Becoming A Teacher

     After a couple months where we've attempted to keep our grandboys on track with their schooling, I've come to a conclusion: teachers and schools should be considered essential and every effort made to keep schools open and running.

      We only watch the three grandboys once a week but since that is ordinarily a school day I thought we should include some education. They have been assigned homework packets by their school so when the grandboys arrived this week, I asked Luke, 7, if he did his homework.

     “Why do you guys always ask me first?” he demanded to know. I wondered whom I was being included with. Or whom he was including with himself? Did his real teacher ask him that too before confronting his classmates? I wonder how a real teacher would respond to a question like that.

     Anyway, first up reading. Not Owen, 3, but his older brothers Luke and Grant, 9. Grant said he didn't like to read out loud. Then Luke said he wanted to read quietly himself. Okay, but in order to make sure they were actually reading the material I said I would quiz them afterwards. “I'm not very good at remembering what I read,” Luke confessed. Hmmmm. What would a real teacher do in that case.

    I've tried various games and exercises to keep it interesting. We had a contest where if they got an answer wrong on an answer exercise sheet I printed from an on-line educational site, they had to pay a penance. With Luke, that meant doing some sit-ups. Combining phys ed and academics. Smart move, I thought, until his three-year-old brother saw him in a vulnerable position doing his exercises and piled on top of him, initiating a wrestling match.

    We tried art too. I had the boys decorate a “Thank you” card for their cousin, a doctor who faces corona-virus in North Carolina. We decorated the card with rainbows, stickers, emojis and hearts, even putting a mask on a miniature doctor. Then I wondered what Luke was trying to draw himself next to the doctor.

     “A dead person,” he said. I guess I can understand how a kid would lump doctors, the corona-virus and dead people together but as I told him, doctors really want you to get better. They don't want to see you dead. I'm sure their cousin wouldn't want to see a dead person on his thank you card. Luke seem unconvinced. Again, I wondered what a real teacher would say in this case.

     Of course, we watch videos too. When we found a video that I thought might be entertaining as well as enlightening, Luke complained when I said the movie was made in Australia. “They probably speak Spanish or something,” he griped. 

     Even when they watch their own cartoons, I try to find a teachable moment. We watched one cartoon where this larva would fall in love with a mayfly only to see the mayfly die at the end of the day. I told Grant that, indeed, a mayfly only lives for a day. “Why? Is it their heart?” he asked.

Ummmmm, does a real teacher ever say, “I don't know?”

     I know the boys' parents are struggling as well though. My son Greg says they often Google lesson topics before teaching them to the boys. What is a possessive pronoun anyway? Then when he scolded his oldest son Grant to spell his words correctly and to look them up if he didn't know the correct spelling, Grant complained, “This will take forever.”

     It just seems that way for all of us, Grant. Hopefully it will be just until we conquer this virus. Or until teachers are considered essential. Either way, I hope it's soon.

Signs Of The Times

       I took pictures of the above signs during a couple bike rides around the neighborhood.  The local fire station always has their mascot dalmatian statue dressed appropriately, whether in red for Christmas or green for St. Patrick's Day.  Now he wears a mask.  I believe local citizens added the hearts sprouting from the lawn.

       It's been almost two months since Michigan declared a lockdown and quarantine fatigue is beginning to set in.  Even in the week since I took the picture directly above of the honor mini-library mounted on a post along a local street, somebody tore off the tape.  I imagine you're able to "borrow" a book now.  Though the park sign restricts use of its benches, I took a walk today through the neighborhood park and found two benches occupied by sitters.  And though take-out is the rule at local restaurants, I got take-out from one this past week and saw two diners at the counter, apparently enjoying their breakfast and coffee.

     I don't think this bodes well, particularly since we've not had enough warm days in Michigan to trigger a good bout of spring fever.    And, like our governor says often, we're not out of the woods yet.  Methinks it's going to be a long summer.