Pandemic Schooling
Hola! My cup of chamomile tea is in hand, brewed to soothe my tight chest and lower my tensed shoulders. Writing daily on my long form work had become my norm before this pandemic hit, so I haven’t posted anything for a long while.
Like probably all of you, when the world closed down my kids were (abruptly) home, in my grill (on my lap, opening the bathroom door) without any school or daycare breaks. I’ve got two special needs kids and dove into intense planning mode with a daily routined structure. It was do or die under the meltdowns, constant bickering, incessant requests for snacks. We’ve adjusted it every week as we’ve evaluated and re-evaluated the needs of the family, with a strong emphasis on playing and movement.
We finally started distance learning today, after a month of being at home. Having a routine in place, with daily reading and math activities already rolling made the transition pretty smooth. My son with autism, Peter, and I handled his anxiety and wild objections to sitting and learning anything with his mother on any topic ever by cuddling on my bed during the learning videos, and me sitting right next to him at his little desk during the work that required writing.
Initially, he wouldn’t even sit down next to me. So I opened the math book, put my arm around his shoulders and said ‘hey, we’re going to stand here and stare at the math book until you’re ready to work.’ When he got tired of that, he sat down with me and fussed more (fussing looks like flailing his arms, protesting loudly with words like ‘this is boring! I hate all things school! Why do I have to do this its not fun!’). I put my arm around his shoulder and let him know I would be ready to work when he was.
Then he focused on the page, and realized he knew exactly what to do. He started doing it. I read the problem directions aloud to him, and we flew through three pages.
I tell this story to illustrate four important principles of pandemic learning success with our wonderful ‘extra’ kids.
1. I met Peter where he was- and surprised him by waiting for him to catch up to me. He wasn’t ready to sit down, and forcing him would’ve caused more pushback.
2. I continued to be with Peter where he was and didn’t expect that he’d be ready to work right away just because he sat down.
3. I planned ahead and made sure we had the exact materials we needed. Never lead a horse to an empty trough (right? that’s the saying? I digress).
4. High probability of success- I chose a math activity that Peter would be successful doing. The teachers should do this for distance learning, because they know we’re all stressed out and our children are, too. It’s not the time for challenging new concepts (unless you have a gifted/talented or twice exceptional kiddo-but that’s a post for later).
Bonus Principle- Keep it Short. Guys, the kids are in school all day, but they’re not learning academics all day. Don’t force your first grader to do more than 45 minutes of work a day, 60 at most, and then it probably needs to be broken into 10 minute chunks.
That’s all for today, but I hope to bring you more ‘what’s working’ posts throughout this insane situation we find ourselves universally experiencing. Drop a comment if you have any particular need/problem/pain point you’re experiencing that you’d like me to address. I won’t have all the answers, but I bet I know where to send you to find them.
Love you all. We will get through this. And remember the immortal words of Glennon Doyle: There is no screen time during a pandemic. There are screens. And there are some breaks from screens.