Pandemic Schooling
These are crazy times.
One day, we’re planning March Break outings and the next, the WHO has declared a pandemic and we’re cancelling everything. Short of getting my hands on my great grandmothers’ plans for raising and educating their kids during the Spanish Flu pandemic, I’m not sure anyone around here has much experience with this.
Even though homeschooling began for us with a choice and even though we’ve been at this homeschooling thing for a few years now, these are not normal days for us.
In an average week, homeschooling is co-op group afternoons, visiting family, meeting up with friends for nature walks and playing with neighbours. Homeschooling is errands and library trips and museums. Homeschooling is freedom and flexibility.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, there is not a lot of freedom and flexibility happening right now!
This is more like frantically trying to place a grocery order, hoping they will have sugar and toilet paper, all the while wondering if the cancelled reading and vision therapy sessions will really be a problem, consoling the kid whose spring activities are not happening, refereeing the game that involved mixing (all) the lego with (all) the beads and hoping the toddler is not upstairs (naked) in the middle of Daddy’s zoom meeting.
Oh yeah, and we’re supposed to do school work and I’m supposed to stay calm.
Can I even call that homeschooling?!
Over the past three years, I’ve learned a few things about educating my kids, mostly the hard way. Here is what I’ll be reminding myself of as we navigate this next uniquely challenging season:
One day, we’re planning March Break outings and the next, the WHO has declared a pandemic and we’re cancelling everything. Short of getting my hands on my great grandmothers’ plans for raising and educating their kids during the Spanish Flu pandemic, I’m not sure anyone around here has much experience with this.
Even though homeschooling began for us with a choice and even though we’ve been at this homeschooling thing for a few years now, these are not normal days for us.
In an average week, homeschooling is co-op group afternoons, visiting family, meeting up with friends for nature walks and playing with neighbours. Homeschooling is errands and library trips and museums. Homeschooling is freedom and flexibility.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, there is not a lot of freedom and flexibility happening right now!
This is more like frantically trying to place a grocery order, hoping they will have sugar and toilet paper, all the while wondering if the cancelled reading and vision therapy sessions will really be a problem, consoling the kid whose spring activities are not happening, refereeing the game that involved mixing (all) the lego with (all) the beads and hoping the toddler is not upstairs (naked) in the middle of Daddy’s zoom meeting.
Oh yeah, and we’re supposed to do school work and I’m supposed to stay calm.
Can I even call that homeschooling?!
Over the past three years, I’ve learned a few things about educating my kids, mostly the hard way. Here is what I’ll be reminding myself of as we navigate this next uniquely challenging season:
- There is no need to recreate school. Sometimes math in pjs is totally effective. Sometimes a tea party makes reading bearable. Sometimes digging up worms in the backyard is better than a formal lesson or a worksheet. Sometimes (infuriatingly messy) things that I don’t think of as “work” are actually where the most learning happens.
- Routine. Routine. Routine. I’ve seen so many schedules shared over the past few weeks. They seem so neat and tidy and pretty. It’s tempting to think that because this is how it’s done at school, a detailed schedule is the best way at home. The structure that my kids thrive on looks more like a vague, yet predictable routine that prevents me from scrolling through news updates all morning, yet leaves room for those spontaneous lego bead games. (Is this balance actually possible?)
- School work won’t always get done. And if it does, that probably just means something else isn’t getting done...like eating.
- Start slow. It’s ok for me to leave time for nothing. It’s ok for me to sometimes put aside the things the kids don’t like because the day isn’t going well. It’s ok for us to take a day off. Building up a little tolerance for the agonizing minutes (hours?) between the first “I’m bored” whine and them actually finding something to do will serve me really well in the long run.
- Be thankful. We’re healthy, everyone is safe and we have enough food. Not everyone can say that right now.
- Don’t feel pressure to do all the things. (More on this in the next post.)
And not to worry. If the day is not going particularly well for you, it’s probably not going particularly well for me either!
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