On most days, the topic of the pandemic arises with an increasing infrequency. To be sure, the impacts are still broadly felt by many, but, in my life, I have found that discussions about COVID, precautions, and the like are rapidly diminishing. That is, until I listened to the recent graduates of The Beech Hill School speak about their middle school experience.

At The Beech Hill School, we have a tradition whereby every member of the 8th Grade makes a speech to the whole school reflecting on their experiences at BHS. Over the course of about a week, time is created in the schedule for the speeches, and at the end of the week, the entire community votes to select which of those speeches will be a part of our Closing Exercises.

As always, this year’s speeches were nostalgic, funny, meaningful, and, in some cases, emotional. Across the board, however, the entire class made a point to give time and attention to the way that the pandemic adversely affected their lives. Interestingly, this class was not even enrolled at BHS when the pandemic hit, and we were forced to go remote. They did, however, begin in a way that was so starkly different from all other classes at BHS. There was no Orientation Picnic, and as graduation speaker, Mark Holt pointed out – one could barely see the faces of the fifth graders, as they were covered by huge masks.

Next year’s 8th grade will be the final class that attended BHS while some form of distancing or masking was required. As I wrote about earlier this year in a blog I called “Bookends” – it seems that almost all vestiges of the pandemic have been removed. Fortunately, most of our students will never know that there was a time when we could not move about campus freely. The 8th Grade speeches make clear, however, that simply because we are speaking about the pandemic less, one should not assume that its impacts are not still being felt.