Day 19 – Homeschooling – Unmitigated Disaster
We have two feral animals that have taken over our apartment. To say the place looks like Aleppo would be an understatement. For those non-New Yorker’s reading this, we predominantly live in apartments in NYC, which is a markedly different experience to having a house. Cabin fever takes on a whole new meaning during stay a home orders. My naughty time consists of trawling Zillow and Trulia dreaming of space and backyards.
I’m envious of my many friends with older, self-reliant, kids. Babylicious is 2 and Chisler is 5. They have miraculously become “independent thinkers “with their “own idea” of free time. Parents & schedules be damned. The first few days of “home schooling” consisted of painfully figuring out how to login to the various DOE sites for example Schoology, DOE’s site, Google Classroom, Epic, ASSISments and BrianPop. Then forgetting the site locations and logins. And starting all over again. Another day spent arguing over which computer to use.
Our first week’s schedule looked something like this:
7 – 8.30 am Wake up. Times vary
8.00 am Breakfast
8.45 am Second breakfast
9 am Tentative remote school starts. Preceded by shouting and screaming and lots of No’s
9.30 am Snack
10 am What’s for lunch?
10.01 am Mental Health check
11 am Seriously, what’s for lunch?
11.30 am A drink sounds nice
12 pm Lunch
12.45 pm What’s for lunch?
1.30 pm Cartoons on demand
2 pm Snacks with cartoons
3 pm Fight Club – kids edition
4 pm Homework submission – once you figure out how
5 pm Black Comedy Hour – daily Presidential press conference,
followed by a competent sobering Gov Cuomo/future
President’s presser.
6 pm Rations/Dinner – hoarded dry goods pasta comes in handy
6.10 pm Can I have cookies?
6.45 pm More fight club
7 pm #ClapBecauseWeCare
7.30 pm Bath Time
8 pm ish Bedtime – kids
8.30pm Fight Club – parents edition
9 pm ish Netflix 2-hour binge. Ozark rocks. Get Shorty, sublime.
12 am Unconscious – masquerading as a good night’s sleep
Rinse & repeat.
My takeaway – I’ve designed & trained professional courses for hundreds that generated tons of money. What I’ve discovered is that I’m a useless teacher lacking the patience of a saint and a have new found respect for teachers. They should be paid more.
