2020 has been a year of very fast learning. Our first lesson was that technology gave us a way to learn from home.
It took our schools and universities a while to adjust from in person to learning from a distance by making full use of expensive toys that our children had been using for years. Smart phones and computers were suddenly pressed into very efficient tools to make education possible from somewhere other than in a classroom.
Discipline of the students shifted from teachers and professors to parents and eventually self-discipline by the students themselves. This is probably the most . . .
important subject that a child learns and the sooner, the better. Those who fail this subject will have a very difficult life. This freedom of exactly when to study gave students and teachers more free time and was sort of a replacement for a lot more structured recess.
As students got used to using the computer to look up answers that only the teacher would know before this lockup thing, the faster and better learning from home became.
Some learning like lab work, apprenticeship, and many trades involve working with your hands and using your eyes and ears to assess a broken down car or machine. Training of medical doctors, nurses, veterinarians, and allowing all types of artists to express themselves will have to include learning beyond books and computers.
Working from home allowed more flexible hours and free time but was also a crash course in self-discipline. Many adapted and prefer it. Some jobs like farming, policing, fire fighting, and other essential services cannot switch. Some people just cannot adapt.
Climate change was a very hotly debated subject and thought by many to take decades to make any significant change. When the commuters began staying home, the planes quit flying and all forms of fossil fuel burning transport diminished our atmosphere magically cleared up.
We began to realize that single use plastic was not decomposing in our landfills. It was polluting our oceans and killing ocean life and as our grandparents knew, could in many cases be replaced by much more eco-friendly paper. Just as the car had replaced the horse when gas was cheaper than oats we are now exploring better and cheaper ways to heat our homes, propel our cars, trucks, tractors and even planes than with fossil fuels.
Efficiency also became much more closely examined in 2020 when the large efficient retirement homes became an incubator for coronavirus and the small, lowly, paid staff of the big efficient homes were neither trained nor large enough to deal with the rampant infection.
Our gigantic, efficient meat packing plants where low paid workers were also working in very crowded conditions led to outbreaks of the virus while the food that they were processing was for human consumption. The slowdown or even shutdown of these large efficient plants and the inability of large efficient vegetable farms to access foreign labour forced many consumers to go to farmers markets, smaller meat plants or even direct farm to consumer supply of fresh food.
Some seeds and other garden supplies became hard to get as more home grown fresh food became popular. As more food became eat at home instead of in restaurants much less food was wasted and farmers had to quickly reduce production to match demand.
As many offices and even entire floors in office buildings became vacant building owners began switching some of this vacant space into apartments. Because of the sharp reduction in travel by business people as well as vacationers some car rental companies and air travel companies either liquidated or went bankrupt.
Following the announced results of a very hotly contested election just south of us, there was a sunset that was redder than any that I had ever viewed in my life. A saying that is older than our ancestors says, “A red sky at night is a sailor’s delight” which translates into tomorrow will be a very nice day.
Remember — friends and relatives are more important than things. Common sense can win this war against the virus faster than drugs.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
