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Joe climbs onto his mother's shoulders during a home lesson. Elizabeth Dalziel
NPR
What It Looks Like When School, And Everything Else, Happens At Home
August 22, 2020
Elizabeth Dalziel
A friend posted a picture on Instagram of her 11-year-old daughter
wearing a school uniform, sitting attentively in front of a laptop and
waving to her teacher during a virtual class.
My experience lay in stark contrast. During home lessons, my youngest
child, a 7-year-old, often ignores the screen and climbs on me whenever
possible.
Despite always finishing their homeschooling tasks, when asked what
their favorite subjects are, my two boys usually respond in unison,
"Break and lunch!" I'm dismayed every time I hear it.
We live in Berkhamsted, England, a little town an hour or so outside
London, where the local schools there were shut down on March 23 due to
COVID-19.
I'm a freelance photographer with a flexible schedule, so I suddenly
became my boys' primary teacher through the rest of spring and summer.
My husband, who has a full-time job, helps when he can.
There wasn't much discussion at home about how to approach this new
reality. We didn't have good alternate options, and there was little
preparation other than ordering five reams of A4 paper, printer ink
cartridges and a packet of school exercise books.
As soon as the assignments rolled in from the school, we got down to work.
I quickly learned I wasn't as qualified as I had hoped. Patience is not
one of my chief qualities. Nor is long division, coding, art, English
literature, Mayan history or physics – all topics I was suddenly
"teaching," with the aid of materials and video tutorials posted online
each day by their teachers. There were some interactive experiences
with their classmates and teachers.
But mostly, I felt like I was supposed to make them embrace learning,
to challenge themselves — while they just want to get on with the work
of children, which is play.
The fact that so much of school has gone on-screen has made me push
even harder to make space for low tech. We created a little stage out
of a cereal box in which the kids put on puppet productions of
children's books. They performed a play penned by my eldest son Ben,
10, for an English assignment he called "Aliens in the Field." It
imagines the day aliens land on the school grounds in Berkhamsted.
My younger son Joe and I made a pinhole camera out of cardboard, and he
relished the task of creating a mythical beast for an art assignment
using photo collage. It sits comfortably on his homeschooling notebook
next to his math assignments.
Lockdown has made our family bond, wrapping us in a tight hug, though
at times it feels like a boa constrictor's slow squeeze. It has allowed
my husband and me a glimpse into how our children approach learning and
knowledge. We found them injecting humor into every available
assignment that would allow it. Laughter, it seems, is a great route to
education.
There have been many positives. With no after-school activities we have
the luxury of time, and the boys have found new interests. Ben has
developed a love for early American history and decided to memorize the
Gettysburg Address and the names of all the U.S. presidents. Joe has
been reading up on infectious diseases.
I know our family is fortunate. No one has lost a job. We can pay the mortgage and buy groceries. None of us have been ill.
But it's not easy, for anyone. In Zoom meetings, you can see parents
mute their microphones and scold children, the kids popping in and out
of the frame.
The lack of childcare has made scheduling work feel like a game of
Tetris. Everything seems to take three times as long to get organized
and done.
Nerves frayed from confinement — and the stress of insulating your
children from pressure they only loosely grasp — sometimes make family
interactions more tense and dramatic.
A simple arithmetic problem can seem insurmountable, and with nowhere
to escape, seeing your child melt down at the kitchen table makes you
question whether you are fit to mold a young mind.
If misery loves company, I've had plenty. Many parents have told me
they've been reduced to tears at least once, including one who spent
three hours extracting one paragraph of writing from their child.
Others have felt unable to stretch themselves to cover all of the
demands pulling them in different directions. And some tell me they
regularly head for a glass of wine as soon as the day ends.
This may all be far from over, but I tell myself that if we can keep
ourselves alive and sane during this period, we are all ahead of the
game.
See photos with captions by clicking on NPR
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