Corona Diary #1

I’m not sure why this evening’s announcement of a national lockdown hit me so hard. After all, it’s no different to what we were doing anyway, but perhaps the removal of choice was what shook me.
It has taken me a couple of hours (and a good night’s sleep will help too) to refocus on all the good things that have happened in the last few days as we all started to adjust to the new normal.

On Friday we did a long-put-off science experiment and investigated the difference between hard and soft woods by counting how many hits of the hammer it took each person to bang a nail through, and how far each of us could saw through in 60 seconds. That no one suffered any injuries at all with Ben participating so enthusiastically can only be down to divine intervention.

On Saturday I had a very productive Zoom meeting with the other Cheder teachers as we worked out how to do Cheder online. A plan was made, we all got to talk to other adults, and our children were able to wave to each other. Afterwards I managed to catch the last half of a live-streamed Shabbat service from a synagogue in London where we know the rabbi well. They have been live streaming services for years and it was seamless. We promised ourselves that we will make a point of joining this every Saturday from now on - and with that and Cheder, we suddenly have two weekly events to build our calendar round. Both the religious experience (and promise of a communal one, as kiddush after the service is via Zoom) and the anchor of a few fixed points in the week helped me feel much more settled.

Sunday, of course, was Mothers‘ Day. The boys made me cards and got me flowers (accompanied by an enthusiastic "Happy birthday, Mummy" from Benjamin, much to his brothers’ disapproval). I taught online for an hour (nothing new there) and then remote-taught my parents how to use Zoom for their jobs. My dad was most taken by the option to add a background and will henceforth be working from outer space rather than his slightly messy study.

Later, I drove to my parents’ house with a thermos of tea and sat on their drive at an appropriate distance while they drank their tea on the porch. I still have the tail end of a cough from whatever lurgy I had last week and simply wasn’t risking passing it to anyone. There is no escaping the fact that this was HARD. I so desperately wanted to give them a hug, bring their grandchildren to see them, just be normal. I am so glad I took the opportunity before the lockdown, even though I got back into the car and burst into tears for the first time since all this began.

A cream tea took the place of dinner. Under the circumstances, cake for a main meal felt suitably apocalyptic.

Today we started properly. The RT’s school have set an impressive (if, in my unsolicited view, both unnecessary and unrealistic) and non-negotiable amount of distance learning, mostly requiring the use of a computer. We worked out a rough schedule so the boys can get their computer work done early (the RT, like most teenagers, surfaces rather later than them) and then we can make do with just the iPad for the rest of the day.

While the RT got on with that, the boys and I joined Poco Drom for his live-streamed session on Facebook. If you haven’t met Poco Drom yet, go and look on Facebook and YouTube. You can thank me later. Half an hour of funny and energetic animal songs (interspersed with shout-outs which told us several of our friends were also taking part) left us breathless and laughing. Another one for the calendar.

Then lunch, an hour at the allotment cutting grass, digging over a bed (RT gets all the credit for that one) and trimming brambles, back home to finish off as much work as we were going to do today, and rounded off with a much-needed Zoom coffee date with several friends. We laughed and commiserated, waved knitting and cake around, swore a bit, and did our best Joyce Grenfell impressions as our kids wandered in and out and puppies did unspeakable things (or was it the other way round? No way to know...)

Tomorrow I will make jam with the fruit that has been evicted from the freezer to make room for the weekly shop. I have a coffee date with another friend. And I have a circuits kit ready to teach my children how to electrocute themselves in new and interesting ways.

Home Ed... at Home?!

Imagine you go on holiday to a different country. Somewhere exotic - Turkey, perhaps. But while you are there, you don’t leave your hotel. The hotel staff speak your language, the restaurant cooks the food you are familiar with, the air conditioning keeps the temperature down. You stay a while, and then you go home. 

Have you really been to Turkey? Technically, yes, but you didn’t get to experience the culture, the language, the food, the sights and smells, the heat. 

This is how the Home Education community feels as hundreds of thousands of school children suddenly have to learn from home and their parents start frantically messaging us asking for tips on how to homeschool. 

Shout it from the rooftops: This is not home education. As home educators we are used to being anywhere but home. We spend our days at forest schools, groups, museums, libraries, classes, workshops, stately homes, playdates. We may be more accustomed to having our children with us all the time but please remember, isolation has us all reeling too. And when all this is over and the schools re-open, remember that you have barely glimpsed our world - but maybe let that glimpse inspire you to find out more. 

We have struggled this week. For a start, I had some sort of virus. It became clear quite quickly that it wasn’t COVID-19 but it still seemed prudent to self-isolate for the recommended time. DH works in the care sector and is considered front-line, so he was trying to work from home. Our resident teenager (with us since late last year and likely to stay for a while yet; henceforth to be known as RT) was off school and having to adjust to that. I was feeling awful and soon realised that our normal home routine just wasn’t going to work under the circumstances. 

After a rather stressful day at the beginning of the week staggering around and trying to force some work from the boys, I came to my senses. If there’s one thing home edders are familiar with, it‘s how the rhythm can suddenly change. Developmental leaps, seasons, illnesses and so much more can completely stir up the way that each child learns, and we adapt to that. So we have stopped and we are giving ourselves space to find our new normal. 

The big adjustment for us, of course, is the loss of our social groups. We are so used to structuring our week around groups and co-ops and classes and meet-ups. Suddenly, those are gone. Some of our closest friends are extremely vulnerable and so in strict isolation. The museums and stately homes we visit so frequently are closed. 

The last time we saw anyone outside the immediate family was Monday, when a friend dropped something off and had a brief chat from a safe distance. There has been the odd bit of contact via video link but nowhere near enough. 

Right now, this feels really overwhelming, especially on top of worry about loved ones, the stress of limited food supplies, and the myriad small disappointments of missed weddings, bar mitzvahs, holidays, projects. 

So we breathe. We stop, look around, and trust that things will resolve into a new normal soon. We plan countryside walks and activities. We start working out how to move some activities online, learn to make the most of time spent together via Skype, Zoom and FaceTime. We make use of livestreamed events (music sessions, educational talks, synagogue services) and build our week around them. 

Together we will work out how to navigate the next few months. 

And I will go quietly nuts as Ben pursues his goal of flooding the house (with water or cooking oil, he isn’t fussy) with a tenacity and ingenuity worth of a much better cause.