From one teacher/homeschooler/mama to you

First day of school 2017

Same day. The excitement wore off quick.

As a teacher, I just want you to know how hard teaching is!  Forget the curriculum, it is hanging out with your kiddo who can be obnoxious that is the hard part!  Be kind to your child’s teachers.

As a homeschooler, I just want you to know that it doesn’t usually look like this.  We love learning with our friends and our kids’ friends and don’t spend our time isolated in our homes.  Many of us aren’t anti public schools, and I used to agree that homeschooling “wasn’t for everyone” but guess what?  NOW IT IS!  It isn’t school at home, it is using everything around you to teach anything.  I loved teaching and that is why I homeschool (teaching without the bureaucracy). Please, please don’t worry about them falling behind.  Have them read everyday and have them do some math worksheets occasionally.  And then, everything else is bonus.  Of course, you have to fill your days still, but it doesn’t mean sitting at the table doing work.  What are their interests?  We are spending the year studying horses, because that’s what they are into right now.  Our literature is about horses (Black Beauty and lots of Marguerite Henry books) our history is about horses (war horses, work horse, for 6000 years man has domesticated horses).  Maybe we will study horse anatomy or look at speed and velocity of different breeds for science.  Who knows?  We definitely have already spent time drawing horses and looking at famous artists who paint horses.  If they are doing something they enjoy it will be easier!

As a mother, I just want to tell you that you’v got this.  You love your kid more than anyone (remember? 😉 ).  There is a learning curve of spending this much time together all of a sudden.  Every summer when the hubby comes home and messes with our routine I feel it.  And every time the school year starts and it is back to just me and the kids, I feel it again.  It takes time, but you have the chance to get to know them in a way that you haven’t since they were babies probably.  I read today that not every day is good, but there is good in every day.  Sometimes you are going to lose it, sometimes you are going to wonder when it’s bedtime only to realize that you haven’t even had lunch yet.  But there will be some good.  It is just you and them, so play games, cook, write letters (to us!), have dance parties in the living room and give your pets extra attention.  I just sent my oldest off to high school after a whole bunch of homeschooling.  I feel like we mostly just had fun, but guess what?  She is an amazing student!  So, believe me when I tell you that they will be okay too.

Aren’t you glad you don’t work at Costco today?

Yesterday was normal.  We had an appointment in Wellington for the boy’s passport and American birth certificate, went to the mall while we were in the city, made it back in time for music lessons and to pick up Piper from practice and came home in time for dinner.  I’ve been enjoying the memes and jokes surrounding this whole coronavirus thing until this morning when it was no longer funny.  I still don’t understand the panic and feel that the real concern is the panic itself and not the virus.  Small businesses are going to be devastated by this, retirements affected.  And people are starting to really get scared.  Understandable.  It has been consuming my thoughts today as well.

Have you read the book Dry?  If not, read it.  It is very good.  This morning a friend in Southern California posted a picture of the crazy long lines at Costco (not his picture above, took that one off the internet) and a picture of an old woman whom he witnessed punch the guy who was behind her in line.  Wow!  It is like a scene straight out of Dry.  Really, same setting, Costco, only the fight was over bottled water.  Read the summary.

It is announced on the news that there is no water left in Southern California. People raid the stores to buy up the drinkable fluids; soon there is nothing left on the shelves. The parents of Alyssa, 16, and her brother Garrett, 10, fail to return after sourcing for water for their family, so the children set off in an attempt to find their parents. During their search, they befriend three other teenagers, and struggle to survive in the waterless landscape where people have become ruthless and immoral in order to survive. Because of the widespread panic and violence, the government declares martial law and forces people into evacuation encampments where there still is not enough water for everyone.

Dry explores how far humans will go to survive and how quickly society can deteriorate when basic human needs are not being met. (copied from enotes.com)

It wasn’t a virus that caused the societal mayhem in the book, it was the lack of water, but the results feel all too similar.  There are the neighbors who had known this type of thing was coming and are prepared with bunkers and all, but let me tell you something the crazy neighbors aren’t better off.  Do you know who is better off?  Those who work together in community.  I know that the book is fiction, but honestly, we know our human nature.  We know that we can turn to our animal instincts, but perhaps it is the fact that we also have a conscience and possibly it is our conscience that makes us not just look after our own wellbeing.  We can see the worst in humanity in these situations and we can also see the very best of humanity.  And the best part, we have the choice.

Remember that schools have been closed and businesses have been shut down for weeks now in Asia.

Here is an excerpt from Rebecca Franks who lives in Wuhan (read this on good ol’ Facebook):

So from the epicenter of the coronavirus, here is just SOME of the good we have been experiencing because of the lockdown: (Be warned – there is no way this post could be short.)

Our family life has never been better. Usually one weekend is long enough before I’m ready to send each of us back to school or work. But for SEVEN weeks, we’ve been home together with very little outside influences or distraction, forced to reconnect with one another, learn how to communicate better, give each other space, slow down our pace, and be a stronger family than ever before.

We’ve learned how to accept help from others. During this time, we’ve HAD to rely on others to show us how to get food and other things we need. People here are so good, and they want to help. It’s satisfying to accept the help.

Shopping is so much easier now. It comes straight to our complex, and we just pick it up. Simple.

I recently watched a 60 Minutes episode on deaths of despair and who they are causing the life expectancies of whites to drop for the first time in who knows how long.  They referred to the Roseto Study of the late 50s and early 60s that looked at the phenomenon that these individuals in Roseto, Pennsylvania were living longer than those in neighboring cities and towns.  They smoked and drank and were a town of blue collared workers. But the fact that they lived in a close-knit community with one another, it actually increased their life expectancy so much so that it is known as the Roseto effect.

This is scary.

But.

Let this bond us.  Let this cause us to rely on one another.  Let this be a time of playing games and reading books and spending time with your family.  Let this create a Roseto effect in your neighborhood.  This too shall pass and looking back you don’t want to be the person who punched someone in Costco.