Teacher Corona
My ten year old boys are high energy, scattered brained beings. Despite the best of intentions, they can forget a task while they are in the middle of it. They lose winter gloves, coats, and permission slips regularly and I'm often in wonderment at their ability to forget to wear shoes when we leave the house.
My boys also have big, tender hearts and they are as frustrated as anyone with their penchant for distraction. I know they have been brought to tears in the classroom and when they're home they really let their frustration loose. My husband or I will point out they still haven't unloaded the dishwasher and my boys will melt down in either tears, anger, or pitiful pleas of “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” as if they're moments away from being dragged to a dungeon.
My sons' stress comes from their fear of failure. We can all relate to this. Tragically, my sons' definition of failure is making a mistake. My husband and I are bewildered by all this because we have never demanded the toxic and unachievable notion of “perfection” from our children. Our parental motto is “work hard, do your best.” No matter how many times I assure them that all that matters is they try their best but they still break down. They have set themselves up for frustration with their unrealistic expectations and limited attention span. Cue current disastrous remote learning experience.
This stay-at-home remote learning has brought to mind my own similar shame based educational experiences. I started off on the wrong foot in kindergarten. I'm left handed and my right handed mom didn't know how to teach me to write so she left it up to my kindergarten teacher. Cut to my first week of school when my class was asked to write our names on our construction paper clown. I looked around panic-stricken at my peers who were busily writing their names down. I hadn't learned how to write any letters, let alone the correct ones that spelled my name. I did the only thing I could do. I drew triangles and squares in substitute of my name, like some Sesame Street style hieroglyphics. I passed it up, full of shame, until it was time for recess and it vanished from my mind.
I can still remember the confused look on my teacher's face the next day when she held up my paper clown in front of the class and asked, “Who's is this?” My hand reluctantly rose in the air, my peers all turning to look at me, the girl named Triangle Square Square. Thus my long-held youthful opinion that school was an anxiety-inducing torture chamber. I didn't feel confident in my intelligence until high school.
So I empathize with my sons when I see them trying to avoid the gut punch, free fall feeling of incomprehension. They rush through their online assignments and spend their Zoom class lessons secretly messaging classmates. I can't blame them, really, though certainly get frustrated. School is now the same place as the legos and refrigerator. If the classroom is distracting for my sons imagine being quarantined in a house where two working (I work, even if I don't get a paycheck!) parents and three children on three iPads try to get work done. Thus the crumbling state of education in the Fudge home.
Note: I don't know how the working single parents are doing it. I just know they are warriors and deserve everyone's respect and admiration.
Our family can handle the social distancing. We're an introverted lot. We're also blessed to live in a canyon with nature easily accessible. Still the coronavirus has upended the peace in our home. Remote learning is hard. School and home are two very unique places and learning and education are not the same thing. We are happy to do our part in staying home and our problems are minuscule to what is happening in the world around us but that doesn't negate the fact that our family is struggling.
My children's school is fantastic. When our state governor issued the stay-at-home order, my kids where sent home with their school iPads that very day. By the following Monday their teachers had virtual lessons and class video conferences up and running, all to be done on their iPads. I was amazed at how smoothly the faculty transitioned from physical school learning to virtual learning. Teachers definitely need a raise.
Yet here we are, a month and a half later, with all the resources we need to succeed and yet remote learning is not working. Not for us, anyways. I've gone from Super Mom to Super Mom/Teacher and it is harder than it sounds. I'm not a professional teacher. I'm useless when it comes to helping my sons divide fractions and I have very little patience with the power struggles between my daughter and I on why you have to capitalize the first letter of any sentence.
To my kids I either know everything or nothing at all. “I don't understand what my teacher is saying!” is usually followed with, “That's not how my teacher does it.” It's maddening. Also, to those who don't have kids, you should know math has changed. I don't know why or how but the new generation is being taught a whole new way to solve math and it makes no sense. I think Mr. Incredible said it best when he bemoaned, “How can you change math?! Math is math!”
The tears are flowing more freely in our home, the arguments have gotten louder, and I worry my kids, who already struggle with learning, are falling behind. I'm stressed between the balance of helping them with their schoolwork and doing the work for them. “For the love kid, let me type your essay! You can dictate. this is taking forever!”
I came across the quote from a friend's Facebook post and it was exactly what I needed to hear:
“Working, parenting, and teaching are three different jobs that cannot be done at the same time. It's not hard because you are doing it wrong. It's hard because its too much. Do the best you can. When you have to pick, because at some point you will...chose connection. -Dr. Emily King
So I'm going to choose connection. Despite what the teachers say, their online assignments do NOT take only three hours to complete. The other day took us 7.5 hours! I'm taking control of this situation. I'm going to encourage my children to connect with their education and teachers but not at the price of harmony in our home. Once it's lunch time, school is closed, no matter the unfinished assignments. I'm going to connect with my children outside of e-schooling. I'm going to try to have some fun. I'm going to give up on the non-essential busyness in exchange for family connection. It's a weird and stressful time to be parenting but it also is a precious opportunity to spend time together in a way we never could before and may never again. While the world outside us is in commotion, I'm going to make sure my world inside is a refuge from the storm.
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