School is back online!
The news that schools are going back online didn’t come as a complete surprise, but the actual news triggered a kind of heavy feeling in my head.
Trying to make my kids do their remote work last year was like herding cats. With matted hair and the sleep patterns of college students, my digital ferals were a displaced and ill-at-ease lot for whom phones and iPads had become electronic pacifiers. My feeble attempts to teach German phonetics, French grammar and new math induced more slamming doors and screaming fits than learning.
One message I saw about the transition to online learning this week exhorted parents to keep in mind that “this is not a holiday!” The phrase stuck in my head because I was annoyed at the writer for somehow knowing that was indeed exactly how I would like to handle the days at home up until CNY!
The last holidays at home together in Beijing were kind of fun. But our last collective online school experience was a fiasco. I had come to dread messages from school. My children’s teachers were dealing with a staggering volume of exchanges with stressed-out parents. Often, their words were sympathetic and encouraging ones. Other times they were matter-of-fact transmissions about missing assignments and poor performance. I felt ashamed when I got the latter sort of messages.
You could say that guilt means feeling bad about what you’ve done, while shame is feeling bad about who you are. Though the teachers’ emails about poor results could have been judgment-free information, my brain sometimes translated them to code for: You are a failed parent. Shame. OUCH! I needed a lot of moments of mindful self-compassion to deal with that. Other options included blaming my kids or their teachers. Guilty. Memories of those internal discussions came rolling back with news of the latest school closures.
It’s been observed that articulating the positive is not my historic starting position, but I’m working on this, because I think I don’t actually lose much by giving up a negative default attitude. Allowing for some blatant positive thinking for just a few minutes a day isn’t likely to hurt. Could it even help?
I’m experimenting by creating this list. Top six reasons online schooling can go better this time:
Familiarity. We have a much better idea of how online school works. This doesn’t mean it’s easy. But the level of confusion is bound to be lower than the first time. Even when we mess up, the kids really do have some idea of what’s expected.
Less fear. Compared to this time last year, we know a LOT more about the nature and spread of COVID-19. There’s enough to worry about, but it isn’t the shock of an unrolling pandemic.
Preparation. Schools in China have anticipated the return to online learning all autumn, so most of them have a plan. Furthermore, while school went straight online after CNY holiday last year, teachers had a little bit of time to prepare the kids in person this time.
Vacation is around the corner. International schools have a limited number of days before the CNY break, while Chinese schools are already on vacation. It might be a shorter period than last time.
Kids have more skills! For example, more time at home meant that some kids mastered aspects of food production. From hand-rolling pastry to cutting fruit, I know some kids who became really kitchen-savvy this past year. Others mastered online gaming that let them stay in touch with friends even when not in school. Some kids engaged with mindfulness practices like meditation for the first time. They can all count as skills for maintaining well-being.
Finally and most personally, our support network is bigger this time. Rather than being divided between continents, our nuclear family is together in Beijing, friends and classmates are nearby. This time will be different.
I’ve got nothing to lose by hoping for improvements other than the pleasure of being correctly disappointed. Good luck this week, everyone!
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