“Be mindful of the things that matter.”
“Understand how deeply your presence can affect another.”
These are two of the lessons brought to us by a touching story out of Panama City, Florida. Local first-grade teacher Katie Ricca is certainly one busy lady, especially as the coronavirus pandemic continues to play out. Not only is she currently homeschooling her own five children at home, but she has the 18 students in her regular class that she’s now teaching online. In addition, she has another 18 kids who participate in her online reading classes. But wait, there’s more! She also runs a cake business with her husband out of the family home, and for good measure, this multi-tasking teacher at North Bay Haven Charter Academy also holds live online storytimes every night for her class of “very social” kids.
Sad Student Gets A Lift
One night during her online storytime, Katie noticed that one of the students seemed down. “Our class tried talking to her but you could tell something was bothering her,” she told “Good Morning America.” “She left the meeting early so I texted her mom to check in. My sweet student told her mom she was sad but didn’t know why.”
It seemed that 7-year-old Hannah was in need of some extra love and attention, and Ricca knew exactly what to do. She asked Hannah’s mom Kelley Close if she could stop by the house the following day, and spend a little time with her. No internet conference rooms, just a real one-on-one human connection, teacher to student.
“Mrs. Ricca sat at the end of the driveway and had Hannah sit about six feet away,” Close said. “She read several books, they talked about our sidewalk drawings and also talked about all of our feelings during this ‘quarantine season.’ She reminded Hannah that it’s OK to get bummed out every now and then, it’s OK to chill out and it’s even OK to cry about it if we need to. She reminded Hannah that even though we’re separated, we’re all going through the same thing at the same time.”
You know, those are really nice reminders for almost everyone right about now.
Help A Friend, Help Yourself
With a schedule as busy as Mrs. Ricca’s certainly is, it makes it even more thoughtful and touching that she would choose to take time out with little Hannah. There are a few ways she could have handled the situation and still helped her sad student, but Katie Ricca understands the value of relationships and the power of letting people know they are seen. Choosing to go and physically be with her student was as much an act of love as an acknowledgment of her own power to heal.
“With all the craziness in our world right now, these are the things I want to remember about this time,” Hannah’s mom said. “When my daughter has children of her own, this is what I want her to remember about it. Even though we were all busy and stressed and worried, we made time for the things that mattered.”
