Our Remote Learning 2.0: The Real Deal
There’s never a convenient time for a worldwide pandemic to break out, but a vicious virus was certainly the last thing my husband and I expected to show up the same week he opened his own physical therapy clinic. I also never planned on home schooling our children. But a pandemic laughs at plans, and everyone’s world changed in the spring of 2020.
As businesses and then schools closed, I was sent home from my job as a paraeducator, and our son and daughter, then in second and third grade, were home with us with nothing to do. Initially, we believed the shut-down would end quickly and that school would resume on April 24 as we were told. Then, as other states began cancelling school for the year, it became clear that Washington would do the same. The first version of distance learning was new and exciting at first, but, even as our kids’ teachers did best they could with what they had to work with, it soon became repetitive and clearly not ideal. By May we were counting down the days until it was over, only to learn by late summer that we’d have to do it all again when school resumed in the fall, in the form of “Remote Learning 2.0.”
Like most families I know, this time has been challenging on all fronts—financially, mentally and in our family relationships. And in such strange times, it can be helpful to share our stories as a reminder that we are not struggling alone. Here is the true story of my family’s experience navigating the first 6 months of remote learning.
Read the rest of this article in the full digital issue below.
Post your Remote Learning 2.0 experiences in the comments below.
