March was supposed to be a difficult month in Chile due to the referendum and planned civil unrest; however, even the civil unrest has been postponed due to Covid-19. Today, like schools all over the country we had our first dose of distance learning. The administration allowed teachers to go to the school through Wednesday to prepare and gather the materials that they will need to access from home, cancel that.
As I write, the school is closed for further notice even to teachers as President Sebastián Piñera just announced that Chile has moved to Phase 4 regarding COVID-19. As of today, there are 155 confirmed cases in Chile. What does Phase 4 mean? The World Health Organization (WHO) defines that at this stage, the virus is considered to have a “sustained transmission in the country”, with a possible exponential growth of the virus in the population. We will have at least two weeks of distance learning, but we are anticipating a longer period of school cancellation.
Today, my kids received a welcome to distance learning from their principal made on Screencastify. As a learning coach, I took notes and prepared to open an account, watch an online tutorial on how to make a video on Screencastify, and make my own quick video, too. Then the kids opened an email from their classroom teachers with learning in all of their subjects. All of the platforms including Google Docs, Brain Pop, IXL math, Raz-Kids, and Seesaw they had previously used in school. Both teachers had office hours on Google Hangouts.
When Mia posted her work on Seesaw, she uploaded pictures and voice recordings to explain her math thinking. She shared her poem from her writing journal. We read together Heidi Heckelbeck is Ready to Dance, which is a new series for her. Mia made lunch for her and Max. She loves to watch Masterchef Junior, so she enjoyed making spaghetti, fruit salad, and cut vegetable sticks. Max worked on his own without too much guidance from me for the most part. When he was missing a password or could not get into a Google Hangout, he asked me for assistance. We talked about rising and falling action. He spent a little too long on math problems in IXL far below his level. He also spent time losing in online chess to grandpa. I am noticing that he rushes through his work, which I wonder is because of using online platforms or is something that I have not noticed because I have not been so close to his learning. When Rich came home, both kids went for a long bike ride. We played some Crazy Eights and Monopoly. To be sure the schedule that we had made the night before, we did not follow. However, just having the schedule set a tone for the day that this would be a day of structured learning, outdoor fun, and indoor games.
To be clear, today was not all sunshine and success; nor do I expect the next two weeks to be easy. I was not able to get to any of my own work until 3:00 pm. I am taking a course online for distance learning with Global Online Academy, which I did complete well. I did not get to test a coaching pilot tool for our team that I had promised to finish. I can anticipate that working from home will present some challenges; I am not sure how I will get any sustained work done. Also, for some reason, we did not have a set of keys at home, so the kids and I could not leave the house because the door locks behind us. Even if I propped the door, we need a second key to get into the gated plaza, so we had to wait until Rich came home to go for a scooter ride/run. Overall, the kids spent far too much time staring at screens, so we are going to figure out a better balance.
Tomorrow, we have a lot to look forward to. Thanks to a Facebook friend, I have heard about Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems through the Kennedy Center, which he is offering live weekdays at 1:00 pm EST. Mia and I will continue to practice violin together. We are both learning how to play “Finger March “using the Open D and E on the D string. I will go for another short run and continue to work on upping my pushup count. The kids are reaching out to friends (near and far) to Skype with. I am reading an interesting book called iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing-up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy- and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. I am sure that I will learn new technology platforms, spend quality time with my family, and join more new FB groups like the Accidental Homeschooler one I was just invited to after sharing a link to NPR’s Circle Round online. Looks like some silver lining…
Living in Chile 