Teaching At Home: The Best-Laid Plans Turn Into A Very Different Reality
By Jennifer Wagner
In case you missed it, we’re all teachers now — and probably will be for the rest of the school year.
Teachers are amazing.
My parents were teachers.
I love helping the kids with their homework and chaperoning their field trips and hearing about their days when they get home from school.
I am part of a broad support network that’s guiding them on their journey from childhood to adulthood, hopefully showing them how to be good humans by living out and communicating our values to them.
But I am not a teacher.
Lots of folks are sharing homeschooling listicles and raving about all the outstanding online content they’re using to educate their children right now. And that’s great.
I started out with the best intentions, too.
I printed copies and put one on the “Helper Table” in our dining room, posted one on the marker board in the kitchen. We’re all going to learn! Together! And we’ll have the most fun ever!
Reality quickly set in:
The grownups still have to work.
You can’t hang out with your friends.
There are dozens of other things to do in this house — and all of them, including the laundry, are more interesting than e-learning.
This is taking a mental toll that no one could have predicted because no one realized we’d be sheltering in place for weeks on end.(Bless our dogs. They are always happy.)
Our spring break plans have been canceled. Our summer break plans have been canceled. Our lives are on hold for good reason — but on hold nonetheless.
So, here’s a more accurate picture of where are today:
My sincerest congratulations to the parents out there who are rocking this e-learning thing. I’m just not one of them, and it probably won’t get any better after spring break, especially if the kids wind up not going back at all.
Our school adapted remarkably quickly and well, and our teachers are doing a fantastic job managing their workload and, for many of them, their own families.
We’ll get through this, but I’m not going to sweat the small stuff, and I’m not going to pretend to be a teacher when I’m not a teacher. We’re going to do puzzles and watch movies and bake cookies. And we will be grateful because we have the luxury of doing all those things.
As this pandemic continues to adversely affect families across the nation, you can count me squarely in the camp that’s more worried about kids who are going hungry or living in unsafe environments than I am about kids who aren’t turning their math homework in on time.
Jennifer Wagner is a mom, a recovering political hack and the Vice President of Communications for EdChoice, a national nonprofit that supports and promotes universal school choice.
