Bennett’s blog – #3 It’s got to be perfect. A guide to home schooling in times of a crisis

Author

Carole Bennett, Trust Leader

I have spent my life working in and with schools.  I don’t get to teach much now, but I loved being a teacher.  I had really high dreams for every one of my kids, and I wanted the very best in life for them.  I read up on the best teaching and learning techniques all the time, and constantly shifted what I was doing in order to help them be the best that they could be.  I thought about teaching when I wasn’t teaching, and knew from the bottom of the heart that education changed lives.  So I squished every second of learning into every second of class time.

The staff in our schools are the same. 

So what should you be doing now your children are at home?  Are there things we teachers are doing that you aren’t?  Can we pass on any secrets to help you make sure your kids get ahead in this prolonged period away from school?

Well, let me be blunt.  No.  I realised when I had children, which happened sometime after I was a teacher, that teaching your own children is not the same at all.  It is a completely different relationship.  With my classes, I could be firm but fair, logical and see the big picture.   As with any teacher I know, this just isn’t quite the same with my children.  Emotion gets completely in the way of us all seeing the wood for the trees.  They don’t listen to me like a class did.  Because I am their mum.  It is in the rule book.  I gather Bjorn Borg’s son told him not to give tennis advice to him because ‘what do you know about tennis?’.  So I was less surprised when my eldest asked for a tutor, and I offered to help he told me ‘no, I need a real one’.  The fact I have spent my whole life teaching, teaching about teaching and working with schools was irrelevant.  I am his mum.  I know nothing.

So you can’t expect to be a teacher to your children in the traditional sense.  I would rather have a class of 38 than teach maths to my two.  So please don’t expect it to be easy.

Secondly, go easy on yourself.  Teachers do not have to cook, clean, work, feed the dog and a hundred other things.  We have a busy day, but we do focus on teaching in a way you can’t.  Do what you can do with the lessons and work we are sending, but don’t panic if it gets hard to fit it all in.

I am a woman of a certain age, and on Facebook last night I saw Fat Boy Slim doing a set with his daughter, and then the man from Tears for Fears singing with his daughter.  It was so lovely to see parents passing on their own skills to their children.  Every family is different, so it isn’t about turning into a choir if that isn’t your thing, but spending time together – doing things you love, sharing time that you would not normally have together.  Build a den, play music, do an experiment, make a dress, fix the sink, bake a cake, learn the piano together….anything.  Enjoy the time you have with each other and make it uniquely ‘you’ – time to look back on which was specifically about you and your family. 

When this is all over, we will fill in the knowledge gaps.  That is our job, and we love it.  So just do what you can, and try to treasure time together. 

That really is perfect home learning.