In the spring of 2020, we were all quickly thrown into a new state of life. Very early on when the name Covid19 was just beginning to be tossed around I had a client in my studio. When the subject was mentioned I remember saying, “I’m pretty much a germaphobe anyway so I’m not too worried about it, I'm constantly washing my hands.” But of course, that wasn’t going to be the reality as a week later the kids were abruptly sent home for two weeks; backpacks full of ALL their school supplies. Two weeks quickly turned into well . . . as of now 8 and a half months. So in the spring, we sprung (pun intended – haha!) into online learning. At first, it was pretty easy with short days and the kids could manage the curriculum by themselves with guidance from their teachers. It continued to go smoothly until I found out my son wasn't actually doing his work. And unfortunately, unless I sat by him, watching all his videos, there was no way of truly telling if he was getting it done. It would have been easy to just let the kids slide through the rest of the year but in our home, we decided it needed to be a life lesson. When things become a challenge or different circumstances than we expect we don't quit, we persevere! So we made both kids do every zoom call whether it was required or not, and every lesson which also served as a way to socialize them as possible since they were stuck at home not being able to see friends or family. It was a frustrating time for us, having to micromanage both kids but especially my youngest, having internet issues, and dealing with scheduling problems within the district. Of course, it wasn’t all bad, the school days were shorter and it was nice having our family all in one place.
As the spring progressed and turned into summer I quickly realized how this was affecting others. There were brides having to decide on whether or not to hold their 2020 weddings and seniors missing out on graduation ceremonies or having to proceed in the heat of summer with some kind of socially distanced ceremony (wearing what I can assume was a hot and sweaty graduation gown) It’s no wonder everyone was beginning to hate 2020! We trudged through summer and school was right around the corner. I knew this pandemic was going to affect how we dealt with school when it started. We had to make the decision a month and a half before school started as to whether we were going to send our kids in person or do remote learning. Neither choice was appealing. My daughter did okay in the spring with remote learning, but as I said, my son really struggled to have any interest. I could not imagine a whole school year of trying to get him to stay on task and complete his assignments remotely. Sending them in person to wear a mask all day long and possibly contract a potentially deadly disease was scary too. I know not everybody reacts negatively to corona, but I'm a worst-case scenario person. I was not willing to take any chances where my family is concerned so we reluctantly signed up for online school.
The pandemic also altered our summer vacation plans. We knew we wanted to do something since the school district pushed back their start date and after a summer of mostly staying home, we needed a small break! We decided not to go to Colorado as we planned. It felt too stressful to drive that far not knowing what we would find; would it be crowded or would we get there to find Colorado was hot spot? It didn’t make any sense to drive that far just to turn around and come back without having any fun. We decided instead to take a short trip to Branson since it was closer and we heard reports that it wasn’t crowded. We played it as safe as possible. Once we arrived at the hotel I used the last can of Lysol I had been saving for just this occasion. While my husband and kids waited with the luggage by the front door, I sprayed every surface in our hotel suite; faucet handles, door handles, couch, beds, the table, everything! Ah ... okay ... I could relax. We planned our trip during weekdays to avoid any weekend crowds which turned out to be a great idea! Silver Dollar City was eerily empty; almost as though we had rented the entire theme park for ourselves. We were there to ride on all the attractions and it seemed other guests were only there for the shows so it worked out perfectly for us!
Of course, there were some scary reminders while on our vacation that we were in the middle of a pandemic such as when we were eating at an Italian restaurant and the server mistakenly delivered our food with her mask lowed to her chin. That made us realize she probably didn't wear it all the time at work, only in front of us to make us feel better. Seeing it below her nose and mouth definitely did not make me feel better. Also when my kids were swimming at the resort, other children had a hard time keeping their distance from mine. Then at Lamberts in Springfield (the kids LOVED it!), the server touched my plate with the serving spoon he was using at all the tables to serve with. (I was thinking if you touched my plate with that serving spoon who else’s plate did you touch with it before mine???) But all in all, we felt comfortable and we lucked out to make it home without COVID tagging along.
While on vacation, our kid’s teacher assignments were supposed to be announced. We even brought their chrome books so they could do a virtual meet with the teacher if time allowed. The kids anxiously awaited a welcome email from their new teachers. Our daughter was excited when she got hers but we were still left waiting for our son to receive one. No email meant the district hadn’t even hired his teacher yet. This made my anxiety about a year of remote learning even worse. To say I was frustrated with the fact they hadn’t hired a teacher days before school was set to begin is an understatement! Finally, we received notice a teacher had been hired but in the first week of online school my son would have a substitute. This did not bode well with me. I could not believe what I was reading. I felt let down by the school district. I was hoping they would realize that online students would need the best teachers to engage them, that they would need smaller class sizes to be seen and able to make that connection virtually. But instead, it felt like we were getting a teacher no one else wanted. Not to mention a huge class size of 37 students!
I began to think about other options and kept coming back to the option of homeschooling. I brought it up to my husband who was rightfully concerned; neither of us had ever planned to be educators, let alone teach our own children. I didn't sleep well that night and kept researching at home education options. I felt like I could more easily handle teaching a 2nd grade curriculum, but knew if I homeschooled my son, my daughter who was going into 6th grade would want to be homeschooled as well. I was an okay student, got all A's and B's. But I put everything in my short term memory. Aced the test and let the information go. How would I homeschool a 6th grader? My mind could not stop trying to solve this problem. I could not find the "right" answer. So we finished up our trip and headed home to our last weekend before school started.
Since school started the Tuesday after Labor Day, I decided to use that Monday as a trial run for homeschooling. My husband ran to Target Sunday night and bought two chrome books for the kids. Monday we gave it a go. We began with stern talks to the kids the day before. They needed them to be all in if this was going to work that meant listening to me, doing the work, and not giving me a hard time about things they were not interested in doing. The first day went better than I expected. But it was only a trial run. Tuesday we planned to give online learning through the district a try as well to see which way was going to work best. So Tuesday morning we got up, had breakfast and the kids logged in. Within the first hour, the whole district distance learning program shut down. I believe it was because they didn't have the bandwidth for all the online learners and teachers logged in. We waited and waited. It was over 40 minutes before the kids were able to see their teachers again. I think at the 30 minute mark we bailed, jumped ship, and never looked back; diving headfirst into homeschooling.
I have learned a lot about my kids through this experience. First, my son . . he is noisy! He is either tapping his foot, humming a song, beating his pencil like a drum stick. I cannot imagine what a classroom of 20 or 30 kids all making this much noise would be like. Just the one kid is too distracting for my daughter and me. Second, my daughter wasn’t kidding when she said she hated math. This has always boggled me as I come from a huge math family. My grandmother was a one-room school teacher and I remember her teaching me math as we played rummy. Math was always my strong suit. And my husband is an engineer for goodness sakes! Plus my brother is a high school math teacher! How could she hate math?
I found out through teaching her, the reason she hates math isn't that she isn't good at it . . . it's because she's not organized. She doesn't line up her numbers or she gets distracted and doesn't complete the problem. So when I help her really work the problem in an organized way, she gets them all right! We hope this year we can build her math confidence. Another benefit of teaching her is watching her love of writing develop even more. I’ve always known she was a great writer but it’s been fantastic seeing it firsthand. This is an area I hated as a kid so it's a bit foreign to me but I love to hear what she comes up with.
As a young person, I knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom when the time came. A few of the moms in my neighborhood stayed home with their kids and it seemed so ideal. When our daughter and son were born I had the opportunity to do so and have loved it! But soon they both went off to school. I missed them but felt that public school was the best place for them. They had professionals teaching them things I didn't think I could, they had the socialization of classmates on a daily basis, they had the supplies a public school funded by tax dollars can provide. And for us, we still think this is best for them. So while this year is not what we expected, I'm truly enjoying this extra time with them and soaking it in. A time where we can grow closer, take field trips in the middle of the week (like when they were 3), time to teach them about things I think are important. But once we feel safe to do so we will return them back to the district. So they can get back to normal; have friends with their same interests, same energy level, and teachers who were born to teach. This time is different, but we are making the best of it and persevering evening though things have changed.
2 Comments
Dec 11, 2020, 3:27:24 PM
Adrianne O'Kane - Thank you! It's been a learning experience for us all for sure!
Dec 11, 2020, 12:05:53 AM
Trudy Zendejas - We are so proud of all 4 of you for how you have handled the challenges of this pandemic. I think you have discovered many talents you didn’t even know you have. You have become a wonderful writer while journaling your experiences this year. Thanks for sharing your family’s story.