Have we transitioned to home schooling without thinking.
Another week of family lockdown. Another week of school at home. But things are changing. Increasing amounts of the school day being unsupported. Yes a couple of lessons still try to provide good teaching support but…… The other subjects provide support which is at best patchy and often not there at all.
So what are the scores on the school doors this week….
Lessons this week 20
4 lessons well supported
7 lessons providing a little support, enough to allow us to try and fill in the missing sections
9 lessons absolutely NO support, no idea what was done in the class, don’t even know which area the teacher looked at.
So the amount of classroom radio silence is creeping up every week. Some subjects have gone weeks without any feedback or guidance. Without support we are having to do our own thing. No idea if Hawklad is working on the same areas as his classmates in a range of subjects. So increasingly what he is learning is determined by him and his hapless dad, not be his teachers. That’s starting to feel like homeschooling. With no classroom return imminent, maybe we have transitioned to homeschooling by accident.
So pleased to have another guest post for you from Katie and Evee. If you haven’t already, it’s so worth checking out their beautiful blog, twitter (@thegriefreality) and instagram sites (thegriefreality). They have a wonderful view on life and living with grief. Today you will find a new post from me on their blog.
Identity and Grief
Tell me about yourself. What makes you, you?
Grief strips you down to the soil of who you are. When you experience this, you may realize you don’t know who you are. The person who you miss the most has been replaced with this new awkward lump of emotion; Grief. That’s exactly what it was like for us.
When the nurses chatter has died down, and everyone has gone home to resume normal life; You are left with yourself, but who are you now?
This question was one we both struggled with at different times.
Grief forced us to not only walk without Mum in this life, but also to relearn who we were when everything was stripped away.
We used to hold a firm sense of self. We trusted that our identity was unshakeable; we knew who we were, and nothing was going to stop us from being us.
But nothing could have prepared us for how alien we felt when we lost our Mum. What made us ‘Katie’ and ‘Evee’ seemed to have run for cover when we experienced that crashing loss.
Certain aspects of identity are dependent on certain factors; the family circle being one. Your family teach you everything you need to know about the world, how to react and respond. Your family teaches you to love.
When a key member of this circle is taken away; you feel lost, bewildered, confused. How can you continue living as the person you were before, when all of the factors that created you are gone?
The crucial part of this is to know that that version of you is undeniably altered. It may disappear for a little while, but you will come back to yourself one day: just a little more beaten, and a lot more experienced.
This is not necessarily a bad or negative thing. When you cut open a tree, you see the rings of growth; your previous selves are concrete in these rings of growth. The rough patch you are going through is like the bark which will eventually grow into another ring to make up that tree.
No growth comes from being what you were, and staying stagnant in your identity. Growth comes from turning up for a new day, each day, no matter how weary you are. Becoming a new you with those previous experiences making up this new edition of you.
Your loss and your love will always be a part of your identity. Your loved one will maintain an inherent component of you. That is not going anywhere.
You may have a few more grey hairs, wrinkles or awkward branches sticking out, but your core will always be you. Whatever that now looks like. That is what holds you firm, and renewing your green leaves.
A Dad trying to cope with the loss of his Partner and becoming a single parent. 