Social Distance Safari

Down a narrow road in Pawcatuck, Connecticut, sits a corner lot with a welcoming two-story white house. The quaint New England residence normally only attracts stares during the Christmas season when the entire property is covered in huge holiday-themed inflatables, animals, and multiple lights, which could, in a pinch, easily help guide small aircraft across a nighttime sky.

Yet, when Connecticut ceased in-person education statewide on March 16 to combat COVID-19, the home’s owner, beloved longtime middle school teacher Mark Higgins, had a brainstorm.

For 20 years, Higgins has taught social studies, world geography, and history at Clark Lane Middle School in Waterford, Connecticut, bringing creativity, humor, and passion to his classes and inspiring hundreds of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to love learning. Now he needed to rethink his strategy for engaging students in a remote teaching environment.

“Connecting with my students is an essential part of my teaching practice,” Higgins says. “When distance learning began, I wanted to maintain some sort of normalcy with my kids.”

So during his self-described “QuaranTIME,” a word he uses to encourage his students to share how they are leveraging their “stay safe, stay home” time, Higgins started strategizing. Walking by his barn full of seasonal decor, including a two-story inflatable Bumble, the famed abominable snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, he considered several options before eyeing his 5-foot-tall tinsel lion near the barn window. From there, an idea took hold.

Enter the Social Distance Safari.

No longer would the lion, unicorn, bear, dog, giraffe, flamingo, and other life-sized animals remain in storage until the holiday season. Instead they would find new purpose and placement — six feet apart — on his front lawn. Add homemade masks to each critter, and the grassy scene proved ready for the big reveal to his classes on day two of distance learning.

Perhaps inspired by HGTV’s Fixer Upper when Chip and Joanna Gaines would pull back the billboard-length old home photo to show the fully renovated home, Higgins used his Google Classroom to surprise his students with the safari, unveiling the latest additions each day and helping them see how he spent the first week’s QuaranTIME. The effort also served as the introduction to each lesson, but more importantly, it made students laugh during a time of high anxiety and unprecedented transition.

“All of my students know about my yard at Christmas time. I even work it into lessons when the opportunity presents itself,” Higgins says.

And remote instruction is no exception for this dedicated educator.

“I love doing what I do. I guess it's why I do it.”

Since its debut, the safari, which now includes a new “Seascape” section, has also started something that Higgins might not have initially contemplated. Tucked between his white fencing, hedges, and small barn, his yard has become a beacon of sorts for community-building in his tiny neighborhood nestled near Connecticut’s eastern tip. While his neighbors have grown accustomed to his decked-out December yard and the pedestrian and street traffic that often accompanies it, the carefully constructed Social Distance Safari is quietly connecting people in a slightly different way now, allowing them to enjoy a brief, safe moment of levity amid a bewildering state of affairs.

As Higgins explains, the Social Distance Safari was set up to make his students smile, and the same certainly applies to passers-by. The display also reaffirms the power of creativity to unite both young and old, as well as the ability of all to find joy in the unexpected.

— Karen Gerboth