How to get your kid set up for remote-learning

In this very weird new world we find ourselves in, connected to others by computer, phones, and waves across a 6-foot chasm, I thought I would share with you my winning solution to getting your elementary-school kids set up for their new remote-learning situation. 

First, try not to let the emails from your school district learning coordinator, superintendent, principal and teacher get lost amongst the avalanche of emails re-assuring you that it is totally fine to re-book your airline flight, buy cupcakes delivered by disinfected drone, sign up for a zoom-based exercise class, etc. 

Next, once you have located the relevant emails amongst the haystack of others, pour yourself some coffee (or other beverage), take a deep breath, and sit down to read them.

 

These kids are way smarter than you might realize. This guy made his own worksheet, and one for his sister, after re-arranging our guest room into a makeshift classroom the day we learned that schools were closing. 

After reading the emails, save them as PDFs or print them, or put them in a special folder, and/or mark them as unread, and add a star/flag/whatever, because you are going to have to find them again. 

Now, lay down and have a good cry. My cry was mostly about how sad I feel for my kids, who love their schools so damn much, and their friends, and their teachers. Yes, it’s really nice in many ways to have more time together – but holy shit I am a terrible little-kid teacher and I am definitely not a good little-kid-friend, and our house is not in any way a substitute for a school environment. 

After you have a good cry, and feel better even though it doesn’t particularly help anything, wait until the next day. 

Try again, this time with your kid. Open the emails. Walk through the instructions step by step with your kid, and let your kid explain the parts you don’t get (“I already know how to do this, mom”). Maybe throw in a little “stop clicking so quickly!” in your best curmudgeonly voice. 

Be grateful that (if you are lucky like me), your kid’s teacher/school is amazing, and their expectations are reasonable.  

Or, if not, maybe sent them an email. This is all a weird experiment and no one knows what on earth we are doing. 

Then hug your kids. And maybe cry a little more. 

Along the same lines as the first photo, when you have no idea what you are doing, your kids might just come up with their own learning projects. The 4 yr old came up with her own Montessori-based ordering work using these wrenches when I was fixing our car a few weeks ago (the kids did not find watching me get dirty and frustrated very interesting).