Part 7: Chapter 3

Distance Learning

Friday, July 17, 2020
	It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t feel fine. The children’s elementary school has announced that they will not be starting back up in person for the 2020-2021 school year. Thus, they are making preparations for distance learning. Ipad updates will be issued. Classes as well as homework will take place online. The school will continue to provide free lunches for children whether they are enrolled or not, but no students will be allowed on campus. Was not aware that the school was providing free meals, but this is the least of my disappointments.
	Read this email and then wander around the house like a zombie. There is no hope. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. I cannot for the life of me imagine doing more online schooling come August. It was a big joke with two first graders. A big joke that no one found funny. I’m not going to make my children do online school next year. It’s not healthy for them to be glued to a screen. I had to teach them how to navigate their iPads and ensure they stayed on task the entire time. And their assignments were ridiculous! 
	Had told Beatrice that if the children’s school continues distance learning next year, I would homeschool. Realize now that I didn’t mean it and only said it out of anger. Feel utterly incapable of homeschooling. Had an awful time trying to get them to finish their first-grade work. How on earth could I motivate them to do second-grade work? What are second graders supposed to learn anyway? When would I plan my lessons? Who would watch Johnny? What if the fleas return and I have a mental breakdown? 
	During these distressing thoughts, I wander into our bathroom and accidentally walk in on Steve using the facilities. He screams like an old woman which shocks me out of my stupor and sends us both into fits of laughter. Our bathroom door has an old-fashioned glass door knob and mortise lock, and as we do not walk around our house with skeleton keys hanging from our belts, we never lock our bathroom door.
	My laughter turns to tears and when Steve finishes, I tell him the bad news. He holds me and nods and then suggests that perhaps we ask Robert, the neighbor from whom Steve borrows tools, to make us a teaching robot.
	About a month ago, I was walking by Robert’s house with the children when we discovered him tearing apart a motorcycle in his driveway. He took the entire thing to pieces, then lay the pieces out in an orderly fashion on a blue tarp on his driveway. I asked him what he was doing.
	“Making a robot with my grandson,” he said. “My other grandson is having chemo and getting all the attention, so I’m setting up this project for him and me to do together.”
	“Oh,” I replied and nodded. Why wouldn’t you make a robot out of motorcycle parts during a pandemic? And why wouldn’t I make a robot to teach my children school? That’s basically what iPads are. Right?
	
Virtual Learning Idea: Kids put on virtual reality goggles and see their teacher teaching them in a classroom. They move, write, go outside, and play all with their goggles on. The only drawback is that children need to be in a padded room so that they don’t bump into furniture and injure themselves.