How to Work Efficiently With Your Child’s Classroom Teacher During the Quarantine

As more and more weeks are getting added to the coronavirus quarantine, parents are quickly figuring out just how difficult it can be to homeschool their children. In fact, it appears realistically at the moment that the quarantine just may last for the next two months until the official school year is over.

Ironically enough, I was talking with a parent the other day that has often been difficult with their children’s teachers and always wondered why they were not achieving up to their potential in the classroom. The parent finally admitted that she has a newfound respect for teachers as she struggles with educating just two kids at home and cannot imagine doing this with a classroom of 25 students.

If you are a few weeks into homeschooling now and wondering how in the world you can continue doing this for the next eight weeks, take a deep breath and listen to the advice of an educator that has worked with all grade levels for going on 15 years now.

Don’t Treat Homeschooling Lightly

It sounds like most schools are not just hanging the parents and students out to dry. They are trying to work with all in an effort to further the children’s education during this time through eLearning.

I spoke with many local administrators and educators in Illinois that come from numerous school districts and asked how their staff was approaching eLearning with the students. Most replied that a packet that consists of classroom work the students would be doing during this time has been sent home for each child to work on during the quarantine and that teachers are keeping in contact with their students through message boards, Google Classroom, Edmodo, and apps such as these. Or, at least, educators are trying to.

Out of the 20 or so educators I spoke with, most have stated that only about half of the parents and their kids so far are attempting to stay in contact during the quarantine by answering questions through the apps and email. Furthermore, the packets that have been sent home are not going to be collected by most schools as there is fear that the coronavirus can survive on paper for up to three days.

In addition, all teaching staff said there would be no grades collected from the students’ work during the coronavirus quarantine. Because of this, many parents and kids figure why bother to do the work then in the first place. What is the point?

The Honor System Is in Place

The point is that most teachers are still trying to do what is best for the students and most parents would like to see their kids succeed later on in life, so now is the perfect opportunity to teach the kids that hard work does not always immediately get rewarded. In life, not everything is given a grade. It is either succeed or fail. With that in mind, here are a few tips on how parents and teachers can work efficiently during the quarantine on educating the children.

Use the Actual Textbooks

Rather than just skate by with the bare minimum, parents can borrow the textbooks from the classroom teacher and continue doing the lessons in the books all the way through summer and until the next school year begins. The summer learning slide is a real thing and if the kids are going up to six months without being in a real classroom, then this homeschooling should last even throughout the summer months.

Communicate By Email

The last thing teachers want during these uncertain times is for their phone to be blowing up with constant homeschooling questions that can be answered in seconds through email. I’m not sure about you guys, but at this time, every moment I hear my phone ring, I feel as if there is going to be bad news on the other end. Save the phone calls and email homeschooling questions instead.

Share Websites and Apps to Explore

There are millions of educational websites and apps that kids can be using during these next few weeks. Be sure to share these back and forth with parents, educators, and all who will listen. In fact, each kid at their house should have a computer work station available if possible where they can partake in learning from these educational sites and apps.

Recommend Tutors

It is quite likely that there are parents out there that do not feel qualified to educate their children in certain subjects. Perhaps a parent barely passed Math class back in the day and the last thing they want to do is pass on their lack of math skills to their kids. It would be a good idea to recommend suitable tutors so as not to traumatize both the kids and their parents. In fact, iAchieve could be your one-stop-shop for tutors that can help with all subjects and grade levels. We can assist you in keeping the children fully educated during these troubling times.

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