ByGD
At the end of the school year, everyone in my family felt that distance learning was generally successful for us. But we were also very ready for the school year to end. After getting off to a strong start, we barely limped across the finish line for the last week of school. But it was also a strong finish. Because nothing is ever simple.
ByGD
{Well, this is annoying. While working on the blog last weekend, I noticed this post, which I wrote at the end of April. It was scheduled to publish May 1, but for due to some mysterious technical glitch, it didn’t. Well, I hate to waste a blog post after taking the time to write it. So here it is now. Sorry about that.}
Coming back from a remarkably slothful spring break, in the sixth week since the school buildings closed, we entered our fifth week of pandemic homeschool instruction. Nobody was particularly excited to get back to work, and for the most part we skated by on the minimum effort. But it wasn’t all drudgery. We did some interesting things.
ByGD
When we first found out the schools wouldn’t reopen this year, I remember wondering if we would just keep homeschooling through the summer to make up for the inefficiency of distance learning. The state eventually decided to offer summer school as a remedial option. But by that time, I couldn’t wait for summer break. With only two weeks in the school year, we were seriously running out of homeschool steam, and instead of academics, my biggest concern was throwing a socially distant sweet sixteen birthday party.
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ByGD
It has been ten weeks since the schools closed, and all talk of establishing a “new normal” has died down, replaced the daily grind of normal pandemic homeschooling. I didn’t even have anything new to write about last week as we just keep on truckin – in place. This week, though, I’m starting to get some end of the school year vibes as some things start wrapping up and planning for next year gets started.
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ByGD
May always sneaks up on me. Planning ahead, it looks like a routine month, but as it gets closer my calendar fills up with late school year special events. This year, for obvious reasons, that hasn’t really happened. The trade off for a peaceful May is the loss of some milestones that are pretty meaningful for my kids. Lockdown already has enough in common with Groundhog Day without ignoring milestones, so even if substitutions are just vestigial acknowledgements of old systems, we can’t afford to ignore them. We’re passing milestones during the pandemic, they just aren’t marking the same road we thought we would be on.
