings in front of me, in my space or through a screen and creating that hallowed ground. That’s where learning lives.