Launa Writes

Time 2021-01-07 08:03:13

Web Name: Launa Writes

WebSite: http://www.launawrites.com

ID:159303

Keywords:

Launa,Writes,

Description:

Flashback March 26, 2020 Ten and a half years ago, in the fall of 2009, we became a homeschooling family, overnight. It wasn’t what we intended, but it was what happened.We bungled into it, having (OK, stupidly) sent our kids to a rural public school in southern France, acting on a series of abstract ideas about “grit” and “facing challenge” and “little kids pick up languages so easily!” It was an unwise, unholy union of Tourjours, Provence; Eat, Love, Pray; and Modern Family (Yes, I am a less-buff Claire Dunphy, and Bill is Phil.) After several weeks of limping through a failed experience, with one kid gritting her teeth to get through and the other melting down in a puddle of tears on the regular, we took the plunge and pulled Grace out of school, risking our visas and a pissy scrunched up angry faced  “Non!” from the entire French government.It wasn’t easy, but it was one of the best choices we ever made. You can read about the day before we quit school here. And the day we quit here. And the next, awesome days here.And now? 2020, eleven years later?Every single kid I know is in homeschool. And literally every institution I’ve ever been associated with — little Galway Central and fancy Amherst College and the gargantuan University of Michigan and Taft and Poly and BHMS and Hewitt — is closed for everyone except a few security guards and some janitors.Not a single one of these institutions ever would have changed so much so quickly, but we had to. Hashtag COVID-19 means that my own girls are essentially suspended from Smith and Berkeley Carroll. I tear up every time I see a post on Instagram from one of their schools. All I can see is the loss, the loss, the loss of all the joy they would be having together with their friends. The challenges they would be facing in the classrooms. The plays. Oh god, the plays. How stupid it is for me to mourn the plays when thousands upon thousands of people are sick and dying. But god. The plays.And instead, homeschool. Utterly unprepared teachers, and less-prepared students and parents. They rant and complain in the New York Times.Only this time, I’m not the teacher. I’m guiding nearly 40 teachers to teach nearly 200 students. While homeschool the first time started out scary and then got really great, I’m still in the scary part. How will the students react? How will they learn? As things become more stressful over long stretches of time, how will we all adjust, react, and pivot?Last time, homeschool was the happiest of endings. This time, I’m back at the beginning of the story, and I can’t yet know what comes next. So for all of you out there with too much time on your hands, put them together and say a little prayer for all of us. We’re excited to start, but we’re going to need courage, grit, determination and a powerful commitment to learning and to our students.Comments on this entry are closed

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