"May you live in interesting times." - Sir Austen Chamberlain in March 1936
I’m sure you’ve heard: there is a plague spreading though our modern and sophisticated world. Where I live with my family, we are currently confined to our house and our backyard. We can only leave if we are going out to obtain food, medical supplies, or medical care.
How My Family is Doing
As homeschooling unschoolers, this isn’t a drastic change for us. We did have all of our classes cancelled, our weekly park day is not happening, and we can’t go on any field trips. We can’t even go to the playground to play. However, we are still able to stick pretty closely to our usual “easy day” schedule.
How is Everyone Else?
The rest of the country (world?) is not so lucky. Many families have both parents working from home while the children are also home. Nearly all the schools are closed and the schools sent work home for the kids to do. I can’t imagine trying to work a full time job while simultaneously being expected to not only care for my children but educate them, too. And on top of that, we are all trying to manage our own fears about what’s happening in the world and manage our children’s fears. They are little sponges and they soak up the energy we are giving off. It’s hard to give off positive energy when the world is such a scary place.
The Threat
Covid-19, the illness caused by the Corona virus, kills between 3 and 5% of people depending on how stretched the medical facilities are. So, for every 50 people I know, at least of them can be expected to die before this is over. Covid-19 is especially hard on people over the age of 60 and on people with lung problems or diabetes. It’s nuts that this sort of thing can happen today with all our modern medical knowledge and our understanding of virology and immunology. It just goes to show that nature is powerful.
History Class
When you read about the Bubonic Plague in school, did you ever think “wow, that could happen to us”? The Black Death was caused by bacteria that was spread by flea bites during the Dark Ages before we even knew that illness was caused by germs. Before we knew that washing our hands was important. Before we knew that illnesses were contagious. People thought that God was punishing the wicked. It was nuts.
And this is nuts.
Communicating
At the same time, this is a great time to be physically isolated from each other. Had this happened only 35 years ago, in the 1980s, we would only have been able to communicate via telephone. Not by snail mail even because the virus can spread on the letters. Today, we can connect over email, FaceTime, Facebook, MMORPG’s, Zoom, Skype, Discord, text messages, and dozens of video games that we can play with other people.
Reading
Had this pandemic happened in the 1980s, we would have had whatever books we had in the house at the moment. Now, we have access to thousands and thousands of eBooks via platforms such as Amazon Kindle and Overdrive. In the 1980s, we probably would have continued to receive newspapers because newspapers were the primary way that information about current events would have been distributed to the people, but that’s not a sure thing. Since the virus can live on surfaces for days (according to this), many newspapers may have been shutdown or been forced to do expensive and extensive sanitizing practices.
Watching
For video entertainment, we would have had whatever was on the three local television stations. Unless we were rich and had cable tv. Then we had about 40 stations of junk to pick from. Some people might have had a VCR, but whatever videos they had when the order to isolate came down would be all they had for the duration. Today, there is cable TV, satellite TV, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, etc.
Playing
For video games, some of us had a Nintendo or an Atari. Those game systems required game cartridges and, like the VCRs, whatever games we had when the need to isolate hit would be all we had to play. Today we have World of Warcraft and other MMORPGS. We have Steam where we can download hundreds (maybe thousands) of games. We have the Xbox and the Nintendo Switch that can also download games. We have iPhone and Android Phones that can access thousands of apps to entertain and educate us.
Learning
For education, we would have had whatever worksheets the teacher could have mimeographed for the kids before the buses arrived to get them home. (For those of you younger than 40, the mimeograph machine was the precursor to copiers. They used this bright blue ink and the images were often so blurry the teacher had to read them to us.) Today, our teachers can email us instructions, worksheets, and links to other sources. Teachers can have group lessons via Zoom and Skype. There are dozens (hundreds?) of people turning to YouTube desperate to share their knowledge with others. Many of these are from the creative sector. Mo Willems and Ben Clanton are doing live videos where they draw with children. There are people posting themselves reading children’s books. There is a teacher doing a video about space every weekday morning at 9am. Our art teacher and our animation teacher are hosting their classes via Zoom. And the daughter of a friend of mine is getting private gymnastics lessons via FaceTime.
Hope
There is no denying that the world is in chaos and many things will not be the same when this is over. Perhaps, when the dust settles, we will notice how easily kids learn when we aren’t distracting them with worksheets and making them sit in a classroom. Perhaps we will notice that the time we spend creatively is what makes us come alive and allows us to weather all storms. Perhaps we will learn the value of spending more time in nature and less time in malls. Maybe we will see that screen-time is not as bad as some people would have us believe. My personal hope is that we all remember the ways that people are coming together during this time of isolation. How connected we all are even when we are separate.
