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COVID Kindergarten
Ashley Opfer • Sep 10, 2020
Fostering a love of learning in a pandemic
I have a background in education and, as such, since the day our first son, Oliver, was born, I have dreamed of his first day of school. Not his first day of preschool, but his first day of real school. Kindergarten. I had the quintessential photo of the kid with the too-big back pack heading down the sidewalk planned. I talked to him about school early and often. Oliver’s dad, my husband Chris, and I are both attorneys. We both loved school and we really hope our boys will both do the same. We told Oliver how many friends he was going to make and how much he was going to learn. After we did the school tour as new-school parents at his elementary school, we told him what the classrooms looked like, and how all the teachers were so nice. We told him that there was a two story library full of neat books, a music and movement room, an art class, and even a green screen video productions room. We told him about the after school LEGO Club and the basketball courts in the gym. We told him how much he was going to love school. We believed it an so did he.
We began the registration process for Oliver in late 2019. You can guess, I bet, where this is going. In March 2020 the world fell apart. COVID-19. Everything shut down. My, then, two preschool aged boys, Oliver and his younger brother Owen, came home to stay for the foreseeable future. Their Montessori preschool made a brave attempt at “distance learning.” Distance learning is hard for a four and three year old. My kids missed their friends and their teachers and their classrooms. Distance learning made them sad and so, we opted out after a few weeks. I told myself that was fine. It is preschool. I read to my kids every night. We talk to the kids about life, nature and the world around them. I was not worried that their education would be affected by missing out on a half-an-hour chaotic preschool Zoom call a couple days a week. Besides, this will all be back to normal in the fall.
Our school district just announced that it is not going back to normal. Our school is doing a hybrid schedule. Two days in-person with masks and sanitization. With kids sitting six feet apart and not able to run and play for PE or sing in Music class. Two days a week, no field trips, and lunch at separate tables in the classroom. The other three days would be more “distance” or E-learning. My heart broke. My heart broke at the thought that Oliver and his classmates won’t get to see his teacher smile at him on the first day. That he might not get to make great new friendships on the playground because he will have to stand six feet from the other kids. That he will be afraid to pick up a book because it might not have been cleaned yet. That I might not be the best person to preside over his e learning. That his kindergarten experience is not going to be what I had so hoped for and that he might not love school and might miss out on the wonderful magic that happens everyday in the classroom.
My heart breaks for all the parents who are not going to be able to make this work and for how their hearts are going to break at the thought of their children’s education suffering. My heart aches for the parents who are going to have to choose between going to work to pay the mortgage and put food on the table and their child’s education. I worry for the children with special needs and the pressure that is going to place on their parents. I am so sad for the single moms who don’t know how they are going to be able to accomplish this feat alone and I ache for the kids whose only meal in a day comes from what they receive at the school building.
Sometimes, though, unimaginable beauty can come from that which is heartbreaking or difficult. Right now, my mama heart is sad, but I am also filled with hope. I get to play a role in my son’s education that most parents of children who are schooled outside the home will never get to play. I have the opportunity to introduce Oliver to school. I get to show him that learning happens anywhere and all the time. That teachers are all around us. That you can learn from your teacher in school, your friends at recess, your books, computer, and iPad; from traveling to new places or from taking walks and observing your own neighborhood and, yes, even from your mom and dad. This school year is not going to be what I had planned on or even what I had hopped for but, I have the opportunity to create a life long love of learning in my son and that is beautiful.