Day Eight – Mini-school starts here
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
It’s Tuesday. Any normal Year 12 Tuesday, Gabriel has Chemistry, Mathematics and English. In Year 10, Florentino has French, PE, History and English. In Year 8, it’s English, Science, Maths and Health for Juvenal.
So after a morning meeting snuggled under blankets in the autumn sun, they headed to ‘mini-school’. In turn, each sat with me and explained the subject matter of their courses. This opened up discussion, tangential to classwork, but educative.
Tino’s history class is studying the ‘Home Front’ during World War Two. Today he learned his great grandmother was a 'plane spotter' on the South Coast, and his great grandfathers, one a school teacher, the other operating an egg farm, were both considered ‘essential’ service providers and exempted from military service.
Gabe’s physics class is exploring electricity and magnetism. We applied this practically to a schematic for an electricity transformer and went on to convert and regulate the output.
Juve’s maths class is factorising algebraic expressions. We found the difference between the squares of consecutive numbers. And in Spanish, a discussion of the 'present progressive' tense leapt to a discussion of how the structure of a language can influence the structure of the culture it is spoken in.
The boys came alive, hankering for the regular intellectual exchange of the classroom.
School is slowly swinging into action. More ‘experimental’ live video classrooms. More assignments with completion dates. The first assessment posted on ManageBac since continuous learning began.
The home learners are nibbling at the resource pages schools and others have provided. Tino supplemented his French with Duolingo today. They need more prompting.
School and the P&C are also actively prompting kids towards portals for counselling and moderated group sessions with other teens, giving those for whom things are not going well a chance to step out.
We began experimenting with ‘on grid’ and ‘off grid’ sessions. My darlings each nominated two hours of every day when their friends can be assured of finding them online, and a corresponding two hour block free from distraction. While we experiment the other hours remain in flux.
Of course, to be ‘on grid’ requires internet access, ours beset with strange ‘dropouts’ at irregular intervals since home learning began. It is the microwave. Microwave goes on, internet goes off. It’s probably been that way for years, but working at home alone I never use both at the same time, and never noticed.
Having endured one entire day of tele-working, my beloved was dragged back to headquarters today, to attend to some business of great import. Gone all day and half of tomorrow too I’m assured.
That’s Tuesday.
Escolástica
It’s Tuesday. Any normal Year 12 Tuesday, Gabriel has Chemistry, Mathematics and English. In Year 10, Florentino has French, PE, History and English. In Year 8, it’s English, Science, Maths and Health for Juvenal.
So after a morning meeting snuggled under blankets in the autumn sun, they headed to ‘mini-school’. In turn, each sat with me and explained the subject matter of their courses. This opened up discussion, tangential to classwork, but educative.
Tino’s history class is studying the ‘Home Front’ during World War Two. Today he learned his great grandmother was a 'plane spotter' on the South Coast, and his great grandfathers, one a school teacher, the other operating an egg farm, were both considered ‘essential’ service providers and exempted from military service.
Gabe’s physics class is exploring electricity and magnetism. We applied this practically to a schematic for an electricity transformer and went on to convert and regulate the output.
Juve’s maths class is factorising algebraic expressions. We found the difference between the squares of consecutive numbers. And in Spanish, a discussion of the 'present progressive' tense leapt to a discussion of how the structure of a language can influence the structure of the culture it is spoken in.
The boys came alive, hankering for the regular intellectual exchange of the classroom.
School is slowly swinging into action. More ‘experimental’ live video classrooms. More assignments with completion dates. The first assessment posted on ManageBac since continuous learning began.
The home learners are nibbling at the resource pages schools and others have provided. Tino supplemented his French with Duolingo today. They need more prompting.
School and the P&C are also actively prompting kids towards portals for counselling and moderated group sessions with other teens, giving those for whom things are not going well a chance to step out.
We began experimenting with ‘on grid’ and ‘off grid’ sessions. My darlings each nominated two hours of every day when their friends can be assured of finding them online, and a corresponding two hour block free from distraction. While we experiment the other hours remain in flux.
Of course, to be ‘on grid’ requires internet access, ours beset with strange ‘dropouts’ at irregular intervals since home learning began. It is the microwave. Microwave goes on, internet goes off. It’s probably been that way for years, but working at home alone I never use both at the same time, and never noticed.
Having endured one entire day of tele-working, my beloved was dragged back to headquarters today, to attend to some business of great import. Gone all day and half of tomorrow too I’m assured.
That’s Tuesday.
Escolástica
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