You guys, I'm having a really hard time this week. Just ask my family. Yesterday was the first day in four that I didn't:
A. Throw a expletive laden tantrum about something relatively insignificant like the dishwasher being broken, having to make lunch for my kids again or the fact that the President seems to think that he can cancel the post office.
B. Curl up on my bed and cry into my pillow following that tantrum because I felt like a horrible person for being upset when there are people on ventilators and people who can't pay their bills because they lost their jobs and people who aren't getting their government issued checks after losing their jobs because the President wants to improve the design by adding his signature to them before he sends them out.
C. Spend the rest of the day apologizing to my kids for the swearing and crying and offering to pay for the therapy they will need as adults to get over the PTSD surely being inflicted by my crazy mood swings and the overall incompetence of the federal government.
Hopefully their future therapist will offer a better explanation than "That's what you get when your mother's an artist and your president is a reality TV star."
At the end of the never-ending day, however, I think that the extreme mood swings I'm dealing with are caused by one thing - and that one thing is not forgetting to take my meds (both the prescribed and recreational kind), a broken appliance or the president's mismanaging of a world-wide health crisis which is about to cause the worst Depression since the Great one.
It's about the pressure I feel to properly educate my kids.
It's been clear to me for quite some time - or at least the past month - that I'm not cut out to be a teacher, a personal chef or a background dancer in the next J.Lo video. I have neither the head for algebra, the patience for picky eaters or any sense of rhythm whatsoever. But this week has been extra discouraging when it comes to the teaching stuff.
(The dancing stuff, on the other hand, is starting to really take off. Just ask Shawn T. But don't ask me why I think he can see me through the screen. That might actually have to do with the self-medicating mentioned above.)
This week the principal sent out an email to the parents that "specials" classes (art, gym and music) are not optional.
Which means I have to stop pretending they are. Which means I have nine (nine!) new websites to check for assignments. That's three specials for each kid and the crazy thing is that I was able to figure that out without asking Alexa. So, if nothing else I'm getting better at math during this weird time in my life, thanks to Common Core and the fact that I now have nine (nine!) new strategies for doing multiplication.
So now, in addition to having to be a math and literacy teacher, in addition to having to explain the difference between a theocracy and a dictatorship and how we are getting dangerously close to one of those in this country, in addition to playing word study games and making sure that Hebrew is being practiced on the regular in case social gathering restrictions are lifted and we are actually allowed to have a bar mitzvah a year from now, I'm also responsible for teaching music theory, making collages and doing sports stuff.
And here I thought that if nothing else, this pandemic is teaching us about the dangers of a "gig economy." There are a couple million unemployed waiters out there but we want to encourage a career in the arts???
Okaaaay.
Here's how all of that played out this week:
You'd think that, being a fine arts major in college, I would be a great art teacher. You know that expression, "If you can't do, teach?" Well, I'm not doing any actual art these days, so that must mean it's time to teach, right?
Wrong.
I spent the better part of Monday afternoon ripping out pages from my stack of Parents magazines and cutting them into squares and then separating them by color into little piles all over the kitchen table.
On one hand, this brought me way more entertainment than reading the feature stories about "Fun Family Vacations" or "Creative Lunchbox Ideas" which have never been less relevant to my life.
Because the next time I go on vacation it will not be with my family, and also fuck lunch. It's the worst meal of the day because breakfast was like two hours ago and I just finished cleaning up from that shit show and suddenly my kids want to be fed again. And clearly they have gotten spoiled at school because they seem to think that my kitchen is the same sort of cafeteria free-for-all situation where there's one official lunch with all of the food groups but if you don't like it you can ask for a nut-butter-substitute-and-jelly sandwich or a chef salad or yesterday's leftovers and if you eat 2/3 of it you can get ice cream five minutes later. Yeah, nope.
Anyway, I cut out these pretty paper squares and decided to use them to make a color wheel collage because after all I did go to a top rated art school and if there's one thing I learned it's
Guess how much interest my kids had in this project? I'll give you a hint - it took me ten times longer to clean up the paper squares that somehow ended up all over the downstairs of my house than it did for them to humor me by gluing three paper squares to the white card stock I provided and then retreat to the basement for some Fortnight and chill.
Maybe the expression should be "If you can't teach, do."
Then there's music class. Remember that part about me having no rhythm? Yeah, that also applies to tone, melody and pitch. However the elementary school music teacher doesn't care about my inability to carry a tune and has created some pretty amazing lesson plans which were super unnecessary because she's my favorite and puts so much effort into her work throughout the year that honestly, all she has to do is post a video of herself singing Happy Birthday while showing the kids how to wash their hands and I would have considered the lesson a huge success.
Instead, there was a lesson on pitch and tone and a song about traveling to London which I'm pretty sure is still on the list of places that Americans are not allowed to fly to right now... We muddled through but I saved the teacher the torture of listening to my kids sing (and possibly her ability blackmail me for this post) by not sending her any actual audio from this experience.
On to physical education. Last week the kids' gym teacher was nice enough to post videos of himself throwing and catching balls. I can only imagine that the entire time he was making these short films he was saying to himself "Oh for fuck's sake."
I mean, can we please stop pretending that there are actual skills to be learned in gym class? Gym class is about social currency, period. It's about separating the strong from the weak, the winners from the losers, the backup dancers from that person in the background of the workout video showing how to do the moves "low impact."
I say that as a gym class loser, and a low-impact-assistant hopeful.
I walked the mile when everyone else ran.
I ducked any time a volleyball came anywhere near me. Or a basketball. Or a tennis ball. Possibly even a ping pong ball.
I was picked last every time anyone who wasn't my BFF was picking teams (and even sometimes when it was).
I love working out now, but let's not pretend it has anything to do with athletic ability or anything I learned in P.E. It has everything to do with extreme vanity and a slowing metabolism combined with some anxiety issues that pharmaceuticals can't fix and need to be physically sweated out .
So these lessons on throwing and catching balls are killing me. Because for one thing, no video will ever create the eye-hand coordination necessary for me to be able to catch a ball. Ask any one of my childhood gym teachers, or my dad, or my husband.
But more importantly, I have three boys, and all they do is throw and catch balls. It's in their DNA, or maybe in their actual, physical balls, I don't know. I'm still not sure why those things are even there. My kids took a football with them on our family cruise in December and managed to annoy everyone from the people in baggage claim at the airport to the waiters in the dining room on the ship with their constant throwing and catching. If there's one thing they don't need, it's a demo on what to do with balls.
Although, I've been told that my sixth grader's sex ed class has been cancelled so maybe a "what to do with balls" video could be useful for him.
The other reason this lesson is killing me is because this week's "throwing and catching" lesson includes instructions on playing bocce ball and cornhole. They are in first and third grade. If the school district thinks that they need to start learning these games now it makes me feel like school might be cancelled until they are ready to leave for college. What's on next week's lesson plans? Beer pong and flip cup?
So, as this week comes to an end and I struggle to make sense of the myriad of checklists I've made to keep track of my kids' at-home education (now with specials!), this is what I've realized:
I don't have a lot in common with my kids. I could sit and sketch, or paint, or collage for hours. They would rather play with balls. Neither skill really sets them up for financial success, but at least this way (fingers crossed) they won't be picked last in gym class and almost not graduate from high school because they decide that skipping P.E to hide out in the art room as much as they can is better for their self-esteem than actually showing up for class.
None of us, however, have music skills but we do love a good sing along. However can I make the suggestion that next week's music lesson is a little more Covid-19 relatable? Don't Stand So Close To Me by The Police might be a good jumping off point. Social distancing and the problem with accepting a ride home from your hot teacher? Now that's what I call (cross-curriculum) music.
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