Closure - Find a Way

The camp that I volunteer with has a number of rituals.  One of them as a "Welcome Home Dinner" upon returning from camp.  It involves food and a short ceremony.  Because camp is exhausting, there are always a few people who say they want to just go straight home rather than participate in one more thing.  A few years ago, one of our directors said something really meaningful, "We can change how we do it to make it shorter, but we won't have nothing.  You have a psychological need for closure." 

She understood that psychological need better than most because she is an educator.  People whose jobs don't operate in discreet years probably don't spend much time marking the ends of things, but teachers and school personnel do.  From field days to yearbook singings, from athletic awards ceremonies to graduation, we spend a lot of time ceremonially marking the end of each year. 

Until this year.

When we left our classrooms in March, we did not know the year would end with us still at home.  We didn't know the last person we hugged in March would be the last person we would physically touch for months.  We aren't getting the normal closure activities, and there is psychological stress as a result.

Fortunately, schools are in the creative solutions business.  Most are coming up with some way for their seniors to graduate.  Whether it's a virtual ceremony or a parking lot graduation or giving each student and their parents an individual moment, they are finding ways to give those who are leaving their school some way of celebrating that milestone. 

For those who are not seniors, don't forget they need closure for the school year too.  My school is having a drive-through event in which students will return their laptops and textbooks.  They will receive the contents of their lockers, their artwork, and their yearbooks.  School personnel will be masked and socially distant, but there will be cheering and waving from the sidewalk while these exchanges happen.  We will get to mark the moment.

If your school isn't planning something, that doesn't mean you can't create closure for yourself and your students.  Write them a note.  Send them a video.  Do something fun during that final online class.  Whatever your context enables, give your kids a way to mark the end of the year.  They need it, and so do you.