By: Nica Castro

As we fervently try to balance work with all the moving parts of our lives, you’d think home-schooling is completely out of the picture. We are all guilty of using our gadgets to “babysit” our kids for us. What usually starts as a 5-minute solution to take a call or send an email, becomes a top-of-mind solution for a lot of busy adults. 

In my case, I was looking after my 10-year-old niece, Affia. She’s a smart little ball of energy who uses her screen time to learn about things she is curious about. She searches about the planets, peacocks, mermaids, how-to trivia, and even the best sleeping position if you have back pain. And to test if we paid attention to her telling us about her learnings, she would quiz us!

Halfway through the quarantine, we started to notice how Affia grew quieter and more involved with her screen. She didn’t care for any fun games and activities we threw at her. She had very low energy and even refused to eat. We tried bribing her with rewards just so she would do any activity with us. She turned them all down.

I felt scared. I could not recognize my talkative, hyperactive, creative, sweet little niece in the little stranger I was talking to. It was a wake-up call if I have ever known one. Then and there, I grabbed my laptop and drafted a learning program for Affia and my 13-year-old sister, Chubby.

I called for a family meeting for us to work together in home-schooling Chubby and Affia. I presented my Powerpoint and defended my case like a thesis. It was serious business.

Subjects We Taught In Home-school

Word of the day

We teach them one word in Filipino and another in English, every day to expand their vocabularies. Learning new words will sharpen their communication, improve comprehension, and encourage new lines of reasoning.

Country of the day

We discuss one country a day to teach them about the world and its various cultures and languages. By the end of this quarantine, we hope to be able to say hello, goodbye, please, thank you and you’re welcome in at least five new different languages.

Animal of the day, plant of the day, and Gardening 

These subjects help build the all-important senses of connection, empathy, and caring, whilst instilling a sense of responsibility and respect for life. As of writing, they have planted monggo and chili and have been monitoring their growth every day.

Letters to God

Gratitude, especially in uncertain times like these helps them break down their fears and anxieties. The amount of resilience contained in their little bodies is a revelation to us all. They are aware of what is happening around the world but still find little things to be thankful for. While we encourage them to share their feelings, these letters remain sealed because we also want to teach them the value of privacy

Climate Change 101

In one session we asked them “How do you want to live?” and asked them to draw their “perfect” environment. Both drawings had public green spaces for families to enjoy. They both wanted sustainable housing with the infrastructure for proper waste segregation – a show of basic knowledge of renewable energy.

Affia even expressed her disappointment over single-use plastic coffee sachets! 

Art activities

Art sessions are usually followed by a Show and Tell to make the lesson more fun! One time, after learning about dinosaurs, we asked them to imagine themselves as one and tell us about what they would eat, look like, and be called. We got some pretty interesting answers!

Physical activities 

We introduced them to activities like yoga, dancing, and stretching to keep them moving and healthy both physically and mentally. After all, active kids are happy kids!

The Values Home-schooling Taught Them

Time-management

Being stuck in quarantine has distorted our sense of time. We get confused about what day it is. The line between work and leisure time is a blur. But through this home-schooling experience, we can add some structure to our days. 

Every weekday we start our activity at 10:00 am, then again at 2:00 pm and 3:30 pm. There are breaks in between the sessions so we can teach the kids the responsibility of coming to class on time. 

Over two weeks, they learned effective time management: if home-schooling starts at 10:00 am, they have to be ready by 9:45 am, have had breakfast by 9:30 am and have gotten out of bed by 9:00 am. It also follows that they sleep earlier the night before so they wake up early the next day.

Commitment, communication, and compromise

Getting my mom and my sisters to commit to teaching the kids meant creating a lesson plan every day. This involved coming up with activities and adjusting their schedules. It was a big ask given our work-from-home arrangement. 

But, we also learned that Affia and Chubby’s buy-in was equally important. We could all be doing these elaborate home-schooling presentations but if they were not interested at all in what we were saying, the program is bound to fail.

Learning should be continuous

“What do you call a baby jellyfish?” Did you know that most dinosaurs were herbivores? Me neither. As adults, we think we’ve risen above information like these, but are surprised by all the things we have yet to learn.

My 42-year-old sister just learned how to create her first PowerPoint presentation. She never thought there was a use for it until she found herself needing visuals for her lesson plan. This experience has been a reminder that we are lifelong learners and that we have to make time and space for it.

This learning program was initially meant to keep the kids away from their gadgets. Now it’s much bigger than that. It’s an avenue where we can think, create, and be present with the kids. Up until today, we thought we were teaching the kids but it turns out they are teaching us just as much.