Keeping things in perspective

Cassy Redden Northeast Nodaway Senior

RAVENWOOD, Mo. — Keeping things in perspective is the way to get through this unprecedented year, says Northeast Nodaway R-V senior Cassy Redden.

While the occasional remote learning experience, the canceled games and a host of new mitigation measures aren’t anything she — or anyone — is excited about, Redden said it’s important to remember why it’s happening in the first place. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

“We know, like, why we’re having to do it, it’s just a very hard transition into these kinds of learning programs — for everyone, and the teachers included,” she said. “… You know, it’s just, like, this is our last year, like the seniors I know, and you just have to think — like, the things that are important to us now aren’t going to be 10 years down the road.”

The new realities brought on by the pandemic, as they did for many, really started to hit home for Redden in the spring.

“Like during baseball season, I think that’s kind of when it hit me, hit the school the most at the end of the last year,” she said. “So it kind of just transitioned into this whole new style of learning, if that’s what you want to call it.”

Sports, she said, has been important to keep up student morale, and with helping students take precautions to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“You know, knowing that we have to take precautions to continue the sports, to continue being in school here … we all know what we have to do to continue everything that we’re doing here, not going hybrid or going online fully,” Redden said.

But across the school, Redden said that students are keeping each other in mind.

“We’re just helping each other out a lot more,” she said. “So like, when the whole school was quarantined … it was so different (when we came back) because now we’re all spaced apart 6 feet to prevent that from happening. Everybody’s just taken a hand in helping out. So everyone’s just kind of come together — in a spaced out kind of way.”

Editor’s Note

This feature was published in The Maryville Forum as a two-part series on Thursday, Dec. 3 and Thursday, Dec. 10. Articles may have been edited for space within the print edition, but will be available at full length at The Forum’s online focus on COVID-19 in the Community.

To give readers an idea of student knowledge and concerns regarding the pandemic, one student’s story will be posted each weekday at 6 p.m. through the end of 2020.