COVID-19 Teaches: What Can We Learn?

So many possibilities. So much resistance to our own Heart. (Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash)

Writers without readers means no communication has occurred. Teaching without learning holds no value. Experiencing pandemics without learning lessons equates to blindness, maybe stupidity.

What can we gather from this current pandemic caused by an unseen virus with very visible effects? Most people have spoken of COVID-19 in military terms of being an enemy. A virus isn’t plotting our destruction or drawing up battle plans; however, it certainly wounds us like an enemy. If we learned some obvious lessons, we might find all sorts of more positive outcomes, ones that true learners may gain.

Call it what it is: a virus that causes serious illness, one which we would like to treat effectively or prevent widely. In the meantime, think of it another way. Think of it as an educator who has stumbled upon a teachable moment. The inability or unwillingness to learn about ourselves and humanity when something like this happens would reveal degradation as the human race, a looming defeat. In that case, the virus is not the enemy. Our own ignorance is.

We may discern the gravity of the current moment several ways. The virus affects virtually all of humanity. It affects society in terms of threat of infection that limits our interactions and mobility. Economies all over the world suffer, but beyond that, the least able to endure financial…