I know very few children (especially in grades K-2) who are doing well with "virtual school" this year (and I know even fewer working parents who are holding things together). Here in rural northern California, we have had a few "tentative" school-opening dates floated in the past few months which keep getting pushed back due to teachers' and school board's discomfort with local COVID, with our cases rising after Thanksgiving (currently, we have about 30-40 new cases per day for about 135,000 residents), even though people have been very responsible locally.
That elementary school hasn't been deemed "essential" nor prioritized (yet), while restaurants and bars are open and while the pandemic rages across this country due to irresponsible people flaunting mask-wearing has utterly enraged me; however, I've currently resigned myself to focusing on "zooming in" (leaning in) to this "virtual" learning model and not being so disappointed at the "big-picture" catastrophe that this is for so many children and families. While I have strong opinions that the risks of keeping schools closed for a generation of children outweigh the current (especially local) public health concerns, public school re-opening is not something I can control. Obviously, the academics for kinder aren't so critical while the social-emotional development is, and I'm so thankful that my son still gets to see kids at his exceptional daycare, where the teachers are doing an amazing job supervising multiple kids' programs in "distance learning," (and staying healthy; no shut-downs to date in his room!) while we await more community herd immunity. I'm praying that our local teachers, including all the childcare heroes, get their vaccines really soon. The kindergarten Maestra is working hard to try to engage and teach the kids with short videos and different computer games and activities, but the content is quite disappointing, and I hate the amount of forced screen time it involves. I'm cautiously optimistic about possible school later this spring, but I'm not actually expecting that Iver will be able to attend public school until first grade. It's hard to believe and so sad that kids may miss a whole year (or more) of formal education due to this country's pandemic mismanagement and lots of misinformation (or fears not rooted in the evidence).
Iver is a smart, curious child, and I have struggled to try to keep him engaged (as Zoom Spanish is not effective at helping him learn this language) in the time we have together. I'm not a patient nor natural-born teacher. I've also realized that feeling responsible and trying to be his main Spanish/kindergarten teacher while working my full-time "essential" job is not a healthy relationship for us. So we try to do some of his school assignments/worksheets over the weekend, with lots of reading and learning about different topics in science and history, as well as doing art and other projects, and... I pray that this is enough, because it's all I can manage (I've also asked Kelvin to try to jump in and help be the school task-master at least every other day, but he's also not keen on it). Iver surprises me frequently with the depth of his understanding about COVID and the world, with assignments like these (where I was involved in the translations but he did the brainstorming)...
However, truthfully, I've stopped caring about how he is (and we are) judged. We're all just trying to survive this year, and I've let a lot of my high standards slip! These assignments truly capture how "Zoom-Spanish immersion-Corona-Kindergarten" has been for us and for so many other families. We have seen some deep insights and learning amidst a very challenging time, punctuated by the absence of adequate parental supervision, general absurdity, and, well, a good deal of $*#%.
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