“At first I was afraid I was petrified” is the first line of the famous song by Gloria Gaynor, I Will survive. Throughout the song Ms. Gaynor mentions how she grew strong and learned how to get along.

While the lyrics may have been taken out of context, they are still key parts to the song. As educators, we may have found moments during the past school year where we were simply surviving and hanging on by thread at times. Yet, imagine all the tools and tricks that we've managed to learn during this time.

We've learned that as teachers we are not superhuman and that we must take care of ourselves so that we can take care of our students. We've learned that we need to be reasonable with ourselves; that may mean scaling back workloads for ourselves and for our students when possible.

While we are experts on learning, we have been forced to experiment in real time which means learning new tools to help us navigate during these times on a whim.

It is extremely helpful to have resources that are created ‘by teachers for teachers’; workbooks, tools, and curriculum that are actually applicable to our profession and help us to indeed survive.