Being a Home School Teacher in Crisis.

​Photo by Winnie Bruce

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Week 1:
Supposed to be my Spring Break from teaching at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Slightly annoyed by the change, but was gearing up to teach my kindergarten son, and wondering how it would all go. We managed to get everything done. I felt proud, and also thought "well, it is only kindergarten," and smiled wistfully. During Week 1 my brother arrived to come and stay with us. He helped out with the home schooling by cooking and doing funny PE exercises with the kiddo. We got a scare when my husband reached a fever state with a cold, so also during Week 1, I moved a mattress into the office room and began sleeping in our new home office/elementary school room. It was utter madness.

Week 2:
I don't remember.

Week 3: 
By the third week, we found out that school would remain out for an additional month. At this point, I was also teaching online movement-based classes. My brother, husband, and I watched Tiger King somewhere in all of this, and I believe it was around this time. Teaching the classwork became easy and we developed a routine of either morning or afternoon work. We dropped off the first round of school work, and picked up our next packet. It all seemed like I was becoming a great stay at home teacher, freelance archival worker on a Reelz TV show, writer/producer at Phocus Video, and adjunct professor at SMCM.

Week 4:
I don't remember all of it, but this is when I got SUPER stressed out. I was trying to clean the house, work, and teach my son. At this point I had to download and print out how to print letters, because instead of doing work that was simply reviewing material, I had to start TEACHING the content. We did a really cool project this week that was a journal with baby photos and milestones. As hard as it was, it was quite lovely, and we will have it as a testament to my time spent as a home school teacher.

Week 5:
Luckily this was his Spring Break. It was all still stressful because I had a lot of work to get done, but overall fine. It felt like it just blended together. In hindsight, it was a welcomed break. Around this point, I moved back into my bedroom (finally), but still have a sore neck to prove I was on a floor mattress for weeks.

Week 6:
Was hard to adjust back to the work with him. Took a few days to get back in. Loved the weekend following Week 6, and really felt like I was getting used to having weekends off from teaching kindergarten now.

Week 7:
We just started and it is nuts! The work has nearly doubled. What we used to get done in a 1.5-3 hour time frame is now at 3-5 hours. Lucky this is my last week teaching at the college, and we move to finals next week. I'm not sure why there is so much work now, but I'm thinking that it may be in case Maryland schools close for the rest of the year. Perhaps they are trying to get ahead in case they close, and then move the actual school's out date up sooner?

Not sure what the future holds with this, but I am overwhelmed daily by it.
As my freelance work dwindles and changes it should get somewhat easier.
Except that I never wanted to be a stay at home teacher, and the notion of it is frustrating at times.
Also, I don't want to lose work, and I know that will become another layer of tension.
All in all, I do enjoy more time with my child. I do enjoy seeing him learn. I love watching him grow.
I appreciate that he learned to ride his bike without training wheels during my brother's PE classes. Just like that, we will keep at it, until we get it right. Or, at least until summer break.