Looking back at a year of learning in a pandemic It’s been a year since Gov. Roy Cooper announced school districts around the state would close due to the rising threat of a national health pandemic. What was originally pitched as a two-week precautionary measure turned into an evolution of instruction that is working its way back to normalcy. Amidst a year of ever-shifting guidelines, conflicting advice from experts and near endless political spin, educators and child care professionals have gritted their teeth and powered through it all to continue plying their craft. “At the beginning I think a lot of us had the opportunity to be bitter and to be upset about it. But what this has made me realize is there is really no set way that anything is supposed to be,” said Charlcy Carpenter, a math teacher at Burns Middle School. “If anything, it has shown me how resilient kids can be. They have adjusted and have kept on rolling. Of course, a lot of times I miss what was and what could be, but we are doing so much to make things as normal as possible and as valuable for the kids as we can. I think instead we’ve taken this as ‘this is what it is,’ and we are going to make it worthwhile and as special as we can for these kids.”