Educational Wing-Parent

Soon after I had the epiphany that I reference in the origin post for this blog—that I have been in denial about the inadequacy of my kids education in this time of pandemic and rapid technological change—I committed to getting involved.

But what does that mean? And how to proceed?

My initial effort was very much that of someone who has been spending more time in the corporate arena than with educating kids.

I quickly zeroed in on Khan Academy as an obvious tool for supplementing learning. I am in awe of Sal Kahn and his broader mission—to make available a free world-class education to all children around the world.

But I wasn’t just content with getting the kids to access Khan and do a bit of summer work to try to less the summer slide.

Instead, I had the idea of wanting set up my own teacher account, which I figured out how to do. As a teacher, I would be able to create my own ‘classes’ and then I would invite my own kids into classes.

This seemed slick and efficient, and I am sure I was proud of my resourcefulness. I did though actually struggle with the assignment functionality.

When I referenced my frustrations with the Khan assignment feature, my 11-year-old schooled me, somewhat patronizingly:

“Why aren’t you using Google Classroom for assignments, Daddy? Everyone uses Google Classroom for assignments.”

Which set me off down another rabbit hole. Very quickly I had created my own summer classes for the kids in my own Google Classroom and was nerd-ing out over all the different types of assignments I could make, the ability to send out simple quizzes, grade work, etc.

The assignments could include work in Khan or any other work I thought the kids needed to focus on, even adding their daily reading assignments.

At the same time, I was thinking about the possibility that different workflow functionality that I was familiar with from the corporate platforms like mondays.com could be leveraged to set up family learning processes and workflows for supplementing education project.

And then I caught myself—caught myself, if memory serves, after noticing a tear trickling down one of my student’s cheeks.

Like I may have been guilty of way back in my dating years, daddy may have been coming on a little strong.

Much as a couple decades in the corporate arena have schooled me in the benefits of leveraging technology, efficiency, and processes, it is possible that this was not the best way to start the process of supplementing the education of my kids.

What has been much more effective in starting to add some supplementary learning to the summer routine is providing some basic work for them and then simply riding shotgun while they do the work—there for questions and a pat on the back.

The work the kids are doing includes the basics. Reading some articles. Doing some math sheets. Watching some Khan videos and then going through the related Khan exercises. Even practicing some handwriting. 

Occasionally, they will ask a question, but mostly I think for these pandemic era learners, there is a lot to be said for the physical proximity of a parent, or possibly any human,. Maybe even a robot. Who knows. But something.

While I fill this role as a mostly silent educational wingman, I can be researching learning resources for the future, or do some writing (like this very blog post), or fill up an online cart of groceries, which I can go pick up later. 

Clearly, this is not scientific, but it does feel like there is some healing we can access in this way, combining the aura of parental love and safety with efforts to patch up educational gaps.

That is not to say that I am not looking forward to getting back to nerd-ing out in the future, melding corporate love of tech and efficiency to these supplementary learning efforts.

Whose to say my kids don’t have some agile learning sprints in our future.

For now, I am simply a presence.—beaming my approval at the kids for putting in some short learning installments here and there, while daddy types away.