Pt. 1: In the sha-ha-sha-ha-dow pandemic phase

(and what that means for us moms)

WARNING: For a story on education and the importance of tutors — and why I got in trouble with a school principal — this contains quite a bit of swear words. So, let’s compromise and call them “sentence enhancers!”

I still haven't opened my nine-year-old’s report card that came in June. What’s the point? I’m 100% certain his 40-something, hippy-like teacher had 0% knowledge or interest in teaching virtually. (Hey, maybe I did learn something going back to grade-three math class for a second time. Also, does mixing a drink count as chemistry?) 

I get it. I just woke up one day thinking, what the hell? The school district expects ME to be an elementary teacher, without any training — the same way his technology-averse teacher woke up realizing that, yes, learning tech actually is important in this century. 

Be forewarned, teachers! My gut’s telling me you’ll be spending the first few weeks of in-class learning arguing with kids whose main defence will be, “But my mommy said…” 

One thing my son definitely did learn was how much stuff his mommy does NOT know! (I am that mother who outsources homework. Keep reading to see why tutoring is the best investment you’ll make...which is also why you’ll want to enter this week’s giveaway!)

I think almost all mothers can agree that elementary virtual learning was a hot mess. It’s my belief that having my nine-year-old kid sit at a computer screen all day was actually more detrimental to his education and mental wellbeing than it was beneficial. 

If there is one thing that scares me more than snakes and dentists, it’s seeing my son’s absences on his report card last year. Because after a few thousand months, I decided that whenever Holt was with me (I share 50/50 custody with his father, who I do not speak to), I told my son he only had to attend morning classes. 

No child should be languishing behind a screen all day! Plus, early in the pandemic, a study out of the Netherlands found that with equitable school funding and only two months of closures, students studying remotely “made little to no progress” while learning from home. 

The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), the largest school board in Canada, had more than 5,000 children enrolled, both virtually and in-class, who never once showed up. At all!

Most of the time when I checked on him, he was playing with his best friend — his name is “iPad” — under the table anyway, having logged himself out. So I gave up, told him to go outside and focus on his basketball career. (If you saw my son outside every afternoon, he was either at recess or practicing a fire drill, and let’s leave it at that.)

By Mid-April, I had stopped caring altogether. The teacher gave out no homework at all. I figured no news was good news. I had no questions for the teacher except “Can I have a tour of the rest of your house?” and “How do you do this without losing your shit?” after I popped in on one of his morning classes, solely to embarrass my son, waving and saying to the screen of cute faces, “Hi! I'm Holt’s mom!” (Because that's the type of mom I am!)

I consider last year a loss for my kid’s education. And I AM big on education. But there's only so many times I could preach Nelson Mandela’s wisdom to the kid (“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”) before we turned on the Nintendo.

But now? I am actually concerned. I truly don't know if my kid can write (keep reading to find out why). We parents are entering an entire new phase called the “shadow pandemic” in education, which some experts predict will eclipse the health crises in its long-term impact, and more than 5 million Canadian students will be two grades past where they were when the pandemic began.

Where the children had class time depended on the provinces, which wildly varied. So, not only are parents concerned about how they will measure up to other kids in their class, but we also have to think about how some kids in Nova Scotia may be way ahead of our kids here in Ontario. Even before the pandemic, according to the Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation, more than 25% of kids started Grade 1 without the skills to read. (I didn’t make him attend afternoon classes, but I did make my kid read for 20 minutes every night!)

Karen Falconer, the THIRD director of the TDSB during the pandemic, said in an interview in June, “You cannot assess the situation until we get them all back into school and have a sense of where they lie. That’s the truth.” (This, I believe) She’s optimistic that within six months, the school board will have a much better sense of where it needs to redirect its energy in order to fill any student achievement gaps. (This, I don't believe.) 

Compared to my daughter’s private school — which was 100% equipped to manage online learning, as if they had done it their entire lives — my son’s public school district didn’t seemed to consider any matter urgent, except shooting us pointless daily emails telling us basically nothing. I stopped opening those too. I didn't even know my son had finished school until he told me one Monday when I asked him to log into class. School had finished on Friday! #MotherOfTheSchoolPandemicYear

Speaking of going back to school and the differences between public and private schools…

Do you know what it’s like to be called into the principal's office and scolded not because of anything your kid did, but because of something YOU did? (Hand ups, please?)

Because I do.

If you want to know what went down and how I oh-so-graciously handled it, read part 2 of this article here!