I recently posted a meme that pictured Karen Hill from the film, Goodfellas. It’s from the scene when Karen visits the apartment building of her husband’s mistress. In the scene, Karen has come undone. Her two young girls are holding her hand, looking up at her confused and wide-eyed as she slams the buzzers of every tenant in the building, yelling through the intercom system, even calling the superintendent, to let them all know that the woman in 2R - Janice Ross - is nothing but a…well…check it out when you can. It’s a powerful scene. Karen’s anger, stress, and unraveling came to mind after reading angry posts by (mostly) moms who are fired up about the amount of schoolwork being sent home during this crisis. Ok, their rage is on a much lesser scale than Karen’s, but it’s a meme.
This mom gets it. I’ve been so overwhelmed by the endless emails constantly coming home from the district and not just the school teachers but from the CCD and dance teachers as well. There are schedules to print and follow. Zoom calls to attend. There are a ton of links and passwords. There are the smiling children in my feed who are doing all the cool things that I need to do with my own kids. All of this combined with not being able to focus on my own work schedule and feeling anxious about the virus affecting people in my extended family and in the world around us.
(Home)school is in Session…I think?
When this whole thing started and the schools decided to close, I feel like everyone (this includes the schools and myself) went into frantic mode. I received two weeks-worth of classwork for my 2nd grader and my 4th grader. (My 6th grader, who also received a large amount of work, was thankfully old enough to keep track of it and handle it on her own.)
Then, at some point, we were told by the district that our spring break would be moved up and we’d use our unused snow days for this “time off.” I asked myself: Do all these assignments need to be completed now or not? If it’s spring break, the kids get a break from schoolwork, don’t they? I figured we’d get an email if the work that was posted didn’t have to be done. But that email never came and so I had my kids do what their teachers had initially sent them to do. My thought process was this: It looks like we are going to be in this house for a while. There are 12 hours in the day and these kids are going to need something to do. Schoolwork will help break up the day, and they’ll be learning at the same time. Maybe I’ll get some work done when they do theirs. It can be a good thing.
Reality Sets In
Sitting with each of my kids to do the assigned classwork had to take place at different times since there’s only 1 of me, 2 of them, and 1 laptop. It ended up taking up large portions of the day. My work got pushed aside. I also wanted to make sure they got their down time because they were after all on spring break. Kinda. Sorta. Wait…were they? I didn’t really get if they were but nonetheless, they got their screen time. We went for walks. They taught me TikTok dances. We painted rocks. I fed them…again and again and again. We vegged. They played and fought. We painted more rocks. I did all that other stuff that comes with running a household like laundry, and cleaning toilets and floors. It was tough to keep up with all of it. The schoolwork was way more involved than I had expected. It was science projects. Videos with detailed questions. Math sheets. Elaborate writing assignments. Some of the things they could do on their own. Much, I needed to assist them with or maybe I didn’t, but I felt compelled to. My 4th grader got most of my attention so the workload for my 2nd grader was put on the back burner and as a result, we quickly fell behind. I got anxious and annoyed. They got anxious and annoyed. I got resentful. What about my work - the work that helps pay the bills?
The Email
During the course of all this, I sent an email to my youngest daughter’s teacher. I didn’t directly ask her if the work needed to be completed since technically - for all you Friends fans out there - “WE WERE ON A BREAK!” Instead, I mentioned that I was a bit overwhelmed by all of it. She wrote me back this:
I am sure it is quite overwhelming with all 3 kids and working from home for you. Just do the best you can as I am sure you are. You can be sure to have your child read each day (whether it be online or reading real books), work on some sort of math, and perhaps do some writing (a journal, personal narrative story, or nonfiction book) and this will be good. We have our shining star moments and not so great moments working with our own kids. At our home we have been doing 1 hour of “paper” academics, reading independently for 20 mins, and 1-hour iPad academics each day and I feel this is plenty. We are also having fun with arts and crafts and outdoor play! I hope you all are well!
And just like that, the load was lifted. My husband had been telling me to just forget about the classwork for days, but I needed to hear it from my daughter’s teacher. Upon receiving this email, I decided to let it all go. We did much of what was posted but not all of it. We did the best we could. It would have been nice if the initial assignments were more like what was mentioned in the above email rather than receiving 2-weeks-worth of detailed work that made my head spin with each new click of a document. But in reflecting on this with my husband, I realized school officials were just trying to do the best they could with the hand they were dealt…all on the fly. They were (and still are) trying to figure out how to go on with the every day – much like us and the rest of the world are trying to do.
The Kids Will Be Alright
Some of our kids’ teachers are also parents. My one teacher friend has a baby and a toddler at home and is putting in a 16-hour day to meet the expectations of her district, students, their parents, and her own children. They have their own kids’ classwork to tend to and are trying to balance working from home just like us. They are preparing lessons, grading work, and trying to find creative ways to get our kids excited about learning remotely during a very scary time. They are writing long, detailed instructions for parents who are not tech savvy. They are answering emails from not one, but several panicky parents, like me. (Godspeed, teachers...Godspeed.)
Something else I came to realize? (Thank you, husband.) I never asked any of the teachers my most pressing question about whether the work was mandatory or optional and it was on my mind and irritating the hell out of me for weeks. I could have easily bypassed a lot of taxing moments with my children had I just asked the damn question. When I did finally ask, it was way after the fact. Shame on me. The bright side? Doing schoolwork right from the start of all this got my kids into a routine and set up some much-needed structure. Yesterday’s “official” first day of distance learning was completely painless for all of us.
I’m going to wrap up this post with an obvious reminder that is very worthy of mentioning…again. We are currently living in a state of crisis. We are experiencing something as a nation that we have never experienced before. The uncertainty of it all is unnerving. The world is on pause and as such, we are all going through similar situations and are going to be in the same place - at varying levels of severity - when we come out of this. We are learning as we go and need to cut each other some slack. It’s a high stress time for everyone. Nothing will run as smoothly as we want it to. We need to try to relax, breathe, and be patient with the new order of things – or the lack thereof. I know this is all easier said than done. I’m writing these words because I need to hear them myself, more than anyone else.
Crises have the power to make us unravel. We become Karen Hill and the school administrator becomes Janice Rossi. We are afraid and so we rant and vent while our kids are standing there listening. Karen was afraid of losing her husband. What are we afraid of losing when it comes to our children and their education? Are we nervous about losing our jobs because we can’t get to our own work? Our sanity? Are we afraid of our kids losing themselves? Are we willing to let it all go and decide for ourselves what is best for them? Are we willing to speak up to their teachers in an honest and diplomatic way? As we navigate this new role of teacher, we have to remind ourselves to just do the best we can. Our kids will be okay. They will learn what they need to learn whether they complete all the assignments or not. For a control freak like me, realizing this has been a challenging learning experience. When we look back at this time, the grades our kids received aren’t going to matter. But the way we interact with them and with the people who are trying to help us teach them will.