virtual school

Go to Time Out Parents

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Let’s toughen up, suck it up and get through this temporary situation. What better time than now to deal with distance learning.

I have been a work-from-home Mom for over 6 years and over this time have dived back into work with a newborn on my breast and a toddler running amuck but none of that has prepared me to WFH and homeschool our children in different age and stage brackets.

I have seen so much anger, sadness, frustration, depression and after several weeks I would hope that we would move into acceptance. Does this suck? YUP, it does. But is it the worst? NOPE, it’s not. Many of us spend our days making or following schedules and lesson plans, standing over our kids’ shoulders showing them what to work on, checking work, printing worksheets and running school work from home to school then back again, it’s exhausting. This leaves many parents shouting “distance learning is impossible” but we teach our kids daily that nothing is impossible–difficult but not impossible. So let’s all take a deep breath and take these days on one at a time.

I will share with you the two different styles I am working with and tips to help me stay on top of things but also giving leeway to have bird days (which means shits everywhere and the day has flown away)

Distance Learning Styles

24 credit semester
Spreadsheet to keep track of independent school work

Imagine cramming every core class, elective and extracurricular activity into one 8+ week semester. Now imagine all of this happened when you were an unorganized teen with electronic devices and a short attention span. Well that is how I would describe the distance learning situation for our 13 year old in public Middle School. The first couple weeks weren’t mandatory but we thought it best that he kept going since we knew it would only be a matter of time before it went live. B was expected to check his email daily, check each individual google classroom — some teachers took attendance, most provided visuals [videos, powerpoint, articles, etc], assignments for some were posted at the beginning of the week with a due date at the end of the week while others posted on set days with due dates that evening – insert kevin mccallister home alone scream.

So it’s no surprise that once it went live it took a week to realize that our son was not mature enough to handle what came along with his distance learning style — not a dig because very few of us would be as teens. I felt like a failure come Friday, receiving an email from at least 6 of the 8 teachers stating B was missing work – WHAT? HOW? He was sitting just a few feet away from me all week and seemed to be working diligently. Guess he’s good at pretending (ha gotta say he’s convincing and let’s be real we all have a few “look” busy days at work)

over that weekend our plan got a major overhaul.

Packaged and Spoon Fed
Schedule for daily lessons

Everything comes neatly packaged from day one: Each week we pick up a folder that contains the week’s lesson plan with print outs, a website for her instructional learning, facebook links for Bible study, youtube links for Music and break activities and weekly zoom meetings one just one on one with her teacher and one with the whole class. The setup is dreamy the execution well that requires a bit more than I naively imagined from this dreamy boxed goodness – much like one of those food services they give you everything you need but you still have to cook it – womp womp. I immediately reached out to the teacher for her in-class daily plan so I could stick to her routine and then tweaked it a bit. Lili requires more hands on transitioning, instruction and setup throughout the day which is tough when my wfh position requires me to be seated in front of a computer and productive– but I take deep breaths and do what I can|no stress because I control the pace of the day and can start and stop, give breaks, love and praise and add in content that we deem equally important for her to learn such as black history, COVID-19, politics and life’s lesson [that when life gives you lemons drive around and throw them at people]…I’m kidding you make delicious lemon squares and eat them all in one sitting!

Tips

  • Keep some type of schedule even if you don’t stick to it daily provides a nice framework to how the day should go even if the times change (excel is my bestie)
  • Have a clear workspace and when they start their day make sure they have everything they will need – so we don’t have the wandering distraction (equivalent to I left my book in my locker or I have to sharpen my pencil)
  • Give yourself a break as well as the kids – with calm and time management, assignments will get done
  • If you find yourself getting frustrated zoom or phone a friend, take a walk, have a dance break, do a 30 sec plank that shit will for sure put things into perspective
  • Plan fun activities something easy, no pressure, messy or not to messy given your time schedule (stay tuned for a post about all the fun things we get to do)
  • Pray–I can’t tell you the amount of times I pray for strength, patience or an alibi
  • Nobody said it was easy but it doesn’t have to be that hard. The second you or your child(ren) start to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, just go to time out. This is all new to many of us, we send our kids to school for a reason because there are professionals that actually want to do this stuff. So I suggest taking the time to let teachers know how much they are appreciated, they give their time, attention as well as energy to our kid and a room full of others kids all day. They aren’t compensated properly for it and they aren’t thanked enough for it. We can get through these few months[weeks] but please don’t dare think these teachers have dropped us off on the edge of the cliff. They have had little time to plan for this unprecedented situation and the world is so critical of every little thing. They are still doing lesson plans, still available when our children need them, and they aren’t enjoying this distance teaching/learning either; oh and lets not forget that many of them are also home with their kids teaching them while teaching our children. So as I said toughen up,

** this post was written back in April after several weeks of COVID shutdowns. Liliana returned to in-person learning at the end of August and things were going well until now. Cases have gone up and her school has made the decision to return the school to virtual learning for 2 weeks with a tentative scheduled return after the Thanksgiving holiday. Bryce’s school started full-time virtual and then phased in hybrid a couple grades at a time but Bryce opted out choosing to stay virtual through the new year. Both schools have made significant adjustments to the style that was, in the Spring opting for a traditional school day receiving instruction through Zoom. That is a great weight lifted off our [us the parents] shoulders because we aren’t responsible for teaching just overseeing and playing backup.

Let’s be crystal clear I will choose safety over comfort any day. I felt that way back in April and I feel the same way now that positive Covid cases are back on the rise in PA. And to those who say we can’t live in fear, we aren’t but we are being cautious the same way we look both ways when crossing the street. To those who believe kids need to be in school and that they will get behind. If they are receiving instruction, coursework, reading and are actively engaged then they will be just fine. Children are flexible and resilient beings again they will be just fine. On our end we just try to keep them engaged, sing songs, play games and create memories. 2020 is one for the history books, it won’t be forgotten but we want them to have positive memories when they look back and that starts with having a positive outlook about it all.