Choosing Battle Lines

Do you feel defeated choosing battle lines on the virtual learning front with your children over the past year?  I have some thoughts on that, but first, how I got there.

Having left Facebook several years ago due to the incivility that was present (how tame those days were), I eventually found my way back to the social media platform. It wasn’t due to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).  It wasn’t because I regretted my decision. Hardly.

No, it was because the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, gymnastics, and a host of youth sports teams only communicated to families through Facebook.

Technically, I didn’t have to rejoin Facebook. It would just mean I would have no idea when youth activities were canceled or if times or locations were altered. Sure, that would work with three active children.

In my return to Facebook, I used a fictitious name so I would not pop up as a “suggested friend” to friends and family on Facebook. I did not want to get caught back up in the time suck that is social media. Finding myself streaming through a feed for what would start as a casual glance and turn into thirty minutes because their algorithms are so dang addictive.

No, this time I would limit the amount of time on Facebook to just necessary reading for youth activities.

Then came my wife’s PCS from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Bavaria, Germany.

Our PCS from North Carolina to Germany

The United States Army is constantly striving to improve aids and tools for military families transitioning to new posts. However, they cannot hold a candle to the power of military spouse groups on Facebook for each post as well as resources such as the Army Wife Network’s Post With The Most Series, which help you prepare for your PCS to one of 45 duty stations.

The Facebook spouses’ group at our current station in Germany was a tremendous help in planning for our move to another country. During our time here, it has become what used to be the local newspaper. I check it each day to see what events are happening as well as any local news that may impact me or my family.

Not long after arriving, I was asked to help moderate this local Facebook group of 1,300 members. They said something about my thoughtful contributions to the group, but my experience tells me it probably had something to do with me being a male spouse. There aren’t too many of us, and in situations such as this, thoughtful folks like to include someone that may hold a different perspective.

Well, at that point, I changed the name on my Facebook account to my real name. If I was going to help moderate other folk’s comments, I didn’t feel comfortable doing it behind a shroud of secrecy.

Incidentally, the friend request avalanche began soon after. To this day I remain “friendless” on Facebook, although my profile is kept public so friends and families can be notified via my Facebook page when I have a new post at either Army Wife Network or at my website, Scot With One T.

Every one of our children has more than one bookshelf in their room.

As part of the moderation team, I was responsible for reviewing posts on a daily basis. This was no burden for me, for as I said, I viewed my Facebook spouses’ group as a 21st century local newspaper. I wasn’t looking for hard hitting news, just the community events as well as the local news, like why did they cut down all those trees between the bank and the post office?

One morning in February, I opened my computer to see a post shared by a friend to the spouses’ group. The picture at the top of the post was of a young boy at a desk with his head in his hands, looking discouraged.

The post began with,  “I’ve lost a year with my kids battling over school and I’m done.”

The opening line and picture were a good hook, and I read the entire post, something I’m not prone to do with shared posts. When I finished, the post left me with strong feelings.

Clearly this post imparted strong feelings on other parents as well, as it was liked more than one quarter of a million times and was shared nearly three quarters of a million times with 36,000 comments. In our local spouses’ group, the reaction was equally positive, with people mostly loving the shared post rather than simply liking.

Within the post the writer makes many good points. She tells her first grader that no children have endured what he and his classmates around the world are currently experiencing. The writer talks about how children have been rolling with the punches for nearly a year now and have not been given enough credit. All true.

Most of our children’s bookshelves are overflowing.

But remember those strong feelings I had in reaction to the piece? They were also in response to the writer’s closing. She ends the piece by saying she closed her son’s computer and went outside with him to play for the remainder of the day. The writer then finishes with, “This is our home and I won’t turn it into a battle ground anymore over something we can’t control. Hug your little superheroes today and don’t forget to cut them the slack we’ve given everyone else,” (bolded emphasis mine).

Let me start by saying I am a passionate father.

Although I didn’t start out that way.

I never grew up saying I wanted children or wanted to become a father. I didn’t say the opposite either. It just wasn’t part of my thought process. When marriage happened, my wife and I weren’t necessarily family planning but were blessed to conceive easily, and before we knew it, bammo, we were a family of five. Because education was important to our parents as well as to my wife and me, it remained paramount with the birth of our first child, Hunter.

Malcolm X has been credited with saying, “education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” No truer words have been spoken.

It’s why my wife and I read to our children nightly for the first couple years of life and continue to do so at least weekly.

It’s why I introduced my children to Khan Academy long before COVID-19—because I could no longer stimulate all three of their minds through my efforts alone.

It’s why we travel, travel, travel with our children. The new places, new people, new cultures, and new experiences stimulate our children to seek, discover, and learn.

The family bookshelves are doubled up back to front.

I know through my passion for education how foundational leaning to read is by the third grade for children. As my friend and educator JoAnn once said, “kindergarten through third grade we put in the hardware and then from 4th grade on we are installing the software.” This position is well researched and documented including through this this long-term study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

During this pandemic I have seen the damage to our young students as possibly the greatest lasting effect. For the children traversing kindergarten through third grade over the past two years, many have been failing to develop as they would have with in-school instruction.

For many children, there is simply no solution presently to their personal education crisis.

What about the children with single working parents and who must be cared for by someone who only has time to supervise the child, not educate them?

What about the children with loving parents who want the best for their children but may not come from an educational background and are not familiar with foundational requirements for educational success such as reading to their child for at least twenty minutes a day?

What about the children who were already living in poverty and may now be further impoverished due to the pandemic’s calamitous economic effects and need to worry about food before reading?

Connecting literacy to travel and fun for our children at the Iowa State Library.

For these children, unfortunately, our society will be reacting to the consequences of our inactions for decades to come. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be establishing new programs and tools to identify these students currently being left behind—we should. But we must understand that if those programs appeared out of nowhere today, we would still have thousands of children who have taken an immeasurable hit to their learning path.

This will impact each of us even if we have no children, or thankfully, our children have not been falling behind over the past year of virtual school. These Americans being left behind may never fulfill their life’s potential if we cannot help them catch up with their learning discovery. They may never contribute to the tax base that funds our government, volunteer at our local charities, create art that inspires at the same level they would have if their learning had not been stunted. More importantly, they may be cheated out of the most self-fulfilling life possible and may cost them in happiness and contentment.

What can we do?

Get involved in an educational organization that serves pre-kindergarten through third grade, and promote literacy. This can be anything from volunteering at your local school where you can give that 1st grader the 20 minutes a day they need, to running for your local school board.

Visiting the Long Room at Trinity College in Dublin with thousands of books

For me it was running for and serving on my local Department of Defense school advisory committee, where I have the opportunity to talk about literacy every chance I can with other parents, teachers, and administrators. Literacy and general education is simply too crucial in every child’s life to “cut them some slack,” as the writer of the original post states.

Many of you reading this piece are associated with the military and know all that means. America is the nation that freed Europe. We are convinced our country is truly capable of anything. This includes our children and especially the military child.

The military child is the one that doesn’t expect to have the same school friends for more than three, maybe two years before they have to move again for their parent’s “work.” The military child is the one that has to pack every one of their belongings up every few years and see their favorite Lego set from Christmas destroyed by the packers. The military child is the one for which there is a standard operating procedure for leaving the school early (called accelerated withdrawal) because the military demands they leave their current home when the military demands it, not when the principal and superintendent deem it.

Allowing the children to create reading spaces all over the house.

American children, both military and non-military, are much more flexible than the adults that raise them.  When like me, you are tired of guiding your children’s schooling from home, read the Annie E. Casey study mentioned above that talks about the disaster that can result when children are not prepared when they graduate third grade. Use this as your motivation to find the strength to press on with your child to conquer their educational goals.

If you find yourself with more frustration than perseverance, reach out to your child’s teacher. Your child’s teacher draws a battle line each, and every day your child is in their classroom. Every teacher knows the importance of the third grade milestone. They have fought the battle with not just yours and mine, but other children as well. Tell them how you are feeling. Tell them how your child is feeling. Ask them for guidance from their experience reservoir.

Reach out to friends. Virtual schooling clearly hits a nerve with parents. Rather than share a piece that describes how we fail our children’s education, let’s share the ways in which we succeed in guiding our children’s education.  We all have at least one trick that works.

One of my tricks is only for families with more than one child. As soon as my 2nd or 4th grader asks a question regarding something they are learning, I immediately direct them to their 6th grade sibling, or in the case of the 2nd grader, to either the 4th or 6th grader. By turning your child into a teacher you give them another appreciation for learning. It also expands the student to teacher ratio in my home classroom from 3:1 to 3:3.

Engaging our children with every literacy program our post library offers.

I understand why so many parents connected with this Facebook post. We are all tired. Tired of lockdowns. Tired of virtual school. Tired of COVID-19.

But if there is one battle line that must be drawn when we are all tired and ready to call it quits, make it the one that preserves your child’s future.

For any fellow parents looking to talk about guiding our child’s education from home, feel free to email me at scot.shumski@gmail.com. Although my children returned to in-person instruction the day before this piece was written, I have no illusion virtual school is gone for good.

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Scot Shumski

Scot Shumski

Scot hails from the former Republic of Vermont where his family goes back more than seven generations. Currently, he lives in the Bavarian region of Germany with his wife of more than 15 years and their three children. Previous stops on the thrill seeking roller coaster ride of life include Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Fort Lewis, Washington; and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Scot has visited all fifty United States and twenty countries. He is currently working on a set of universally accepted parameters with his son, Hunter, to help travelers determine if they can count a destination as having been visited. Before moving back to the United States, Scot plans on visiting all 27 European Union member nations. Before leaving this world he hopes to visit every nation on Earth. You can find him on both Twitter and Instagram @ScotShumski or on his website where he documents his travels, marathons, national park visits, and thoughts on life. Paradise for Scot has beaches where you can relax, national parks where you can camp, mountains to climb, marathons to run, foreign languages to learn, new foods to eat, and new and interesting people to meet!

2 thoughts on “Choosing Battle Lines

  • Sharita Knobloch
    March 2, 2021 at 12:51 pm
    Permalink

    What a powerful piece, Scot with One T! I can feel your experience and passion in your writing, and thank you for sharing it here.

    Many of your thoughts hit close to home… While the last year has been undoubtedly difficult, I *try* not to look at it as a waste of my daughter’s year at home. We chose to homeschool her since virtual school seemed the more heavy/difficult than the two options. Now, I’m not gonna sit here and say it’s been the greatest experience of my life. There’s been some really hard and frustration moments, testing my patience to the max and trying to keep my stress levels in hand. BUT I’ve been able to watch our 2nd grade daughter “get it” in ways before, especially in the realm of literacy. She’s reading out loud like a champ now, progressing leaps and bounds that she certainly wouldn’t have gained via virtual school (or maybe even in person school!)

    All that to say… Gosh, I sure hope our local school district opens back to 100% attendance in the fall! 🙂

    Reply
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