As last week came to an end, I was definitely feeling some mixed emotions.
On one hand, there was a bit of relief that the remote learning experience had come to a close and my daughter Sophie had officially finished kindergarten – and with what I and her teacher deemed a great deal of success.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it was a difficult couple of months trying to balance my job, my daughter’s schooling and all the other daily tasks that come with a family, a house and trying to keep everyone safe in the midst of a global pandemic. I know there are many of you out there that can relate.
But at the same time, there was a certain amount of sadness that crept into my mind that it was over. Why you ask? Because since the middle of March, I was given the opportunity to spend every single day with my oldest child helping to navigate her educational journey. And if it wasn’t for the coronavirus pandemic, I would have never seen her growth in “the classroom” from such an up close perspective. One of those silver linings people keep talking about.
I would have never seen how she mastered her addition and subtraction facts from zero to five – and was working her way to the same result up to 10. I would have only seen glimpses of her reading progress during nightly sessions before bed instead of watching as she gained confidence in recognizing so many words and used the tricks her teacher taught her to sound out most of the others. And I would have missed out on her lessons about chameleons and ladybugs and daily videos on Go Noodle to help get rid of the sillys.
Talking to other parents and listening to their experiences, I came to realize I was one of the lucky ones. I already knew that Sophie loved school just by how much she talked about it and her excitement to go every single day. And she showed that same youthful exuberance throughout the remote learning process, which made my foray into teaching kindergarten a much easier and rewarding second job.
Sure there were times where I had to pull her away from her toys for another Zearn lesson or to watch a Mystery Doug video, but once she sat down at the dining room table with me, she was all about working through whatever came next on that day’s choice board. I never had to bribe her or get into a battle that resulted in tears. She was my superstar learner and for that I am thankful.
Seeing the excitement for learning and willingness to work hard she put forward every single day is one of the most rewarding things this proud father will remember.
While I’ve always valued education – even if I didn’t always show it during my own 16 years in the classroom – this gave me a new perspective on learning. Seeing her little brain work so hard to sound out words, solve math problems and remember little moments from a video during a “quiz” at the end, showed just how vital it all is.
One of the biggest hurdles we had to overcome was that Sophie just doesn’t like to get things wrong. You could see it on her face when she answered something incorrectly and it was up to me to find a way to reel her back from that feeling of failure. I would remind her that we’re not always going to get everything right and in fact, when we don’t get something right, it helps us learn.
I too had my moments where I didn’t feel like I was doing my best. It was a hard juggling act and on one particular day, when I felt like I was failing at every aspect of my life, it was Sophie who turned it all around. She gave me a hug, rubbed my back and told me I was doing a good job being her teacher. Then we laid on the couch for 20 minutes and she read me a few stories. Crisis averted.
When it was decided that school would not resume in its normal capacity and we’d finish out the year with remote learning, I had this feeling of panic. While I never really saw a way that students could go back, at that very moment, I was left with this question: ‘how am I going to make sure she’s ready for next year?’
Luckily, her teacher had that covered and if I just followed the plan, Sophie would be more than prepared to enter first grade. So that’s what we did. And while I’m not sure of all that comes with being a first grader, I know she’s ready.
As the weeks passed by and we spent more and more time at the dining room table practicing heart words, solving harder and harder math problems and conducting at home science experiments, our father-daughter bond began to blossom into something that brings tears to my eyes. She officially became a daddy’s girl and I have this unprecedented time to thank for that.
We all know that remote learning was never going to be perfect. Anyone thinking it was may have been a little too optimistic. But for this kindergarten teacher, it worked out better than can be expected – considering the circumstances.
And now we play the waiting game to see what school is going to look like in the fall.