Another week has gone by and the weekend is here. Is it just me or are the weeks going by faster than usual. How did we get to the middle of September so quickly? Wasn’t it just March?
We finished a full term of remote learning in Melbourne. Term 3 ended on Friday and I can’t help but feel a huge sense of relief and accomplishment.
When I was growing up, my dad was deployed in a dusty factory town in Saudi Arabia. While we were there, the Gulf war broke. And everything came to a standstill. We were in a comparatively safer location but still on high alert. We had light outs as the sirens were sounded, there was always a little strange anxiety in the air. I have had a feeling of déjà vu since this whole quarantine has started.
Anyway, I digress, back to remote learning. The school in our little town was run by a group of mums who taught the classes. The plan was open school and syllabus was provided by the nearest Indian Embassy. At the end of each school year, the staff from Embassy School brought exam papers and we had to sit for the exams. I was the only one in Years 6 & 7, so that meant I didn’t have any classmates for 2 years. It was strange and alienating but we survived. When we returned back to India and rejoined regular school, it was so different and we had a new found appreciation for schools, uniforms, classmates, everything!
I can now understand how my mom felt at the end of the year and also know how alienating it is for my kids, to not see their friends and classmates. Some of the thing that are better these days are :
1) Technology – The kids are still a part of the class/cohort through virtual classrooms. The teachers are online and accessible to them by emails or student portals.
2) The internet has made the world so much smaller – we are able to remain connected to family, friends across the world. One day, both SP & I were in back to back meetings and Ms An was very upset & clingy, I called my dad on FaceTime and asked him if he could entertain her for sometime , while I finished my meeting. Ever since I have become a mum, I haven’t ever had the luxury of asking a grandparent to watch my girls, while I finish some work. So this was a first.
As the number of cases in Melbourne are going down, I am feeling more hopeful. I hope, this means that we can slowly return to a little bit of normalcy, as normal as possible.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the kids have school holidays for the next two weeks and then we have at least a 3-4 more weeks of remote learning ahead. But, let’s worry about it when the time comes. For now, let’s focus on peaceful mornings – the ones without wake up time dramas😊😊
More later,
Trish ❤️❤️
15 Marbles 