Lockdown ~ Home Learning ~ Blog 2

Live Online Lessons ~ The Gold Standard ~ or Not?

We find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic, and in Scotland we are asked to be in a second lockdown situation. Our Government have requested that the schools provide education and learning for the children to do remotely and for parents and carers to support their children and young people in this period of home learning.

This is not easy for anyone as no-one is playing a role that is familiar to them. Our minds don’t like change as it likes to be more energy saving and run on lots of routines and habits. Right now we are all working on trying to get some new habits and routines going, whilst at the same time our minds are in level of survival mode. All of this adding high emotional fear levels which is pretty contagious! We need to work together to co-regulate our survival brain.

In this Lockdown ~ Home Learning Blog I will explore the feeling of FOMO and comparison that may be out there, the ‘Gold Standard’ of school offerings, learning preferences, and survival brain, reframing, and that learning comes in different packages. Hopefully this blog will have some take-aways that support you with this lockdown and home learning period.

Some thinking questions. So how is your home learning going? Are you getting a little or lots from the school? Is it live or recorded? Are you creating and providing some of the lessons or projects? What is the balance like? Do your kids have opportunities to connect with friends and school staff. What are your preferred types of teaching/learning for your kids? What are your kids preferred type of teaching/learning?

Our children and young people learn in a range of different ways within any normal school day and I’m sure this is the same as home. We all have some preferred styles of teaching, ways which help us learn better. However we all continue to access lots of other types of teaching to continually expand our styles of learning. With a growth mindset outlook we need to look beyond our one preferred style to keep on growing. Kids and adults alike.

I am aware of lots of current conversations and comparisons going on, measuring one schools offerings over against another, English guidance vs Scottish guidance, amongst other things. I am pretty sure any big thread on social media, or even chatting with friends and family, about one school over another or one teacher over another, is going to be pretty unhelpful for many members of the discussion. I have even heard and seen news readers and press asking challenging questions to head teachers and ministers around when the full time live teaching will arrive and a with a clear standardisation, pushing the point that THIS is the current gold standard of education. Do the newsreaders and press know what is best for your child?

Whilst our minds are already in an emotional and biological survival mode we then throw in a big dose of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). And all this exacerbating the feelings that our kids are missing out and falling behind (a blog for another day). Our children will hear that and may ‘feel’ like they are missing out and falling behind – not that great for their self-esteem either. Celebrate what we do have and make it work as best we can.

Our minds love to create stories and stories that make sense of those thoughts floating around as it helps our mind to feel safe in the familiar. Mind stories usually have an underdog or victim, someone who appears to have everything for contrast. Every victim need that baddie/attacker to be present, and also there will be a hero.

Our minds may begin to place our real life story into this traditional story format and come up with our child being a victim or underdog and therefore we may have to become the hero and enter into a battle with the school/teacher/Govt. to get your child this ‘Gold Standard’ of education. Battles like that are never fun or useful and eat into our already depleted energy levels.

It might be worth considering before we take on a hero role and a battle ensues ~ Are lots of hours of live video learning really the gold standard for my child, the ultimate dream?

Are other forms of learning just as relevant, appropriate, and interesting for my child? Are recorded lessons that we can use in our own time better? Is extended screen time really the best for my child or young person as time goes on over a few weeks? I know I can get a bit ‘zoomed’ out after a while!

This week in some of the parent, school, and home learning groups I work with it has been put across in many ways that ‘learning comes in a range of different packages’ and this seems to be well received. I have seen families baking, decluttering rooms, siblings working together, nature walks, beach outings, snow days, family board games, cooking the tea or preparing the lunch, arts & crafts, and a whole range of mindfulness and independent tasks. Not many of these NEED live video input from the teacher/school.

Is there a way we can reframe the big story that has been created about one style being best and live lessons being the gold standard? Can we look upon the offerings from schools as great learning opportunities that you can then weave into your home learning plan, and also give credit to all the amazing learning that is going on within and beyond your homes? Can we avoid comparison of different styles of teaching and work with what we have to match to a way your child can learn from it successfully?

When and if live teaching lesson periods or even just live connection sessions for your child come from their teacher then we can see them more clearly for what they are and hold them in positive regard rather than this becoming negatively framed in our thoughts.

Our kids pick up on our feelings so we must celebrate what we do have as opposed to focussing on what we don’t have.

Some of our children and young people are thriving on learning peacefully, independently, reading at their own pace, using YouTube to help solve problems, maybe connecting with friends over a task, phoning grandad to ask for help with a maths question, taking breaks when they can, and not having to ask for permission to go to the toilet or sit at a certain table for lunch. All ways you can give them that school can not.

Maybe some of these things are your child’s ‘Gold Standard’, and if they are not maybe some of these can become more enjoyable and useful ways of learning as time goes on and at the very least come in at silver or bronze!