Pernille Ripp

I have never experienced a world so quiet before. Not for this long. Every day as I look out our window, I am reminded of the quiet that shrouds us all on January 1st where the world holds its breath and we sit with our dreams in hand, hoping for a new start.

Many now sit with fears in their hands instead, a pervasive uncertainty that permeates even the smallest moments. But the hope is still there, a hope for a world that doesn’t quite feel so unwieldy and uncertain. That doesn’t promise us death, financial losses, and long-term fall out.

And so we went into self-isolation the day after I turned 40, trying to do our part to keep the rest of the world safe, while knowing what it would do for our own children to shut the door on the world as much as possible.

On day 1 of isolation, I thought of all the things I would catch up on during this time; sleep! Books! Cooking! Learning how to play guitar! Writing a book!

On day 2, I was reminded of how extroverted our kids are compared to my husband and I. Do they ever crave quiet? (The answer is; not yet…)

On day 3, I realized I needed to take control over my newswatching or my fear for the world would grow. (CNN check in’s only a few times a day as well as with local news and purposeful social media use).

On day 4, I was reminded of how much I love being a classroom teacher because I love the everyday moments, not just the big ones, the check ins, the community, the being able to reach out to make sure a child feels seen and valued. And I miss it a lot, the putzing around, the excitement to see plans come to life, the moments where it doesn’t work and you have to find a solution. I continue to be a classroom teacher because of how much I love the kids.

On day 5, I recognized that we all needed a moment of space. That our schedule works for the most part but who knows how long it will. That while planning it down to the 30 minute mark works for our kids not going crazy, it doesn’t work for us, the adults, and that there needs to be a balance. That my books are calling and so is my creativity at times.

Turns out the new normal is anything but.

And so as we are told by our district to prepare for our remote virtuel learning, knowing how inequitable that is, and also how I am decidedly not trained in online learning, I keep thinking about what our community has been built on the whole year; read aloud, reflection, inquiry and choice. How in this uncertain time, there are certainties I can hold up for our students; that I will do everything I can to support from afar. That I want them to find success not insurmountable challenges, that I want this to work for them in any way I can. That I want them to have each other.

So rather than assigning one thing, they will have different choices for the un-foreseeable future.

All will be asked to please read for 20 minutes every day something of their choice with nothing but joy and value attached to it.

They can choose to read a fiction book of their choice and do some analysis as they progress through it, using an online one-pager assignment. If they have books at home they are set or they can access our Audible account to choose one to listen to. They can record or write their response to the prompts, whatever seems to work for them the best.

They can choose to do an inquiry project into something they want to learn about, craft a learning plan for me to discuss with them and then create a product at the end of it to teach us about their topic. We have done an inquiry into inquiry and also just finished an inquiry into a self-chosen topic for their TED talks. Their final product should showcase their deepened understanding in some ways, ideas will be offered and support will be based around their learning plan.

They can choose to listen to a picture book read aloud every day by a different creator and then record or write a response to the question I will pose along with it. Questions will range from what is the theme and how do you know? What does this thing (insert specific thing) symbolize and how do you know? How would the message of the picture book change if we changed the narrator? Whose perspective is missing and how does that impact the story being told? How did the perspective of the narrator influence their actions in the story? How did the main character change throughout? How does this picture book connect to your world? If you were to teach this picture book, which questions would you ask to start a discussion?

They can choose to write a story, alone or by themselves, working on all of the tools of storytelling we have been discussing through the year. Before they begin, they will be asked to identity how they want to grow as writers, how they will work on that, and then how I can support them (this is what we do throughout the year). The story can be fiction or from their own lives and teaching points will be based on what they are working on.

Throughout the year, we have done a lot of learning, now is simply the next step to put it all into action. Can they use what we have learned on their own? Have the skills been transferred? How can I continue to support them on a meaningful journey that will help them grow while also recognizing the realities of this world we are faced with right now. While also recognizing that right now schools in Wisconsin are closed indefinitely and so I don’t know how long of a timeline I am even preparing for.

Will it be perfect? Absolutely not. Will it be okay? I hope so. After all, that is the best I can do right now. To be here, to keep trying to connect, to reach out and be there for all the kids.

What are your plans?

If you are wondering where I will be in the coming year or would like to have me speak, please see this page. 

I had just turned 18 when I agreed to move to the US. Unaware of what the world would bring, unaware of what else the world could hold. I may have been a mature 18-year-old per regular Danish standards, but I wasn’t quite ready to leave my mother’s side even as my siblings had found homes around the world. The proud teen in me not quite ready to set off on my own rebellion as it was so much easier to fight against the system comfortably nestled within my own zones of safety. For all of my bravado, I was still a child looking to fit in and where else could I best fit in than right with my family, or what was left of it?

I flew across the Atlantic with a suitcase or two, my papers in hand, and muddled dreams that perhaps included going to school at some point but no plan for longevity, no vision for my life beyond this move that would uproot me in the most significant of ways. I was moving, period, but I wasn’t going to stay, surely, my roots where in Denmark after all. In Copenhagen where the university, and an apartment were sure to be in my future.

Perhaps it is the way of the foolish young mind that allows us to jump into situations without seeing the path before us. Of a new home. Of a new identity thrust upon me that I had never embraced before. Of what it would mean to get on that flight, choice already made for the next many years but not realized.

I have now lived in this identity as an inconspicuous immigrant for 21 years.

My Danish language slips through my fingers much like sand, still accumulating but the piles rapidly decrease. I haven’t thought in Danish in many years, nor dreamt in my native tongue. The morning I recognized this, I felt a deep devastation, feeling as if my world tilted as my language was replaced unconsciously. As my brain let go of what has been my voice for so many years.

Sure, I speak English fluently, write it well, and yet within my own home language was everything I held dear to me. I lose words that were once within my grasp. I stick to rudimentary language with my own children as my mother corrects my grammatical inaccuracies. I used to be fluent. I used to speak and write it beautifully. I used to be able to fully say what I wanted to say without the crutches of English to guide me through when the words that used to flow are outside of my grasp. I used to be fully Danish and not an imposter grasping to the things she remembers.

I hold dear to my traditions. To what I believe are my Danish values, but honestly after so many years as an assumed American I don’t know if I get to call myself Danish anymore. If I have been reduced to the shell that so many others use when they trace their proud lineage but are not really seen as from there. From somewhere else. When I am told I look like an American. When I am told I sound like an American. When I am told that I think like an American. When I am told which parts of my identity holds the most weight to others and I wrestle as the biggest part of me, that of Dane, is one that is pushed aside because surely by now I feel more American than anything else.

And nothing could be farther from the truth, but who listens to that?

Because I left my country behind.

Because I left myself at Vestergade 12, 8850 Bjerringbro. In that little red brick house. In the company of my friends. And nothing will ever replace what I once used to be, no matter how many new identities I add to myself.

And I think of how the world views us all as it boils us down to such few elements. At how we treat the kids we teach who are learning English as less than. How we only ask about their traditons but not their mundane. About the daily life that they left behind. About the essence of what made them truly feel like they were the person they were meant to be.

And we boil it down to traditions.

And we boil it down to small phrases.

We boil it down to dishes passed around the table, songs sung on special days.

And we break it down to trips once in a while across the Atlantic so that I can hear my name pronounced correctly and for a few short weeks I can breathe fully again, among the people that I used to call my own.

And we think that is enough. But it will never fully allow us to feel complete as we straddle new cultures, home in neither, but adapting to both.

And so my heart longs to go home. To bring my family with me. To go back to what once was while realizing that it will never be again. But something new could be.

To be fully me again without having to reconcile what I used to be with what I am now.

But until then that dream becomes a possibility, I will continue to to try to define myself as I want the world to see me and give every opportunity for those I teach to do the same. To let them tell me how they want to be seen. To let them tell me what they need. To be fully human as we go on this journey together.

To just be the person we were meant to be and seen for what we would want to be seen as.