Brainstorms: Take Notes

Welcome to the jungle, friends.

It's a shock to the system, isn't it? Suddenly wading through the sweaty mud trails of home education? Remember way back to two weeks ago, when we all thought Spring Break would be one week, and not, you know....all of spring?


If you live with kids, chances are, like us, you were just dropped into a chaotic and steamy world.

Stick close to me though, because I know this wilderness. Exactly ten years ago, our first grader decided to drop out of school during Spring Break, bringing our home learners count to three boys and a baby girl. Ten years ago, we faced the fact that we could never really do what a school can do for our four children, so we opted for something else instead.

Acknowledgement: What is happening in the world right now is not technically"homeschooling."

 It's families of all kinds making the best of an upended school year. Losing income, juggling the logistical aspects of life in something like lockdown, worrying about supply disruptions, all while suddenly having the house full of kids who are still 12 weeks away from being done with whatever grade they were just in is not a typical homeschooling situation.

Forgive yourself right now for failing to turn your home into an enviable Pinterest project during the first week of the apocalypse.

If color-coded schedules and popsicle stick systems make you feel simultaneously motivated and defeated, take heart. You're not alone. I wrote the following to act as muddy hand-prints on the tree trunks of this bewildering path. As I stumbled through backyard education a decade ago, I may have actually learned some things, or at least left a decipherable pattern of stains with my errors. Which is basically the same thing.

Spaces and Places Need Some Thought
You know the great thing about homeschooling?
We're all home all the time!
You know the awful thing about homeschooling?
We're all home all the time!

But, homeschoolers can do day trips! ehhhhxcept right now, so...

When I say we're home all the time, my emphasis is not on the "home all the time," part, rather the "we." As in, them, me, and all of our grime.

See the problem?

There's no custodial superhero at the end of our day, piling chairs in the quiet corner of an empty room, to reset the cleanliness of the floor. No, here at the BU, live spaces and learn spaces are often the same quickly filthy spaces. And the teacher is also the cafeteria lady, secretary, bus driver, psychologist, and janitor.

My advice to you, when clearly I could use advice on this matter? Um, turn Go Get All The Cups In The House! into a math game? P.E.?

This is why I try to keep most indoor learning to this monster.

No matter how hectic things get around here, I know if I clear it, spray it, wipe it, and sweep under it, someone can use it for something.

That sounds like so little to hope for, but just you wait until you forgot why you came in the room, and two people are talking to you, and holy cow, how is it already 3 pm?  Having a clean spot where someone could do a maze, or play Mancala is a lot.

Feel the Beat of the Rhythm of the Day

This one is fill-in-the-blank. You have to ask yourself, what are my beats?

What am I motivated to make sure happens all regular and on time like? Waking, sleeping, eating, grooming, tidying up, outside time, music, exercise, games, pets, reading, watching movies/videos. Even if you do it all in stretchy pants, dividing the day's hours among the things that matter most to you can make a difference in the long run.

Do you have to play all the beats every day? Of course not, but some are part of the daily song. Who among us has not tested their kids' ability to remember a little ditty called, "When's Lunch?" Seriously, how does it get to be 3 pm so fast?

It takes intention to pry apart the daily needs, making space for activities that we need in a less immediate way. For us, music is one of those activities.

As soon as I knew we were staring down the barrel of an undetermined break from school, I made these coupons to hide from the kids.

It felt so dorky, to react to a global pandemic by cutting and gluing. It felt so important at the same time. The week's concerns threatened to overshadow all frivolous family time, unless it was fiercely defended. With homemade coupons. Sure.

When the kids discovered them throughout the week, we made a plan for that day to stop everything and play music together for an hour. Three hours, intentionally carved out of a week which had us mostly focused on survival. Priorities prioritized. Memories made. And a way to go forward, like tapping out a rhythm.

Hokey Pokegogy

Look, even if you're an actual licensed teacher, you may not be qualified to teach every subject to every kid in your house. Got a teen who loved robotics? Well, sorry kid. I can sort of DO the robot, but that's not helping anyone.

How can a well-meaning stay-at-home parent, especially one inexperienced at educating young people, cover all the standards and teach all of the things? Lemme just let you right off the hook with that one: you can't. And if you try, everyone will be miserable. So give up right now.

Instead, think of what your specific gaggle of students have in common. Here, ages range from 11 to 17. We have a variety of interests, personalities, and needs in the BU bunch.

Erryday, I'm differentiatin', so when planning, I like to implement a philosophy that groups the kids' commonalities, wherever I can find them.

I want them all to put their right hand in...

Let's get schooly! Sit down, pick up a stamp, or a paint brush, or a marker, and write or create something visual.

I want them to put their right hand out...

Next, do something that is NOT focused on using hand-eye skills. Like go outside, throw, kick, climb. Scramble about in general, while grunting, perhaps.

Left hand in...

Did you help in the kitchen today? What should we make to eat? Apples on the sandwich? Well, why not! What a great idea!

Left hand out...

I'm just going to ignore you yelling "CHEESE" at a spider under the piano right now. It looks totally ridiculous, but you were just behaving like a little grown-up, making apple sandwiches in the kitchen. Maybe this has to happen after that.

Oops, I forgot to shake it all about. I always forget that.

But really, across the board, kids are Deviators. They usually need to do something different from the thing they just did. If they were just up, offer them something down next. Or vice versa. We all had fun. That was cool. On to something completely different. Shake it all about.

Wild Card! 
When teaching, confusion can be your friend. Seriously, disequilibrium is the beginning of cognitive dissonance, which is basically the first step any of us takes in learning something new. A home can be an enriching environment, without being overly didactic, if you respect the power of huh?schooling.

Picture it, you want to do a fun, hands-on learning activity, involving dirt and water and seeds. Try this: Instead of arranging everything on your kitchen table and formally inviting everyone to listen and follow and ignore your instructions, just set everything up in a space you don't mind leaving a mess for a bit and SAY NOTHING ABOUT IT.

Let the assembled items, and the weirdness of it just sitting there do half the job of teaching, by confusing your children. Trust me, it's good for them.

It's called an Invitation, and it's an excellent way to present the unpredictable. When you're confined to your little home space, with the same little tribe, disequilibrium is harder to come by.

Plus, it's fun to see what kids do as they begin to interact with items not expressly described to them. I get ideas for what to do next, by watching what they do next.

Ignore This Blog:
The educational resources and connection to be found on the internet make it well worth the trouble, in my view; but the onlines can also easily contribute to an overwhelmed feeling of inferiority in a new-to-home-schooler.

If you see another school-homie doing something cool, it's because they took a picture and told you all about it, myself included. Enjoy the inspiration, make it your own, but don't compare your whole life to another person's prettiest display window. You don't even want to know how bad I smell right now, showing off my cute little music coupons and seed packets.

In the end, your home student is in the same boat as mine, and all of their school peers. Life just took a crazy turn and we're all riding this learning curve together. As we careen into who-knows-what -schooling, decide what matters and try to make it happen, but go easy on yourself when your kid's number one accomplishment for the day was nailing. that. ponytail.

Ignore pressure to hold together a system that just came apart. Instead, turn up your senses, trust your kids, and strive for quality, as you define it.
Modeling healthy habits during stressful times is a life lesson crash-coursing us all, like it or not.
We are all homeschoolers now. 

TIONDS: Part II: The Utter Collapse of Everything

The first thing I noticed, Monday morning, was the dirt under my nails. It's not an uncommon sight in March, but I tend to do a better job scrubbing the farmwork off of myself before starting the week of workwork, at a schoolschool.

Except Monday was not a workday, nor was it a school day, though it was a weekday.

I heard the husband downstairs in the kitchen and started to fire up the mental list of expectations: The kids, me, home all day. Garden, animals, books, online stuff, music, lunch in there somewhere. Usually. The days are a blur of laundry and Miyazaki films. Yesterday, it was the towels and Totoro. Today, kid clothes and, maybe Kiki?

Did the last six years even happen?

Am I just imagining it, or did we all spend a whole lot of a long while getting up early, putting on regular pants, and leaving the house everyday? Backpacks. I seem to remember backpacks, and living life with almost no straw in my hair.

Well, the Importance of Not Doing Something turns out to have have implications reaching way way beyond this dinky little backyard blog. Learning to curb, to self-regulate, to see the value in saying "No," to the eternally soggy-bottomed desire to sink into a habit and ignore its inherent dangers: that's what I was going after when trying to get my kids to spend less time on their screens.

But now, we all have to tell ourselves no, when it comes to just about everything. No school, no work, no public places. Stay home, stay well, and stay out of the traffic stream helping COVID-19 romp around on a global spring break.

And all the screens say,

 Okay, so maybe they are  keeping people employed, connected, informed, and literally fed.

For sure online technology is making it possible for the primary breadwinner in this house to continue working, for the aspiring teachermom to keep studying, and it will be heavily involved in our kids enjoying resources provided to them by the school district.

So, what's the point of even continuing this New Year's Resolution? Is it too late to change it to Spend MORE Time on Screens?

Last week feels like forever ago, but I have a foggy recollection of life back then. I remember wanting the kids to take a bigger role in limiting their screen time. I wanted them to learn to live better by practicing self-regulation. And they did.

 And it was awesome. The end. HAHAHAHA.

Those were quaint times, when we could concern ourselves with such frivolities. Right now, we need to flex our apocalypse readiness and turn this BU out.

I type these words with grubby fingers that spread straw like it was a Thursday morning, 2013. The news came the other day: we're in for a six week hiatus. Six weeks of a life we lived for six years.

 We might just learn something.