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Giving the ball back to teachers

KNOCK ON WOOD

With news of a tentative agreement coming out on Monday, I started to relax a bit. When the B.C. Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) released a few details and said they were going to recommend acceptance, I started to put some faith in it.

Today (Wednesday), as I write this column, teachers across the province are getting prepared to vote. All signs point to yes for ratification and our kids going back to class next week. Can I get a cautious “hallelujah?”

These three weeks of watching and waiting and trying to make sense of the impasse that has been so negatively affecting our kids has been at times infuriating and at other times depressing.

It has been difficult for me as a parent to explain what’s going on to my kids and to try to keep their spirits up as the weeks have been dragging on.

I found myself getting jaded and having to remind myself of the good things teachers were fighting for when all I could see was the need for school to resume so my kids could get an education.

I’m not one who likes to sit with a negative feeling for too long, and generally to lift my spirits, I try to find something proactive to do.

In this case it was home schooling.

It wasn’t something I thought I’d ever do, but seeing Kaitlyn’s and Ryder’s sad, bored faces after a week had gone by and no school had started, I decided to give it a try.

Unsure where to start, I asked my many home schooling friends what they did. Everyone had a different way of teaching. I was overwhelmed with information.

Finally one friend told me the magic words I needed to hear: “Just pick a topic they’re interested in and go from there.”

That’s what I needed — a theme to craft my lesson plans around.

I asked my kids what they wanted to learn about and they were full of ideas.

They ventured to ancient Egypt, learned about pharaohs, made their own pyramids and mummified apples. They learned about the differences between lizards and salamanders and did some colour experiments while learning about chameleons. They found out more cat facts than I even knew existed and created cat toys to entertain the furry members of our family.

It was a lot of fun, but it was also a lot of work.

It took me about two hours a night to research a lesson plan and put it together and then, here’s the catch, my kids had to guide themselves through it.

I was at work each day when my kids were doing their schooling. Although their dad was home, he works nights and sleeps through the mornings, so for the most part my seven- and 11–year-old were on their own to do the work.

So did they do it? Yes! I’m so proud of my kids, their work ethic and their excitement about learning! Of course, they’ll tell you that they’d rather be in class, but they gave home schooling their all and they get full marks from me for that.

With the hope of school starting on the horizon, my kids are eager to get back to class, and I’m relieved that I won’t have to come up with new material each day to keep the home schooling thing up for much longer.

So back to you teachers. My kids are excited to return to your classrooms and we’re all thankful you’re going to be there. We missed you.