The Classroom
The empty room in our home is now a classroom. I purchased maps and a shelf, a multiplication chart and study aides I bought off Etsy or stores featured on my Instagram feed. My mother gave us a shelf she bought for her classroom decades ago. It manages to bring that peculiar scent of old wood and school hallway to the room, creating an authentic school smell that is most noted when the door is opened every morning. The room is off limits to regular play. Once my daughter is finished with the district's remote learning and we have reviewed the learning for the day, finished the homework, the computer is turned off, window shuttered, and door closed. It is the most organized, most respected and cleanest room in the home. While I don't make purchases for home furniture or decor, this room still has a small wish list.
My daughter was happily attending the neighborhood school, a new, clean building that looked very much like the neighborhood school she attended in Austin. We were looking forward to stability as she had already seen three schools in two years. The school has an amazing music room and art space which is very important to me. It had a great school library and sweet librarian. Even the school grounds seemed kinder than the other schools she had attended in town. One school playground would sprout Devil's Claw overnight and scorpions had been spotted. It was brand new school, a series of "portables" arranged wagon train style with a tiny playground in the center. No grass or shade was available. We were there three months before I was transferred to another school. It was an older one with hallways, so much nicer than having to go outside and into other trailers. This school had a playground that backed into a ranch, and rattlesnakes would show up near the front doors. Snakes were spotted often enough that I would send my child to school in boots and tell her to survey the landscape with her eyes and sit on the slide and look around before going off running. Bats were often found in a classrooms in the morning. I'd see hawks and mama quail with their babies all in a row in the morning.
Once I left the district as an employee, my child had to attend the assigned school and it turned out to be a lovely one. Every morning I'd park a block away so we could have a nice walk in the cool, moist mornings and then we'd go into the cafeteria and wait for the bell. Some mornings I packed us a tea in a thermos to share and muffin or slice of bread. We'd say good-bye and I'd be off on my day. I'd head back at 2:45 to gather with grandparents and parents and chit-chat before the kids were out. That got to be a nice little party and I found myself showing up at 2:30 just to talk a little more. There was a sweet little community there.
We had not yet figured out how to live with quarantines and lockdowns and covid-19. We were in pajamas most of the day. I was learning how to place curbside orders for groceries and rabbit food. Our bedtimes hovered loosely between 10pm-1am. We'd start a game or a book and next thing we knew it was late. All the disorder adding to my anxiety. Some nights I only slept an hour or two. The school year ended and I tuned into district meetings, looked into the Waldorf homeschooling curriculum and tried to reign in all the chaos bit by bit, starting with bedtimes. By July we were in bed by 10pm, and by August we were asleep by 9pm.
The room that housed toy overflow, boxes of papers I needed to sort through, and anything else that had no home, became the classroom. It took a month to get it together and organized. I'm proud of how it turned out. I needed a real school desk, and thankfully had one in her bedroom beside her bed. I moved it into the classroom and bought a matching school chair. It was like magic when I paired them together. Suddenly things, all things, in all aspects of my life felt achievable. While there is still much anxiety and unknown to navigate, I have created my launching pad.
I wake up every morning, ask Alexa to turn on KUT, make breakfast, wake her up, ask Alexa to turn on KMFA and we eat together. While I pick up she gets dressed, does her hair and we meet in the classroom thirty minutes before school starts. She opens the window, I turn on the laptop and click on the class Zoom link for the day, or the week.... I make a tea and take a seat off camera with a notebook and pencil and my own laptop. While she is learning, I take notes on things the teacher says like: practice writing out your multiplication table once a day after school. I am there to log her back in should something disconnect somehow, which happens. It's my time for listing and planning, both exercises in self-care. I quickly peruse Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and the New York Times so I can put my phone down once school is over. I order prints of photographs, make out Christmas card lists, put in curbside orders, catch up on email or letter writing, write down my work schedule. I start lunch in the InstaPot around 10am and make a list of what I can make the next day for lunch and dinner. We end the school day, close the door that has W-E-L-C-O-M-E taped to it and under that, a sign my daughter made two years ago that says Be Kind.
My daughter was happily attending the neighborhood school, a new, clean building that looked very much like the neighborhood school she attended in Austin. We were looking forward to stability as she had already seen three schools in two years. The school has an amazing music room and art space which is very important to me. It had a great school library and sweet librarian. Even the school grounds seemed kinder than the other schools she had attended in town. One school playground would sprout Devil's Claw overnight and scorpions had been spotted. It was brand new school, a series of "portables" arranged wagon train style with a tiny playground in the center. No grass or shade was available. We were there three months before I was transferred to another school. It was an older one with hallways, so much nicer than having to go outside and into other trailers. This school had a playground that backed into a ranch, and rattlesnakes would show up near the front doors. Snakes were spotted often enough that I would send my child to school in boots and tell her to survey the landscape with her eyes and sit on the slide and look around before going off running. Bats were often found in a classrooms in the morning. I'd see hawks and mama quail with their babies all in a row in the morning.
Once I left the district as an employee, my child had to attend the assigned school and it turned out to be a lovely one. Every morning I'd park a block away so we could have a nice walk in the cool, moist mornings and then we'd go into the cafeteria and wait for the bell. Some mornings I packed us a tea in a thermos to share and muffin or slice of bread. We'd say good-bye and I'd be off on my day. I'd head back at 2:45 to gather with grandparents and parents and chit-chat before the kids were out. That got to be a nice little party and I found myself showing up at 2:30 just to talk a little more. There was a sweet little community there.
I picked her up on that Friday before Spring Break in early March. We were excited with plans to visit Austin. By Monday I had cancelled our mid-week visit and purchased a pantry full of food, with attention to ingredients for fire cider. My daughter was thrilled when she heard that classes would not resume for another two weeks, then another two weeks, then another two weeks, then another two weeks. Meanwhile, we were given a list of "lessons" to complete each week, involving links to videos to watch, and worksheets. I had signed up for paperless classes but my printer stopped working, so I was writing out work in a notebook, she'd fill in the answers, I would then photograph the pages and send them in. I was told it was too late to switch to having work mailed out each week. I understood why. There were no interactive worksheets or teaching online, just lists. We started our days at noon and were done by 4pm. The next day it was 5pm. Our week was over by Thursday. Then it was over by Wednesday. Then Tuesday. We started working at the bar by the kitchen but that space became uncomfortable. So we ended up sitting on the floor at the coffee table in the living room.
We had not yet figured out how to live with quarantines and lockdowns and covid-19. We were in pajamas most of the day. I was learning how to place curbside orders for groceries and rabbit food. Our bedtimes hovered loosely between 10pm-1am. We'd start a game or a book and next thing we knew it was late. All the disorder adding to my anxiety. Some nights I only slept an hour or two. The school year ended and I tuned into district meetings, looked into the Waldorf homeschooling curriculum and tried to reign in all the chaos bit by bit, starting with bedtimes. By July we were in bed by 10pm, and by August we were asleep by 9pm.
The room that housed toy overflow, boxes of papers I needed to sort through, and anything else that had no home, became the classroom. It took a month to get it together and organized. I'm proud of how it turned out. I needed a real school desk, and thankfully had one in her bedroom beside her bed. I moved it into the classroom and bought a matching school chair. It was like magic when I paired them together. Suddenly things, all things, in all aspects of my life felt achievable. While there is still much anxiety and unknown to navigate, I have created my launching pad.
I wake up every morning, ask Alexa to turn on KUT, make breakfast, wake her up, ask Alexa to turn on KMFA and we eat together. While I pick up she gets dressed, does her hair and we meet in the classroom thirty minutes before school starts. She opens the window, I turn on the laptop and click on the class Zoom link for the day, or the week.... I make a tea and take a seat off camera with a notebook and pencil and my own laptop. While she is learning, I take notes on things the teacher says like: practice writing out your multiplication table once a day after school. I am there to log her back in should something disconnect somehow, which happens. It's my time for listing and planning, both exercises in self-care. I quickly peruse Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and the New York Times so I can put my phone down once school is over. I order prints of photographs, make out Christmas card lists, put in curbside orders, catch up on email or letter writing, write down my work schedule. I start lunch in the InstaPot around 10am and make a list of what I can make the next day for lunch and dinner. We end the school day, close the door that has W-E-L-C-O-M-E taped to it and under that, a sign my daughter made two years ago that says Be Kind.
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