Hello,
As
I’m sitting in my living room writing this article, my 9-year-old son
is in the next room working on his laptop after a video conference call
with his 3rd grade teacher. He’s already had one meltdown, and my wife and husband in turn had to stop working to help him out.
In another part of my house, my 11-year-old son is on a video call with his math teacher because he can’t figure out how to submit assignments on Google Classroom. And my daughter is in her room on her first of two or three Zoom meetings for the day. As well as ooVoo with friends.
K12 is the trusted provider of online learning for many virtual public schools, as well as homeschooling.
My husband and I, are special education teachers, we'll spend the day creating video lessons and fielding emails from prinicipals, parents and pupils.
Our youngest son will need constant help focusing and refocusing on his school work. He can't go anywhere from 5-10 minutes before he gets distracted and asks about snacks or video games and any of a plethora of comic book characters. On a rough day, he’ll get frustrated and teary-eyed because third graders aren’t meant for this new version of schooling.
Since I started writing, he’s interrupted me 12 times with questions about Hulk, Spiderman, Eon Mux, axolotls, and if he can eat some leftover Easter candy.
Because of the pandemic, this is our new normal, and this is probably your new normal too, assuming you have kids.
None of us were prepared for this. We weren’t prepared for online learning or eLearning, working, or TeleWorking and parenting all at once. Nor were we prepared for the emotional toll it would take on every single member of our families.
Pls read on to see how we resolve these issues on a daily basis at home and virtually....
Thanks
João