Diary of Spain in Lockdown - Home schooling Week Two

Monday 30th March -  Home schooling Week Two

After the clocks went back at the weekend, getting up for our second week of home schooling came hard. The teachers are relentless and another load of ‘tareas’ fell into our inboxes. It seems that the teachers, and I’m one of them, are under pressure to send enough work to keep their students busy from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed. Honestly, a couple of hours of telly or an afternoon of playing Just Dance on the Wii really wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Every day they send us videos and links to activities to keep the children occupied, all the while telling us not to feel overwhelmed or stress ourselves trying to do everything. But it’s not easy when you’re trying to work as well as control little ones. So, I decide I’ll take it easy, give myself a break, try to take a laidback approach. Then, up pops a message in the class Whatsapp group with a video from a mother whose daughter has already learnt the spring poem we’d been sent, prancing around her VERY TIDY living room, reciting said poem and pointing at the completed craft activity flower stuck to the window. Our petals still lay abandoned somewhere in a heap waiting to be traced, coloured, cut out and stuck together.

Will my five-year-old daughter be affected long term? Will she be left behind for not having done every piece of work she’s sent? I think not and I’m not going to argue with her about it every day.

The Spanish health minister reported a drop in the number of deaths today, down to 812, claiming we are nearing the peak. Let’s hope that’s true, or at least that the peak is flattening out. The question students and my own children ask is, when will we go back to school? The truth is we don’t know, nobody knows, but one thing’s for sure, we’re definitely in this for the long haul.

Post script:  Our spring flower was eventually traced, coloured, cut out and stuck together