Dear Parents and Guardians,
This is a crazy time with updates from schools, posts of learning ideas for home, shared spreadsheets with days organized and planned to the second. But you have permission to be a parent, and not a teacher.
Chances are you might not know the PreK-5 pedagogy. Chances are you might not know the curriculum, or the true purposes of a daily schedule organized down to 3-minute increments. And that’s okay.
Chances are your children may be more nervous and anxious about these changing times than they show. Chances are they are more nervous than you because they are too young to have any control over any of the things happening around them. And they, too, will be okay.
Yes, school is important. Yes, schedules are handy. Yes, teachers are amazing and do not receive the credit they deserve for their labor. Also, this gift of time with your children is important. The way that you handle this time will be etched in your children’s memory and hearts. Take this gift of time to be a parent and take this permission to not be a teacher.
Play a board game. Chances are there is math in that game.
Lounge on the couch and read books or magazines together. Chances are your child will be reading something in which they are really interested.
Take a walk outside together. Chances are nature is the best science teacher any of us will ever have.
Watch a funny TV show together. Chances are your family will have a more authentic conversation about the characters in the comedy than some scripted test question.
Make something together. Chances are your kitchen is the best makerspace of them all. Follow a recipe, or don’t. Either way you’ll be creating something new together and it will be great, or it won’t. And that is the best kind of learning.
We have been given a gift of time. When we look back decades from now, will our children remember the color coded schedule spreadsheets and fighting as teacher/student? Or will they remember this time as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend special time with a parent?
Lessen the fighting by lowering the expectations of being a perfect teacher during this less than perfect time. Be a parent. Provide reassurance that everything will be okay by providing you - not necessarily a daily curriculum. Because school activities will come and go, but -you- you have the opportunity to be the constant comforter and parent to help your children through this unusual time.
We are thinking of you,
IASD Elementary Principals
Don Springer (East Pike)
Krista Sevajian (Horace Mann)
Erin Eisenman (Eisenhower)
Kelly Urbani (Ben Franklin
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