Lockdown Home-schooling - What Have We Learned?

(Before I start, apologies for the ENORMOUS text.  I'm not trying to shout - this post's settings are just screwed up...)

So.  Here we are in Week 14 of Home Learning.  (Well - Wk 12 if you deduct the two week holiday in the middle.  I don't.  Because it didn't really seem like a holiday, what with all the fretting and worrying etc).  What have we learned, parents?

• Back at the start of this, you may have set up work stations to help everyone get their work done in peace.  Cue hollow laughter.  We've always known it, and Lockdown has confirmed it; the kitchen table is magnetic. It draws in people, pencil cases, clutter, bowls of fruit, old receipts, unread books and laptops like some kind of domestic Death Star.  To top this off, the chairs around it will be festooned with charging cables, earphone cords, dog leads, cardigans and sweatshirts like the cobwebs in the cave of Shelob the spider in The Lord of Rings, and all of them - ALL of them - are directly in the dog's path when the doorbell rings and he goes from snoring noisily in the corner to a one hundred mile an hour dash though the house. And as he races, barking crazily, towards the front door to defend his territory from the evil postman, you and your kids will have to throw yourselves across the whole set of wire spaghetti to stop your precious electronics crashing to the floor like a sea captain and her crew trying to protect their charts in a heavy squall.
  
  

• And whilst we're on the subject of the kitchen table (that you and your children sit at all day, every day, Every. Ruddy. Day.  FOR EVER.), sooner or later books will be lost, pens mislaid, cups of tea and glasses of water knocked over and you - YOU - will have to a) clear it up and b) not lose your shit about this because c) this whole situation is ridiculous and frankly, not your childrens' fault and d) if you don't it's your phone that will get soaked (because your kids' phones are, of course, in their hands).
  
  
• Speaking of your phone, it goes missing, about twenty times a day... 
  
  
•  ... and it's always exactly where you left it, in the first place you looked but couldn't find it, as if some malicious house elf has been messing with your mind.
  
  
• You can never find though, until you ask one of your kids to call it for you and it reveals itself nestled in the leaf-litter on the kitchen table, tucked safely between a Domino's pizza flyer and the text book one of your children last opened on Lockdown Week 2 and which - despite repeated requests it be put away - has somehow mysteriously made it's way from table to counter and back again every day for the last 12 weeks 
  
  
• Breathe.  Deeply.
  
  
• Furthermore, and I can't believe this will come as a surprise to most parents, children can be impressively sneaky when it comes to online learning.  (MY children, at any rate).  They will wait until your attention is directed elsewhere and then toggle across from whatever they are supposed to be looking at online to something way more entertaining.  And should you dare ask questions about what exactly they've been working on, or ask to see the work they need to submit, you may be treated to an Oscar-winning performance of hurt and disappointed indignation that you could ever doubt their actions.  (This is usually where I point out that they're not fooling me - I was once a child, too).
  
  
• I don't blame them, having been known to flip my screen from browsing through holiday porn to that VERY IMPORTANT E-MAIL when I hear them about to enter the room...
  
  
• Last, but most definitely not least, time spent alone outside for odd huff, puff and - possibly - scream is an underrated form of therapy.

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Lockdown Stretches

We do a stretch every school day at 10.00am, my sons and I.  We put aside whatever we're working on, get up from the kitchen table, and spend five minutes jumping around.  The dog tries to join in, we all bumble around in an effort to escape him (shorts weather offers no protection from his too-sharp claws), and we finish by properly Shaking It Out.  It lifts our spirits, wakes us up. It helps.  Then we make ourselves a cup of tea, sit down, and get back to whatever we were working on before.

When I started The 10.00am Stretch (yes, more capitals.  Get over it) back in the dark days of the third week of March, we were new to homeschooling.  We were also new, like everyone else, to Lockdown, and the whole complex combination of awfulness, relief, dread and - dare I say it - spasmodic sense of peacefulness that comprise it.  We - or I - hadn't yet realised how much it was going to mess with our heads.  The constant low-level fear of what might happen next seemed likely to be a temporary condition.

Well, it's now Lockdown - or a version of it - Week 11.  I wish I could say that the cocktail of feelings I described above has changed significantly but it hasn't, not really.  Of course, boredom has been thrown into the mix, along with frustration and despair at how badly the response to Covid19 has been managed in the UK, and a guarded sense of acceptance that other than by wearing a mask whilst shopping, I can make very little difference to that.  And obviously there's yet more fear.  Not for me personally, but for my children; what will this mean for them, long term?  For my parents; will they have to stay in isolation forever?  For the world at large; for those still unable to venture out due to health conditions and who consequently can't support themselves and their families, and finally yes, I'm going to say it, the horror of being a distant witness to the unrest - and the causes of it - in the US and elsewhere. 

But, we have to keep on keeping on.  Time and tide wait for no man and all that, so we need to push through this the best we can and hope it all comes out alright in the end.

For me and my boys, keeping on means jumping around the kitchen for The 10.00am Stretch, even when we (or, increasingly, I) don't particularly feel like it.  Because, even if the dog's claws are sharp, and my shoulder hurts, and we're feeling a bit meh, we're doing it together and it makes us feel better.  

It helps.

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Having it all in Lockdown

There are a lot of mixed messages regarding Lockdown floating around in the UK right now.  Lockdown is over, but it's not.  You're allowed to see people, but only one at a time.  If you want to see both your parents you can, but only outside and one at a time; if you want to see both you should leave a ten minute gap in between.  We should wear masks - but only in confined spaces, not necessarily in all inside spaces, and they may not help much anyway - but they might, so you should.

Most people seem to be navigating their way through this host of confusion quite sensibly.  But if you look online - and take it seriously - there's a whole other mess of Lockdown advice, most of which seems expressly designed to make us feel bad about ourselves.

Lockdown, it seems, is a chance for us not to power-down and get through it, but rather the opposite.  Leave aside working from home and holding onto a job, we're supposed to be getting more sleep, more exercise, eating better, learning new skills (masterclasses, anyone?), and generally re-organising our lives for the better.  Our homes are supposed to be cleaner than they've ever been, the shelves tidier, the freezers organised, the annoying little rats' nests of change, clutter, keys and receipts tidied up, once and for all.  Our wardrobes are supposed to rationalised, though quite where we're supposed to take those clothes that have been outgrown etc, I'm not sure.  Oh - wait - they can be repurposed into NEW clothes, that you make on the sewing machine you've unearthed at the back of one of those cupboards you just organised.  Oh, and sourdough!  (Fabulous; sourdough starter - something else to kill.  I can't even keep a house plant alive...)

Well.  Bollocks to that lot, frankly.

If I can stay on top of my children's home learning schedules (their school is still running to time-table.  So that's fun), put a wash on and remember to take it out again, go through the surreal experience that is visiting the supermarket once a week or so, and occasionally remember to run a hoover around the place to avoid our needing to wade through drifts of spring-time moult from the dog, and still be talking to my family in complete sentences by bedtime, then the rest can go to hell.

That's my version of Lockdown having it all, anyway...

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Lockdown Creativity #4

It's approaching the end of Lockdown Week 8 in the UK.  The restrictions here are easing, a little obscurely perhaps, but distance learning continues for now.  Which brings me straight to my first suggestion for a hit of Lockdown Creativity, and the reason why I'm hitting publish on this post on a Thursday rather than a Friday (as over the last three weeks).

(Note: if you can't see the embedded videos, I've attached a link at the bottom of each paragraph)

The English National Ballet have put together a temporary and free programme of online masterclasses (click here to access those) which in themselves - if dance is your thing - are worth checking out.   However, the reason I'm publishing this week's Lockdown Creativity list a day early is so that if you have the time and inclination, you can check out their Wednesday Watch Party before it is taken offline tomorrow.  Each week they are putting a performance from their archives online where it can be viewed for free for 48 hours.  This week it's the strange, other-worldly and ethereal 'Fantastic Beings'.  Well worth a watch, and if you miss this week's don't worry - there should be another performance available next Wednesday.

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

For something a little less highbrow, take a look at Andrew Cottar's zoom meeting with his two labradors.  If you've not already come across them Olive & Mabel have become Lockdown internet stars since this all started, due mainly to Andrew's inspired racing commentary of his dogs' behaviours.  This one's a little different, but still hilarious.

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

Finally, three weeks ago I mentioned ITV's series of 4 short plays 'Isolation Stories' and how much I was looking forward to them.  Whilst they can't (yet) be viewed online, if you're interested in the challenges presented by producing new tv content during Lockdown, here's a fascinating insight into that from the BFI, also filmed in isolation.  Artists commenting on art, as art imitates life...

Click here for link if you can't see the embedded video

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