Half Life – 12 - (home) school
January 15th 2021
Our response to Boris’s announcement putting us into another lockdown was to tidy up. In a family game of Feng Shui, we moved tables, found new corners for chairs and positioned learning mascots next to pencil cases and schoolbooks. I don’t know if we managed to properly harmonise the energy flow around the house or balance our wind and water, but we did create enough space for The Boys to reoccupy the dining room as their school room. Time for the ancient table to go back into daily service instead of being the place we put things which don’t have anywhere else to go, but we haven’t yet decided to throw away. Most of that clutter ended up in a pile on my desk and, when no one was looking, found its way into the recycling.
As The Boys were re-arranging the furniture under my careful instruction, Younger Boy asked permission to swear. This is unusual, he doesn’t often ask permission, he just does it loudly and gets told off while grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I think he wanted to make sure we were all listening. Calculating that I probably shared his views, I nodded my permission. Taking full advantage of his free pass, shouts of “Bastard Boris!’ and “Fucking Covid!” rang out around the house and probably most of The Village. For such a small person he is capable of extraordinary volume. He was about to move on to more detailed and creative descriptions of the current situation, but The Wife quickly terminated his newfound linguistic liberty and chastised me for giving it to him. Younger Boy learned most of the swear words when very little from another boy at school, and, despite endless parental interventions, revels in the shock they cause when issuing from what outwardly looks like a little angel.
My laptop was quickly commandeered for the sake of educational continuity, leaving me with the ancient junk technology we had tried to palm off on the children several years ago. The ‘homework computer’ is incapable of running some of the programmes needed by school, so I am left struggling trying to get it to do anything while Younger Boy enjoys the simple pleasure of keeping every application open at the same time, streaming YouTube, and watching live TV. It’s like part of me has been surgically removed. As soon as I get my computer back at the weekend, I am going to start looking for a brand new one for me and consign the old homework one to our technology graveyard, with the four brick-like laptops, first edition iPad, and nine mobile phones we seem to be hanging on to. They should all be recycled and, probably, will be at some point when I am so bored with lockdown I can find the motivation to do it.
One of the parental pleasures of having the school at home is the insight it provides into their otherwise secret world. In addition to seeing what their teachers actually look like when taking a class, you get to see the children they share classes with you don’t hear about or meet. Equally amazing is the seamless switching between devices and how they work. A question about what a word meant, asked as I was wandering by, got the answer ‘look it up, the dictionary is on the shelf.’ The response, with a heavy sign at the effort and my failure to be helpful, involved turning to the phone and repeating the question to a far more obliging parent – “Google, what does ‘harbinger’ mean?” Just as I about to mention that I suggested looking it up, Google gives him the answer. With yet another angelic grin, I am silenced by an 11-year-old who lives in a world where physical dictionaries are a form of wall decoration. Even Orac, the small, deeply sarcastic, super-computer in that amazing series Blake’s 7 in the late 1970s, was not as useful or as quick as the small phones that seems to be superglued to one hand of both children. Even when prised out of their fingers, the homing capability of phones is such that they reappear within seconds.
Educating children has some further drawbacks, in particular when you encourage them to think. Asking them not to eat while in the ‘school room’ was met with a level of ridicule as they pointed out, with Sherlock-like acuity, it was the dining room, and they were working on the dining table. Children also expect lunch even when at home school. Not a grabbed sandwich and a bag of crisps, but something hot and which involves cooking and then washing up afterwards. Instant ramen noodles have, so far, found favour, in particular when frozen peas are added, and I have managed to convince them that cheese on toast is English pizza. However, producing meals similar to the ones they can help themselves to at school is proving a challenge and I see revolution simmering.
Otherwise, week one of incarceration hasn’t thrown up any serious problems. Wine is in plentiful supply, our toilet paper supply is yet to be wiped out, and we seem to be able to get the all-important delivery slot from at least one of the supermarkets each week. The bread baking tins have been dusted off and may even get used soon, familiar Zoom and WhatsApp meetings are being discussed and planned. Although the home school, home catering, and an on-line existence has lost all its novelty, we have, so far, seen no repeat of last time when, in a fit of annoyance at all things school, Younger Boy took the decision to ditch all the formal lessons and learn Japanese. A love of Pokémon, ramen noodles, and Naruto books almost certainly being his inspiration. It was close to the end of term, so we left him to it. True to his word he was to be found on Duolingo happily practicing his ‘Nihongo’ (Japanese). There was only momentary disappointment when he discovered it wasn’t going to teach him the swear words. Google probably came to his rescue, again.
You reminded me of my old English teacher who also exclaimed 'look it up in the dictionary boy!' I guess our version of asking Google was then to turn to the nearest classmate and ask them if they knew what a word meant. It was probably less reliable than Google though, providing endless opportunities for inappropriate definitions.
Loving these pieces Charles. Wondering too whether 'The Wife' is content with her job title!
Mmmm, Japanese swear words are widespread, it's just that they are hardly ever heard in polite company.....which just goes to show the kind of floating world I inhabited and the linguistic cesspit I picked up in my 2 years living there! Ah, mais où sont les neiges d'antan? Hang on a minute, wrong language! And high-brow! If he still wants to learn Japanese Charles, let me know - happy to make a Boy-friendly recommendation.