Surviving Home Schooling

Back in early March when the first cases of the COVID-19 virus were beginning to be counted in the US, the schools in PA closed for a few weeks. The governor announced that the schools would be shut down from 3/16 to 3/29. We didn’t give a lot of thought to it at the time. Kim’s workplace also closed down and she was working from home on her laptop. When it seemed that the schools might be closed for a while, they made up packets of materials for each student and I dropped by to pick up copies for each of the boys since printing four packets would have been a strain on my home printer.

The packets were optional at that point and designed to keep the students busy and involved so they would not get “rusty” from the lack of schooling. Donna was the primary educator and devoted her day to working with each boy and keeping them busy with other activities when she wasn’t working with them.

About a week later, on 3/23, the governor announced that schools would remain closed through 4/7. Because we already had a spring break scheduled in April, the boys’ school was planning on reopening on 4/15. But just a week later, a further announcement was made that all public schools in the state would remain closed for the rest of the school year.

Meanwhile, the teachers at school had all had a crash course in online delivery of learning, the school had started a survey to find out what families would need laptops or other devices, and we were starting the switch from optional paper packets to mandatory online learning. Because we only had two laptops to share between the four boys we applied for and were loaned two additional devices so all four boys could be online at the same time.

We also had to make many changes in our daily schedule so that both Donna and I could share the responsibility for overseeing the boys’ education each day. The school set up a schedule for which classes would “meet” each day. Monday was ELA (English Language Arts) and EE (Environment and Ecology); Tuesday was Math and PE/Health; Wednesday was EIC (Science); Thursday was ELA and Music; and Friday was Math and Art. There were also optional morning Google Meet sessions by each of the classroom teachers and a once-a-week OT session for Asher. I took over the Morning meetings, ELA and Math for Ethan and Caleb as well as PE and Music for all four boys and Donna took the rest. For the last 2.5 months, that schedule has dictated how our days have run.

Every morning each of the boys’ teachers would post the assignments for the day in the Google Classroom account as well as send out a synopsis of the assignments via an e-mail. This would be around 8:30. Since the school uses a lot of projects in their subjects, many of the assignments were multiple days in length with certain parts of it due each day for the length of the project.

Since Ethan chose not to participate in his morning meeting, I would work with him from 8:30 to 9:30 on either that days’ academic subject or the special for the day. Then I’d have Caleb starting at 9:30 for his morning meeting followed by other material until 10:30. After that I’d have Ethan again for another hour to finish up the rest of what he was working on for the day. After lunch I’d have Caleb again if needed as well as Isaiah or Asher if it was Music/PE day. By mid-afternoon I’d be done – and totally worn out.

Meanwhile, Donna had the same sort of schedule with the other two boys. In addition, she handled many of the long-term EIC projects which included things like going for a worm/butterfly hunt, drawing pictures of a fly, and other interesting art/environment projects. She’d also be pretty worn out by the end of the day.

Some of the classwork was taught by video – either recorded directly by the teacher (esp. subjects like PE exercises or music exercises), or by the teacher posting YouTube videos for the students to watch. Other parts would be forms or slides to be completed. Most of the work was completed online by filling in or typing into boxes on documents, but some had to be done on paper, pictures taken of them, and then being uploaded to my laptop and attached to the assignment before turning it in.

Unfortunately, while we needed to put many other aspects of our lives on hold, you can’t put “Mother Nature” on hold. The last vestiges of winter were turning into spring and then into summer by the beginning of June. With Donna that meant that her outside plants were starting to grow and needed watering, the weeds were also springing up and needed pulling, grass needed cutting, etc. So, as we moved from March to April to May to June, her days were getting busier and busier as she spent all her time when not overseeing the boys’ schooling outside. My days were getting busier, too, but my various physical ailments limit my ability to help outside.

Finally, yesterday, June 5^th, we reached the last day of school. No longer will I need to sign on to each of the boys’ Google Classroom accounts every day to make sure that all their assignments were getting done on time and turned in. Each of them had a final Google Meet with their entire class for final sharing, mentioning their respective plan for the summer, and getting a final goodbye from their classroom teachers. The latter often had tears as they said their final goodbye – it’s been rough on them too, having to work under such oppressive conditions in ways that they never trained for – and not being able to have the daily contact with their students as one of the perks that teaching has brought in the past.

But as hard as it’s been on the teachers and the students, it’s also been hard on all the families. Usually that’s been the temporarily laid-off mothers and/or fathers, but in our case the grandparents. I’m not sure what Kim would have done without us and I have a lot of sympathy for those families who are not fortunate enough to have situations where they do not have family members available to assist.

We don’t yet know what the future will bring. The preliminary guidelines just released by the PA Department of Education (PDE) are very upsetting and I don’t see how the schools will be able to meet those guidelines. A whole generation of children have been subjected to changing scenarios and we don’t know what the impact on their mental situation is going to be. There is no historic precedence for what we are now going through.

I’m glad that I have learned that God is in control, as I have to rely on him for so many things these days. But at least I don’t have to worry about overseeing the schooling of our grandsons for the next few months, as we instead “just” have the normal activities of summer for a change next week.