We did it boys! Home school, or rather MCS En Casa, is officially out for summer! Together we made it through three months of distance learning, the ultimate achievement for the MCS community, who on a dime transformed progressive education into a platform of zooms and google drives. While our collective resilience was put to the test in ways never imagined, teachers and parents rose to the challenge and finished out the year.
The beginning of En Casa was slow going. To be honest, I thought about blowing it off since it was only supposed to be two weeks at first. New York’s sudden rise to hot zone status made it even harder to motivate, with grief and fear leaving little room in our hearts for homeschooling. Eventually, accepting this as our foreseeable future, we learned to Zoom and set up google sites. Days became a routine of musical chairs (and rooms), depending on which one of you had a classroom meeting. When scheduling overlapped, or someone’s meeting ran late, the other would go into a full on panic — “Mom!!! I’m gonna be late for my Zoom!” — so it wasn’t long before a much needed investment was realized: Enter the laptop.
Cash preferred Zooms at the computer desk while Grey loved curling up in our bed, snug as a bug. Strangely you BOTH wore the same clothes for every single class Zoom. Grey wore his fleece onesie - “It’s so comfortable Mom!” - while Cash wore his green t-shirt that reads, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me” (C.R.E.A.M.). When Zooms were over you’d immediately strip down to your underwear. Maybe this was your way of exercising control and comfort during a most uncertain and uncomfortable time?
Cash, your teacher noticed how steady you’d become during En Casa. Still, attentive and patient is what he said, unlike the physical classroom where you struggle to wait your turn, allowing peers to speak without interruption. I suppose that’s a silver lining for this reimagined way of learning. Then, come to find out, you were extremely responsible with your daily schedule: logging into meetings without reminders, accessing your assignments independently, never bypassing challenges deemed optional and never EVER turning in work late. Needless to say this (unexpected) lesson in independence proved very helpful for me.
There were many days I questioned whether we could do this. Think about it, we’ve spent well over three months in close quarters with no privacy, no breaks from one another and no end in sight. Usually you’d be in separate classrooms most of the day — not with each other 24/7. There were many fights, several of which involved pushing and hitting, ending with at least one of you in tears. Following an incident where Cash was “really mean” and lost a privilege, he pleaded, “Mommy! I’ll do anything to get it back!”. After careful consideration, I decided on a restorative consequence, which was to write a diamante poem (a poetry style you practiced this year), under specific guidelines: It would be about your brother, was not to be written in haste, had to reflect a kind standpoint, and when finished, would be read aloud to Grey. While I do believe it turned your stomach to do this, in the end you managed to crack a small smile across Grey’s tearful face.
This period has been wrought with emotion, affecting our family’s ecosystem almost hourly. Grey, you seem to be handling it a little better — maybe cause you’re younger? — missing only Central Park and your friend Luca occasionally. It’s been much more difficult for you Cash. You miss your best friend Thomas SO MUCH and all the nooks and crannies of 8-9’s life. While we were watching Sesame Street’s Town Hall on racism, nearly three months into the lockdown, you had your first big cry. Always one to articulate your feelings, up until now I don’t think you knew exactly what you were grieving and therefore how to express it. Or maybe it just took this long for it to set in?
I listened as you brought to the surface everything your heart breaks for: Thomas (the most longed for), Manhattan Country School, New York City before Covid, life without masks, life without social distancing, being able to see Grandma and Pow Pow, being able to play tag and dodgeball with your friends and laugh against them without hesitation.
“When will this end Mom? … We are never going to get a vaccine … It will be years … And I don’t want to live anywhere else … I love New York City … I don’t ever want to move … I don’t want to live in a big house … I love that we live in an apartment and have a lot of things, just not EVERYTHING … If we lived in a house, then going to places like Nemacolin or upstate would be boring … It wouldn’t be special … And I know the protests are important … I believe in Black Lives Matter, but now the Covid cases are going to go up and our city is going to have to close down again … And I won't be able to go back to MCS for even longer or see Thomas … And my biggest fear, besides not being in class with him next year, is that he'll forget me … 'Cause it might happen Mom … He might forget me if we don't see each other."
Since this release, Thomas’s mom and I created “Splatoon Zooms”, so you and Thomas can see each other while playing the video game. This has been proven to be an immediate mood booster, sounds of joy filling the space of our apartment. We’ve been scheduling these a couple of times a week now, trying our best to help you stay connected. Even as we hear from classmates who are moving away, I continue to reassure you that we in fact are not; our plan is to stay in the city we love, the city you love, through sickness and in health.
Even though the end of the school year was absent of the traditions that mark the last days of school — the chance to hug teachers and friends good-bye, farm outing day and the school picnic — you stepped up to the challenge, proving again that you are New York Tough. And now you are graduates of kindergarten and third grade — congrats!
Nevertheless quarantine fatigue is real and there’s no doubt we are ready for summer. Ready to toss out our Zoom schedules, go to bed later, sleep in later, discover new trails in the tristate and not have to think about homework for a long time!
As Piggie and Gerald would say, “It’s time to go outside and play!” It’s summertime!
I love you boys!
Always and forever, Mom