Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Poeticdrivel.blogspot.com
Homeschool, Screenschool, Noschool
Pat Wheeler: “A game-legged old man
and a drunk. Is that all you got?”
Sheriff John T. Chance: “That’s what
I’ve got.”
-Rio Bravo
Today’s first lesson is that no such construct as “homeschool”
obtains, either as a noun or as a verb. When your father taught you hunting
safety he did not homeschool you; he taught you. If your sixth-grade teacher
taught you not to spit tobacco into the classroom litter basket because your parents
failed in their duty of teaching basic hygiene, manners, and dignity, he did
not schoolhome you.
And, yes, when I first taught sixth grade the local
customs of chawin’, dippin’, spittin’, and dying from mouth cancer in early
adulthood came as a surprise.
We learn in all of life’s situations; we do not homelearn
or schoollearn. After our first few encounters with our fellow pilgrims we also
teach in all of life’s situations; we do not hometeach or schoolteach.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Today’s second lesson is about, oh, screenschooling, also
known as distance learning or asymmetrical learning.
It’s not much good. That reality should have been learned
(or schoolschooled) over ten years ago, when the fashion began: students in different
towns are clustered before Orwellian telescreens while much time is wasted on several
monitors in several different places try to make all the electronic mummery
work.
And yet screenschooling might be metaphorical mannah in
the CV desert – it’s not a steak dinner at Delmonico’s, but for a time of
wandering it will have to do. As Sheriff Chance says, it’s what you’ve got.
The only way screenschooling can kinda / sorta work is
for parents to be parents, to get the kidlets up on time, feed them breakfast,
require them to dress in their school clothes, seat them at the kitchen table
(not a couch or bed), and then supervise them while accomplishing other
household chores.
And, anyway, aren’t there books and musical instruments
and small animals and paper and pens and paintboxes and houseplants and tools
and all the other appurtenances of civilization in your home now?
For now your children don’t have access to classrooms, school
breakfasts, school lunches, laboratories, gyms, playing fields, structure,
expectations, or game-legged old men.
What your children have now is you. Be the parent, not a
roommate. To paraphrase Cole Thornton in El Dorado, don’t leave a boy
alone at the kitchen table to do a man’s job.
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