Forced into Home Schooling

The 3 week Update

As everyone around the world knows, we’ve entered into a social distancing situation that has not only put our everyday lives at a halt, but changed it drastically.

COVID-19 better known as the Corona virus has come into our lives as an intruder with no remorse. Things have gotten so serious that while it must’ve been seen as “something not to worry about” by our country leaders earlier this year, in the matter of a month, the entire country’s economic engine has been impacted tremendously and come to an almost complete stop.

By impacted, I mean that the first 2 weeks of March 2020 everyone was put into a slight panic, rushing to the grocery stores grabbing ALL the toilet paper (oddly) and as much food supply they can. A week after, stores were forced to close earlier and limit their customer counts. Individuals were warned to wear face protection and wash hands as well as sanitize frequently. Around the third week we received word that schools would be closing for an additional week.

If you haven’t read how our spring break was a fail, check it out so you understand what I mean by additional week. By March 30th, 2020, the school district had contacted all parents to inform us that school closures would be extended another two weeks and virtual learning would begin that day.

For parents with no laptops, school districts offered loaners, and for those without home internet, a two week packet with the main subjects areas were provided. Certain cable and internet companies locally provided a 2 month free home WiFi promotion which is great if you don’t already owe them money.

So far the kids are doing pretty good with getting a hang of the routine. But that’s the number one thing that’s a must with this whole virtual learning and the comfort of your own home thing. You have to set up a schedule for both you and the kids that everyone can follow down to the eating schedule. If not these kids will continue to eat always on breaks and very little work will get done.

So for the sake of making it as comfortable as possible for us all, we start the day around 10 o’clock so that everyone could have breakfast and be ready to go by 11 o’clock.

Because I have three completely different age groups. I have pops and cook (my older two) participate in our “morning meeting” as a family, so that Robz (my 2 year old) can feel the excitement of starting our learning day before each of them break off into their separate assignments.

The first two weeks I’m guessing wasn’t as bad with work because of everyone including the school board trying to get things together so last minute. But even up until the 3rd week there’s still some gaps in this home-school system.

The first day I had to pick up my daughters 3rd grade packet from her school, their printers broke down, so I had to come back about 4 hours later to pick up the delivered packet from the district office. Prior to coming to the school I never knew about the possibility to rent a laptop for her until i spoke with her assistant principal that day, so i went ahead and joined the wait list.

After about a week of communication back-and-forth with my third graders’ teacher, We came to an agreement that I would take pictures of the assignments as she does them and send it to her through text messaging which all Schools use the system called “remind”. This worked out pretty good seeing that Once I got the rhythm going with the organization of it all ,we were able to do it almost like we did with her homework which we always turned in at the end of the week.

As for my son, He’d already Been given a personal laptop with a WiFi Box That each student was assigned at the beginning of the school year.This made his transition into the virtual learning a little bit easier only because the materials needed were already in hand. But of course there’s always a problem.

With my son, the first week also went pretty good. But I guess you can say we owe that to it being the trial-and-error week. The first two or three days Your system was overloaded with all the students between K through 12 trying to log on so when allow him the access. I was even having trouble, along with every other educator so I understood from the teacher’s standpoint as well. With that being said of course if you can get on then he can’t do any work. So he was happy.

By the second and third week, all his 8th grade work started to slowly but surely pile up on him. I became an advanced algebra, civics, and health teacher, on top of being a 3rd grade and Pre-Kindergarten early learning teacher.

The most recent update on April 17th, 2020, our county has chosen not to reopen schools and continue our distance learning. So while all of this brings us closer to each other, and closer to learning about ourselves in many ways than one; I can appreciate the reason for us needing to Quarantine. Our safety always comes first.

Working with my own students, I laugh at all the memes going viral about the parents whose pulling out their hair because they learned that they’d have to keep their kids home for two weeks. In my mind and out loud I’m saying to myself “really? But here you are ignoring Teacher phone calls when your child is acting up, or making it seem as though your angel of a child would never misbehave in or out of your sight”.

Well, while the irony hits a little differently when you cant enjoy much else but the comfort of your own palace; I do hope that everyone is making the most of this experience. Happy homeschooling parents! For those with no children, please check on your friends with kids, their probably not OK. Lol.