Some call it a weed. Some call it a flower. I’m definitely in the flower camp. It’s amazing where these things crop up in the garden every year.

Now we have had several weeks of schools version of homeschooling, I guess it’s time to look at the parent side of the process. What have I learnt during these weeks. The first thing to say is that it’s NOT been impossible. That was my fear when I always thought about homeschooling. I’m going to mess this up. I just won’t be able to cope. Well I’m still here. Son is still here. No huge disasters. Son doesn’t hate me. School haven’t demanded my sacking as a parent. So yes I kinda must have coped with this homeschooling lark.

Another thing I’ve learned is this IS NOT TRUE HOMESCHOOLING. This is schools version of teaching when the classrooms are locked up. Some lessons might come close to true homeschooling but others are just the same classroom lessons delivered in your living room. The Government and the Schools set the agenda, decide on what areas are covered and how they are delivered. The children and parents largely do what they are told. The point about true homeschooling is the freedom that it offers. You can tailor the education to suit the child. This version of homeschooling feels more like forcing the child to fit the needs of the system.

So what have I learned as a kinda homeschooling parent then

  • I know diddly squat about Art, Music, Religious Education and Drama.
  • I can look like the worlds most intelligent parent when I hide my iPhone in my shirt pocket and find a way of discreetly typing in questions to google.
  • Homeschooling is far more tiring for the parent than the child.
  • My spelling is worse than my dyslexic son.
  • For homeschooling to work really well you have to engage the child. Focus on the things that make him or her tick. What seems to work for me probably doesn’t work for our son.
  • I need my own school stationary cupboard. The amount of time I waste hunting in draws for things like pens, paper, paints and art materials.
  • Science hasn’t half changed since I got my A-Levels in Physics and Chemistry. Was Quantum even a word back then?
  • I might have a master degree in computing but that counts for nothing when you are trying to get the iPad to talk to the school computer.
  • Things like housework and working for money are really not going to happen during the homeschool day. For the parent homeschooling is as time consuming as it is for the child.
  • I’m so lucky just having one child to homeschool.
  • Me trying to explain French pronunciation is a complete waste of time. Maybe investing in something like Rosetta Stone is the way forward. But that’s a key point. Some of the homeschooling will be beyond me. I will need to invest in online support, book tuition time and additional help so as to make this work.
  • Getting son to just read a textbook is not the best approach. If homeschooling is going to truly work it will mean doing things like taking son out to historical sites and geographic locations. The parent needs to fully commit to this.
  • As the home school day has to replicate the normal school timetable I have learnt to be fairly strict on the time Son spends on each lesson. Trying to avoid overruns. Once these start they just accumulate and that just drags the day out for Son and ME.
  • Homeschooling increases the urge for things like strong coffee and biscuits.
  • I don’t care how many weeks I do this – I still can’t remember the school timetable.
  • Broadband failure just as work is being submitted is seriously stressful.
  • I’m very good (as are the PE teachers) at reminding the kids to warm up before the do exercise. I of course forget to warm myself up. Although I like to think of myself as fairly fit, I also tend to forget that I am basically an old fart…. So without warming up and then trying to do something like a forward role is basically asking for trouble.
  • How much paper does schooling use ….. far too much.
  • Homeschooling is tiring. But it doesn’t help with nighttime sleep. Too many school things to think about.
  • If I pick up the courage I can make things like homemade play-doh without the need to panic buy off Amazon.
  • As the homeschooling week unfolds my dress sense deteriorates. By Friday I look like a badly chewed dog rag doll. Don’t even start me on my hair.
  • Just go with the flow. If Son wants to learn outside, or walking about or stood on his head or whatever … work with that. I need to keep telling myself that what works for me will probably not work for him.
  • Over the years I’ve often had sleepless nights wondering what mystical substance has the chemical formula C12H22O11. Now I realise it’s Sucrose.
  • I’ve also found out how difficult it is to try and type chemical formula properly. Surely in 2020 we must have found easier ways of typing numbers which are littler than letters. AND Don’t start me on trying to do French and typing things like acute accents and circumflex’s. The process extends writing an answer from seconds into months. On these I have been no help to our Son.

So basically I have survived this form of homeschooling so far. Yes it’s not always easy. Yes I’ve resorted to pulling my hair out in some lessons. Occasionally I have sworn. It’s demonstrated that homeschooling and work don’t really go together. But actually I have also smiled quite a bit. Sometimes even had fun. That’s just for schools version of this. How good could we make proper homeschooling.

115 thoughts on “Look what’s cropped up”

  2. Not an easy task because it’s changed over the years. My granddaughter has to do math, but the rest of the time is baking, cooking, dancing, and anything in the art field. She should be going to a college for the arts in September.

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  3. Yes, if/when you do Son’s version of homeschooling, I’m sure there will be less time required of you. He can self direct on research projects, then report to you at 3am😂😂

    There will probably be loads of parents choosing homeschooling after this. A homeschooling group would help take the pressure off each parent. Like if one parent is great at art, they could do lessons for the group, or another parent could do math… small groups obviously would be best. I can see how it could be great! Son might even meet a peer he can tolerate. Wouldn’t that be awesome?!

    Your yellow Iceland Poppy gives me hope for you & Son!🌻💌

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  8. I’m lucky that my daughter is young and her lessons consist of spelling the word ‘like’ or basic addition up to 10. I think most of us have forgotten chemistry and French by the time we got hit our 30s. Unless teaching it or having a job linked to it. Well done so far!

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  10. Yay!
    I was thinking of you when I saw tv segment about parents who homeschooled before the pandem giving advice to newbies. I thought, “I’m pretty sure Bereaved is doing it even better!”

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      1. That’s fantastic. I don’t think the lack of structure we have right now is very helpful for my 12 yr old. He needs someone to sit with him and I can’t due to work and his dad is losing patience. It’s causing a few issues in our household – which is sad really. X

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  13. Hmmm. You’re getting there but I think maybe your idea of homeschooling is still a little skewed? Still feels a little like “school at home”, just imposed by you instead of others. Read up on “deschooling”. It’s as important for the parent as it is for the child.

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      1. It is really hard to contemplate any kind of ‘move’ like this. A bit like standing at the foot of a mountain. But you climb those in five mins either. You do it by doing the wee bit in front of you.

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      3. I think the don’t got missed of my comment there. You don’t do Everest in five. And that is what this is. A long, how do I do this, can I even do this, journey. You know this biz of people climbing whatever on their stairs every day or cycling round their garden but really it is across Europe–not meaning Captain Tom who started this off, but everyone who then made a bandwagon to jump on, from that— has quite made me think…….. okay..? That is as in seriously??? On yirsel’. Cos let’s face it by now in my life I have climbed every big peak going simply be going up house stairs every day for so many years then. There’s no recognition of terrain, weather, endurance, anything beyond sitting wherever we can get out the measuring tape and doing some maths. The true grit is in going a distance that going up stairs ten times a day does not even begin to encompass. And that is what you are prob looking at x

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      4. had one an hour when our behaving badly…they don’t… neighbours had their outdoor jukebox on .. They only have certain songs so it goes round and round. Anyway couldn’t resist a doing a daft Tina Turner disco send up with the tin of lager the Mr had brought out as a mic. Hope no-one saw that.. . The song was Islands in the Stream.

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      6. I just felt like doing a a floor show.. … Then I thought in our desperate for entertainment world we get to where there’s no pubs. Certainly not open ones, we could socially distance folks down our path , then let say the first 16 in.. So much ahead. They sit about socially distanced on rugs. There’s chilled beer or wine in our loggia, I do some miming on the decking while next door provide the music, then the Mr and I do some scenes from Shakespeare.. We share the proceeds with next door. The Mr. was unimpressed and sadly lacking in entrepreneurial vision.

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      8. LOL!!! I just thought.. this could be the new normal.. We used to rehearse often in the garden when we did his play, it is a very good space for that. And way, way way back, one of the things we did do, was the Shakespeare at fancy Elizabethan style dinner nights. I thought ‘ What’s wrong with it?’ His expression said quite a lot.

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      12. yeah..but talking THAT one who has resigned, he has messed this country up before, in fact the trail of egg is such down his face, my only astonishment is that he was ever allowed anywhere near this. Even the data system he uses and he is a datician, is years out of date. And apparently the woman’s hubby was showing symptoms of Covid. So I have ask myself is this virus really as deadly as they all make out or is it just their mishandling of it, that has made it seem that way? On a lighter note, to return to fun… I was minding how in these Shaekespeare buffet night, the now front man of Deacon Blue, did a slot …dressed as a jester… on the piano, singing, tunes from Shakespeare to his own music. Abso surreall….

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      14. Yep. been around now for months and what we really know could written on the back of a coin. A 1p piece at that. I think because they have all run about like headless chickens they have made a monster of this endowing it with things it prob doesn’t have.

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  15. You are so right – this is not like homeschooling homeschooling. I was debating on writing a post like this with what I have learned yesterday but went with my maks one instead. Hopefully this weekend I can get my thoughts down about this. My gosh, the paper! Art supplies, Computer printer ink – but I am getting the hang of it and I don’t mind it. But like you said – I am just following someone else’s lesson plan. Works for me!

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      1. Hardly! I swear I threatened to stab one of them with their pencil this week – eventually we started laughing but the urge (at the time) was real 🙂

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  19. From that list some things have been a challenge, but sounds like you’re doing great – a teacher who actually cares about the learner and genuinely wants to help them – sounds like a refreshing change for your son 🙂

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  20. ♥♥♥ I often wonder how parents are dealing with forced homeschooling right now, especially parents of special needs kids.

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  22. Congratulations! You are a teacher…without the teaching degree or the salary. Is your government paying the jobless teachers to stay at home?

    Governmental regurgitation is not teaching. It’s indoctrination. The parents that make the actual decision to pull their kids out of the brainwashing are usually harassed by said government. They can’t have REAL educated kids that can grow up and call the government on its bulls***.

    Speaking of language (from my last comment), not only is there spelling issues and pronunciation issues…there is also meaning. I have to remind myself that, when you mention “biscuits”, you aren’t talking about the round, fluffy kind that we put bacon, eggs and gravy on. Our term is “cookies”. We say “potato chips” and you call them “crisps.” You say “chips” and we say “french fries.” Two countries separated by a common language.

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  27. Does homeschooling have to follow the same schedule as the academic school? Here they tell you what the child needs to learn for the semester, and you time it from there (of course, there are tests along the way to keep you on track)

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