Late last year, I shared parts of a humorous blog from a father who had helped chaperone his kindergartner’s field trip to a pumpkin patch.  The piece was a clever tribute to teachers.
I closed that column this way:  “I’ve often thought that every non-teaching adult, as a rite of passage, should be required to spend a day ‘in the pumpkin patch’ – or the classroom – with 20+ students and a good teacher.  I suspect school districts would never have trouble passing a school bond again.”
Remember the age-old warning about being careful what you wish for?  Our current health crisis has cruelly delivered a warped version of that scenario to millions of families sequestered with their school-age kids!  Somewhat unfortunately, appreciation for the magic and genius of teachers is probably at an all-time high!
Naturally, this has resulted in a spate of internet blogs, and how-to articles designed to help parents deal with this un-requested educate-at-home task.  I suspect these can be both helpful and intimidating.
I recently encountered one of these on a diversion by a sports columnist (!) relating some of his family’s adventures with this forced educating-at-home situation.  (Gotta be hard to be a sports columnist these days!) Unfortunately, I’ve lost the article’s source, so I cannot share it.    
A couple of his comments struck interesting notes with me.  I confess they’re relatively random and mostly un-related.  But they both bring up interesting perspectives, so I’d just like to share and comment.
“The kindergartner’s reading has improved pretty quickly, actually, and it’s fairly easy to get him into learning activities that he doesn’t know are learning activities — a sight-word scavenger hunt, for instance, or laying down a big piece of paper and tracing his body to map out all the organs.”

What fun!  On the one hand, I love the spirit of the phrase about learning activities that aren’t seen as such.  Indeed, this is something most teachers are good at when they are given time (but are often criticized for when it’s mistakenly viewed as ‘too much fun’ or ‘not on task’).

On the other hand, how did we get to the point that the phrase ‘learning activities’ conjures up such stale, boring, and even negative mental pictures?!  This is not a criticism, per se, just a perspective check for us all.

“What none of us need is anyone making anyone else feel guilty about not being a qualified teacher right now.”

This is a good point, and I completely agree!  I suspect 96% of parents in these situations are working to do the very best they can for their kids under trying circumstances. And I also suspect that 82% of these situations are going relatively well, all things considered. 

At the same time, notice the subtle implication of his sentence:  Being a qualified teacher is a very high standard to live up to!

Finally, both the above discussions also point to one final (elephant-in-the-room?) issue.  Home-schooling is hard. Period. I am NOT anti-home-school.  I know firsthand of instances where it has worked excellently and was the right choice.  Still, it is absolutely not easy and takes much time, preparation, and energy.  It is never an (unforced) decision to be made lightly.
I suspect you saw this coming, but in all the extra ‘spare time’ you now have, why not sit down and send a note or e-mail of thanks to your favorite local teacher(s)?  We all look forward to the day they and their students will be together again.