Distance learning during COVID has meant coming to terms with the disappointment of public schooling that fell short.
It was a perfect storm. Some teachers adapted skillfully, while others were quick to use the pandemic as a reason to pursue a watch-the-video-do-the-worksheet abdication of direct teaching responsibilities. Sitting in front of a screen all day is not rewarding (perhaps my kids will become more motivated than ever to pursue FI, if only to avoid a future staring at a screen all day for income?). Finally, distance learning essentially removes all social opportunities from school, leaving friendships and social development to wither on the vine of adolescence.
My wife and I adapted by becoming the Tag-Team Tutors (a name I fully intend to trademark if we ever become professional wrestlers). She took on math, Spanish and language skills while I volunteered for science, social studies and geography.
It's been more delight than burden, as getting to turn the kids onto science has given me an opportunity to learn and share anew what's so darn cool about how the periodic table is organized, and how the orbital theory of electron shells helps to determine the reactivity of certain elements. While my kids will beta test their eye-rolls to see if they elicit the desired response of exasperation from us, they have reluctantly admitted how cool the material is.
Social studies has been even more exciting, since I missed most of this material on the first pass in junior high and high school. I learned enough to get good grades back in the day, but I never considered myself a "fuzzy" thinker (a pejorative directed at English and History majors in college) and learning about disparate historical cultures and empires felt irrelevant on a good day.
Now, I love making the connections while studying with the kids, especially since the overlapping empires and cultures pertain directly to places we've traveled. The expansion of the Islamic caliphates into Europe was perfectly embodied in our family day trip to Toledo, as was the unusual tolerance for other religions displayed by those rulers when compared with their Spaniard Catholic counterparts.
Roman expansion along the Mediterranean was visible in the beautiful symmetry of the brilliantly engineered aqueducts we passed during train rides in the Spanish countryside. We also passed through an impressive Roman gate leading into a fortified section of medieval Barcelona, and wondered at the remaining marble columns of the 2000 year old Temple of Augustus buried in a vault beneath the Gothic Quarter.
This ties in nicely with our geography lessons, where learning the nations that border the Mediterranean dovetails with the maps in social studies that show trade routes, navigation routes and competing maritime empires.
That fortress we explored on the tiny island of Kythira, south of the Greek mainland and north of Crete? That was part of a chain of merchant stops to protect the trading interests of the Venetian merchants who thrived in those waters. In fact, we saw the same winged lion of St. Mark on the keystone of a separate fortress in the port town of Napflio in the Pelopennesian peninsula.
Alas, every rose has its thorn.
All that time together means it's hard for my wife and I to get any time apart from the kids. The basic, logistical functions that keep our household from going down in flames cannot be discussed as they are subject to frequent, unpredictable intrusions by long-haired kids singing Hamilton songs, or showing off makeup they devised based on youtube videos and old tubes of zinc ointment intended for the beach.
Such surprises can be incredibly cute, but only the first 50 times.
Home schooling also means that every 5 minute break is a sometimes unwelcome update about what assignment sucked, who felt most bored, and which homework is felt likeliest to ruin that afternoon's plans.
The kids are understandably looking for a social connection in between classes. I am unfortunately desperate for social isolation at these precise moments.
The hardest moments are those when the visits consist of moping and kvetching. Considering that we are in the fortunate position of having lost neither loved ones nor livinghood at a time when so many are suffering, it seems to miss the point to complain about comfortable lives in our gilded cage.
My temper grows short. I snap or lash out. I am not my best self.
It's more than possible I am my worst self.
There's goes that parent of the year award I'd cleared space for on the mantlepiece.