Remote learning, remotely learning
On virtual, special education home schooling
“Gaahh!!” I hear. The roar of frustration from husband makes its way to my office upstairs. It appears Isaac has, once again, deleted his work. Or submitted it before it’s done. Or called someone a “butt” on Zoom chat.
Husband bears the brunt of this. He’s the one hovering over virtual Assemblies to make sure Isaac doesn’t unmute himself and start talking about volcanoes. He’s the one who monitors the painstaking typing into a wonky user interface.
He’s the one who does P.E. with Isaac, once earning father and son merits for their synchronised “high knees.”
Or not. Sometimes the coaxing doesn’t work.
I’m largely a spectator at the sport of getting Isaac to do things he’d rather not do. While our other son accepts the logic of, “we all have to do things we’d rather not do because there’s a larger purpose blah blah blah” (as I sadly watch a little bit of his pure soul crumble), Isaac is immune.
He lives in the present. Wholly and defiantly.
How do you teach someone who doesn’t want to learn? What’s the point of teaching someone who lives in the Now about the water cycle? Or Mars? How are these topics remotely relevant to his life?
Honestly, why bother?
Truth is, Isaac loves to learn. But, like most of us, he’s most curious about things that interest him. What we see as obstinance is actually discernment.
We have a book called What’s Where in the World. One of Isaac’s favourite things is to read aloud from the book, to tell us about the top predators in the world and where they live, the largest craters on earth and where they are, the deadliest hurricanes in recorded history and where they hit.
He knows about tsunamis, historical and recent, and the difference between a convergent boundary a divergent boundary, and what kinds of geological activity can occur in each.
Heck, he can read from the Torah.
I have to remind myself that Isaac will learn what he wants to learn. And because of that, what he learns is very much relevant to his life.
(Did you know that Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on earth?)
