An extremely large number of people have said something along the lines of "home schooling during lockdown must have been easy for you, just business as usual". Nothing could be further from the truth, and this attitude really highlights how little people understand about the realities of modern home education. I got so frustrated one day with a family member who really should have known better that I composed this cathartic poem.
Lockdown Education Is Not Home Education!
We used to go on trips each week; to places near and far.
New sights, new facts, would fill our minds, then we’d chill out in the car.
I’d listen to music on the journey home, take a moment to reflect,
Whilst H---- would devour books. It's what we’d come to expect.
We used to spend our days with friends, playing and exploring,
We used to meet up for activities. It was never boring.
HB would spend hours playing spies with their friends,
Or running through the forest, building lots of dens.
They used to go trampolining, not once but twice a week.
They used to go to multi-sports, building up their physique.
They used to go to rockstars, climbing right up to the top.
They used to play in the park with friends, they never seemed to stop.
They used to go to violin, they went to science club,
They went to Spanish and philosophy, had just become a Cub.
They went to lessons and home ed clubs, having fun was the aim.
Some are replaced with zoom sessions, but it isn’t quite the same.
We used to go to theatres, to musicals and to plays.
We went to opera, to concerts, and even the ballet.
They’d been reading Gullivers Travels. We were going to see it live.
We were booked to see MacBeth at the Globe, on culture we did thrive.
We used to roam for hours, in properties of the National Trust,
As well as English Heritage. Membership was a must.
We went on so many holidays, following the interests of our son,
Now we go absolutely nowhere, our plans are all undone.
I ran history sessions, I made costumes, and even the odd prop,
(It’s possible my level of effort was a tad over the top.)
But we both loved hosting sessions. It was so much fun.
We want to host the Tudors now, but it cannot be done.
We used to have our friends round, we’d work on badges and play,
We miss the chats and friendship, what more can we say?
Our life was truly varied, no week ever the same,
Now everyday, the same damn walk, this virus is a pain!
And folk who need to distance school, ask us for advice
On curriculums, and how many hours of work should suffice.
On how to motivate their kids, to complete lessons sent home
“How do you make them study?” “Which website should we comb?”
It’s not that I don’t want to help, I don’t mind being asked,
But I’m not expert at this stuff, I’m not sure they have grasped
That isolation schooling isn’t home education today.
If my kid doesn’t want to “work”, I let him go and play.
Our world has been up ended, down the rabbit hole we fell
This isolation education is hard for us as well.
Everything we’re used to, has been striped away,
I used to have breaks and space, now with my child I stay.
So when you said it’s easy, because we were home ed,
That nothing’s really changed for us, I think you’ve been misled.
It’s like you have no understanding of what we normally do,
Which is a bit depressing, since we’ve explained it all to you.
This existence is claustrophic, for us so used to roam,
I feel our technicolor world has turned to monochrome.
Some days it’s like we’re caught in the vortex of a whirlpool.
This isn’t our choice of education, and we never did “home school”.