How the coronavirus lockdown introduced me to online home schooling
This CV crisis – and especially the resultant UK lockdown – is leading to a much more intensive use of a variety of online communications services by me and very many others. In this first week, I have had a FaceTime chat with one friend, a Skype lunch with another friend, and a Facebook Messenger coffee break with two other friends.
Especially interesting has been my introduction to home schooling through Skype. My eldest granddaughter (aged nine) is not at school and I was asked to assist in her home education and allocated the subject of Victorian history. This required some research and preparation but seemed to go well.
As a result, I was invited to repeat the lesson for the son – same age as my eldest granddaughter – of a good friend of mine.
Both sessions were just an hour. I tried to make the sessions interactive with questions and discussion plus a couple of short videos, two writing exercises and a final quiz. I’m not sure exactly how my two little students found the project but, for me as 71 year old living alone, it was a joy to interact with two such delightful and bright youngsters.
But I can’t do too much of this. Each day I have my own 16th century history lesson in the form of reading about the life of Thomas Cromwell via the 900-page novel “The Mirror And The Light” by Hilary Mantel.