Tales from the Home school....#covid19 #homeschool #lockdownireland #lockdown #pagan

It's not homeschooling, she says with a very snooty toss of her head.

There is a woman being interviewed on TV; she has home-schooled her children since they could walk. She was unpopular for doing so, she has suffered for her principles. She felt no one understood her children or could meet their needs, the way she could.
She is unpopular even among other, less evangelical home-schoolers, who hate the way she makes them look. We're not all cranks, they mutter silently. But she is the one the TV stations like to interview.

It's NOT home school. It is distance learning. It's a very different thing. Apparently.

I don't give a fuck, missus. I'm calling it home school because distance learning is too much effort. There. Go suck on that for a while.

Being housebound, being forced out of work and into a living room masquerading as a classroom, has soured me. I admit it. I'm a wee bit bitter. And I might be doing the pedantic spokeswoman for all things crunchy a disservice, but she is on my last damn nerve right now. I am at home, schooling my kids, so give me a break. Let me call it whatever I bloody want.

As you can see,home schooling is going well.

To be absolutely honest, I don't mind it too much. I'm capable of teaching. My kids are keeping up. I think I've come up with some quite decent ideas for peripatetic learning. The problem is, I don't want to be doing it.
I resent the fact that a virus is working its way through our citizenry. It shut our schools, the wee bastard. It has disrupted business, the little shite. As for the nightly round up of cases and worse, deaths, it has my heart scalded. Like everyone else, I accept that the school closures and business ruination is a small price to pay to save one single life.
But I'm still a bit bitter about it.

I also am a lot humbled by it. Look, I'm an author. I'm a poet.. I've been published, for gods' sakes. I hold an hons BA in History and English and a TEFL cert. There is a sneaking bit of me that was fairly sure up to now that if we all were really really honest about it, I could easily teach my kids. Like, I wouldn't. They need the socialization. But if I had to, well, I'd be as qualified as any teacher.

YEAH RIGHT.

That little pimple of vanity has been burst.

 There's a reason they make primary school teachers go to college for 4 years. I suspect 2 of those are spent developing the zen-like patience of a martyred saint. The other 2 are devoted to crowd control and self defense techniques.
There's possibly a module on withstanding torture.

I twitch at the sound of "Mammmmmy" - is it all 6 year olds or only mine that can make that sound both accusatory and imperious?
 If I am asked one more time "What words rhyme with...." or am told "I haven't finished. I was stuck on answer two and you didn't help me..." I won't be responsible for my actions.
If I am interrupted in the middle of writing an important email by one more "when will lunch be?" I am going to go hide in the car.
Actually now I think of it, that's not a bad idea. I have a travel mug around here somewhere.