Novel Coronavirus: Distance Learning for Duncan
Due to the COVID-19 situation, we had actually pulled Duncan out of school for the final week, then he had two week’s autumn vacation which roughly coincided with Easter, giving us a grand total of three weeks for his school to get their act together, after eliminating our primary vector through which we could potentially contract the virus (I work from home and we’re not outgoing people). The other vector was our weekly grocery shop, which with some effort we’ve thus far managed to turn into a bi-weekly shop instead.
So this week was Duncan’s first week “back”, and mercifully Victorian schools have put together a distance learning process, and Duncan’s is no exception. To their credit, Duncan’s school has actually done a spectacularly impressive job at coping with it (probably made easier by the fact it’s a smaller school, but still I can’t imagine how much the teachers and staff had to work through the holidays). They actually sent out a survey to find out things like how much time the parents had, the quality of internet connections, and so on, and based the process around that. Sabriena had to go in and pick up a work packet for him on Tuesday, but all appropriate precautions are taken during this time apparently and the rest of the time Duncan’s at home.
It’s interesting to hear stories of other folks’ kids struggling with it, when our experience has been the exact opposite. Duncan’s always, so far, been a fantastic student, with the main thing he struggles with being distractions in class… which are entirely eliminated at home. We have a separate desk, which he uses unless he’s got a reason to be on his PC, and things like Discord are set on DND during school time. With all the distractions gone, he absolutely crushes his work out and ends up with a lot more free time on each of the school days.
We’ve combined this with a few other recommended activities to meld school learning with home life, such as several sessions of “home economics” and copious amounts of PE. If anything, hopefully he comes out of this time with an appreciation for “stop fucking around and get it done, then you can do what you want afterwards”.
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