After my sleepless night, I must say, I nestled down into that bed last night, and slept like a rock. I woke up at five.
I got up and made my coffee. I sliced a thawed venison backstrap. I tossed them into a crockpot with a simmer sauce. I've never tried one before, but we'll see what happens. I added the carrots and celery and large wedges of onion (all the better for William to pick them out).
Then I carried my coffee into the office to look at the boys' school days. I printed off the material for the younger one's written assignments. I wrote William's schedule up on a white board. This is something that he will hopefully get to the point of being able to assemble himself, but for right now, the schedule is confusing and you need to draw it in from three different sources.
He's learning organization. I have five folders on his desk. His job today will be to fill the folders with the things he needs for each class. I have a rack for him to place them in. His work space will be uncluttered and he will have the space to work.
He's my challenge. I've walked this path before at a time when ADHD was not a 'thing'. I failed. Lacking the resources, I floundered around, trying one thing after another, and the inconsistencies probably made things worse. With William, I am surer. I've learned a lot in the intervening 30 years.
Schooling is a real responsibility. I take it pretty seriously. I'm starting to develop relationships with the teachers and some of the other parents during those zoom meetings. I know there are a lot of people struggling right now. As we waited for the kids to all log in during one class, a mother expressed some frustration with a link. "If it is any consolation, we had the same problem," I offered. She said, "ARGH! Can I rip out my hair now?" The teacher said, "I think we're all struggling." Someone offered up, "My child misses school so much." I said, "Shoot. I miss school so much." Everyone laughed when the teacher said, "So do I."
It's good to laugh.
"Is it too much for you?" I was asked at the end of the day. "Is this too hard?"
The question surprised me. It doesn't matter. We are living in strange times. We all can't bail because it's too hard. We all have to figure out how we're going to get it done.
I suppose in the end, we'll all be the better for it.
I sip my coffee and do the preparations for the day, and wait for the dawn to break.
I would not do well with home-schooling a child, whether during Covid or any other time.
ReplyDeleteWe've been doing in person learning since day one in the fall. At the time, we were one of the few exceptions in our state. But what I have seen is that the kids aren't the problem. Occasionally they do come down with Covid but there aren't any mass spreading events and almost all of them caught it from someone at home or from close contact during sports. As word started getting out, most of our state has returned to in-person learning and the few hold outs tend to be in large urban centers who tend to lean one way politically. With more and more studies showing virtual learning isn't a good substitute, I have to wonder what harm we are doing by going this route.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I have seen is that it does increase the risk of teachers getting Covid. The elementary schools seem to do better at protecting teachers I assume because they are exposed to less children. Our high school teachers have definitely been hit fairly hard to the point where they didn't have enough teachers or substitutes for two days before Thanksgiving. The way our school systems are set up with specialized teachers only teaching a single subject and rotating through the grades doesn't work well in a pandemic.
I'm glad that our kids are in person but teachers are paying a price, many willingly, but that really doesn't ease my conscious.
School has proceeded and done well for the most part in Ontario. Of course, some have opted out and are doing the cyber version. Our grands are in school, and there have been no outbreaks. I had thought this was very chancey, but so far so good.
ReplyDeleteI admire you very much for doing this. As you say, during a pandemic we are facing hard things that we have to simply do. We don't have the choice. It sounds like you're doing an amazing job. I'm torn about in-person school. Most of my friends are high school teachers and many have underlying conditions. Two are pregnant.
ReplyDelete