Tri-Cities News journalist Mario Bartel and his family have just finished 14 days of self-isolation. Now, while both he and his wife are both working from home, they鈥檙e faced with the realities of coping with all the challenges of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Monday, I hunted monsters in our neighbourhood using a plastic coat hanger as my crossbow.
Whenever someone walked by, I had to stand still with the coat hanger perched atop my head. To ease any discomfort in those passers-by, I told them we were just 鈥渉anging out.鈥�
That was our designated 鈥渃reative time鈥� activity as my family embarked on its very first adventure into home-schooling our seven-year-old son as my wife and I still did our work.
It wasn鈥檛 easy.
Sunday, my wife and I sat down to put together a bit of a loose schedule that would put some structure into the day and give our son specific goals and tasks to complete.
As the teachers still haven鈥檛 sent along any sort of detailed plan, we improvised with blocks for general activities like reading, creative and quiet times, along with breaks for lunch, snacks and a bath. Oh, wait a minute, I don鈥檛 think they have bath time at school鈥�
Our home-schooling is also complicated by our son鈥檚 enrolment in early French immersion, so he has to be able to practise en 蹿谤补苍莽补颈蝉 as well.
Fortunately, I鈥檝e retained enough of my high school and first-year university French that we鈥檙e able to conduct simple conversations, which is exactly what we spontaneously did as we hunted those monsters outside. It鈥檚 fun, and reassuring, that some of that knowledge is still with me.
Other challenges loom on the horizon, as they likely will for other families.
We have two computers in our household, plus one ancient and slow iPad. As it appears much of the home curriculum will be coming at us via an app called Google Classroom, we鈥檙e stumped as to how our son will be able to participate when both of our computers are tied up for our work, and the iPad may not be robust and up-to-date enough to handle the software. Maybe I'll work the night shift.
Throwing our entire school system online at the same time also presumes the telecommunications infrastructure 鈥� which is already being taxed by everyone else being online to conduct their business affairs and meetings over their computers as well, let along voluminous Netflix streaming 鈥� can handle the additional load. We鈥檙e on fibre and already we鈥檝e noticed slowdowns and quality drops when trying to participate in FaceTime meetings.
Perhaps the biggest challenge will be getting our son to buy into his school time as actual school time when he鈥檚 surrounded by all his familiar environs and distractions of home, and he knows exactly which buttons to press in his parents, who aren鈥檛 his teachers.
Just as 鈥淚鈥檓 bored鈥� won鈥檛 cut it with his teacher, he鈥檒l have to learn that here, and we鈥檒l have to learn to not let him play that card.
As with everything else in these uncertain and fluid times, it鈥檚 a work in progress.
