Everyday beginning March 16th, teaching took on another whole meaning. I love my children with all of my heart, but I was not meant to be a homeschool teacher!! Trying to teach my own children was the pits!! We turned our living room into a classroom for the four of us.
We decided that even though we were going to be home daily, we were going to stick to a schedule, and continue to make it a normal school day. The boys woke up, ate breakfast and began their schoolwork at 8am daily. The oldest would get frustrated because most of his teachers didn't put his work up until almost 11am. It also frustrated me because on a normal day school didn't start that late, so why shouldn't work be online by normal school hours? Somedays this was a good thing because I would be finished with work, so I was able to see what he was doing.
The middle child was the best! He loves school, his teacher and even doing schoolwork. He would work quickly and quietly daily. Most days he would have zoom meetings with his teacher and classmates which made it good for him to see someone other than his brothers. He would occasionally ask me to look over his math or what he had written because he wanted to double check that it was all correct. This is my child that wants to be a surgeon, he is very meticulous, 
Then there is Mean Machine! We nicknamed him that many years ago, and he often reminds us why we call him that still today! He and I would battle daily!! He would scream and cry he hated reading, or writing, and I didn't know what I was talking about in math. Seriously? It's second grade work and I'm a teacher. I'm pretty sure I can handle helping with second grade. For the first two weeks I wanted to rip my hair out of my head. I FaceTimed his sweet teacher one day and asked if that was how he behaved for her. She was shocked! She informed me that he never once cried or threw himself on the floor in frustration over work, and that he did it without much help or guidance at all. I'm glad he has never showed out in class, but it made me crazy daily doing it at home. After two weeks of his nonsense, I finally expelled him from "my classroom" and made him sit with his dad. From that day forward I didn't hear a peep out of him during "school." Really??
For years my two oldest would ask to be homeschooled. After this virtual learning experience, we all realized that homeschooling wasn't for us! I can't imagine if this continues into next school year. I love my own kids, but teaching at school in front of other peoples' children is so much easier! I do think that this experience has shown a lot of people that teaching isn't as easy as some believe. It has shown many that virtual learning takes time, patience and true self determination to understand the new way of learning and to get it completed.
I would say that many great things did come out of this mess we call Covid-19. We were able to teach our children outside of the box. Field trips were learning opportunities that we experienced with them, teaching them the importance of each trip, moment and practice. I am thankful we have been able to spend this time together, but all of this needs to clear up so we can all go back to school! If not, there will be more posts that hopefully help us all get through this together!
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