by Heather Lang
Patience. Understanding. Flexibility. Three traits that are essential to farming and this year’s ‘back-to- school’ shopping list. Typically, in late July – early August I set aside a day to take the kids shopping for their school supplies along with a couple fun extras. Notebooks, pencils, markers, crayons, scissors, and even lunch boxes, water bottles and gym shoes make their way into our cart.
School boards are left with several hard decisions as to what this school year might look like. Do the kids get to go back to school and if so, what kind of changes can they expect? Is distance learning going to be the way the 2020 – 2021 school year plays out? Is a hybrid school year the best option? Are masks required or encouraged? Will the kids be able to partake in social outreach and activities?
Since the end of last school year many parents have been struggling to decide what is best for their kids, their family, and their situation going into this new school year. I too, have debated back and forth in my mind. In March, when the distance learning first started things went very smoothly for our household and we were all enjoying the ‘extra’ time we had together, the time they had away from school and quite frankly I was enjoying the extra help around the farm. Our new routine was beginning to take shape quite nicely. Farm life offers all sorts of fun, interactive ways to teach subjects without you or the kids even truly realizing that you are teaching school subjects. When society seemed to be panicking about what they saw as a food shortage crisis, I thought it would be an opportunity to express how important sustainability is to our farm. Granted our kids are lucky enough to know where their food comes from, but teaching life skills like the detailed steps of processing our meat rabbits and pork by ourselves so we could stock our freezers, growing our own fruits and vegetables and preserving foods were three main areas of focus. For the first time in my life I actually felt like I might be able to homeschool especially since they were getting a bit older.
That confident feeling quickly passed as the end of April approached and it seemed harder to keep up with all the farm work that needed to be done while keeping the kids on schedule with their school. Having three kids in the same tiny household who all needed their own area to work, study and partake in their scheduled zoom calls proved to be incredibly challenging. I am not a super tech savvy person to begin with. To top it off, I have tried very hard to limit the amount of screen time my children get their whole lives, and now they HAD to have daily screen time, hours of screen time. It was just too much for me too handle all at once. A teacher I am not. Online school is not something I am cut out to lead my kids in. God bless teachers.
We had conversations about their wishes for school. I wanted to get know what they wanted or just as importantly what they did not want. Their answers did not surprise me except one question. When I asked them if school is online (distance learning) do you prefer to do that or homeschool and all three answered homeschool. I explained that homeschooling still means you have class each day and have tests and a curriculum to follow and yet they all agreed that between those two options they’d rather homeschool. “Crap! What if those are the only two options? How am I going to homeschool? I’m not sure I could do that!” But I am also not sure I can get them through distance learning again either. I don’t want to fail them and push them back. The catch-up work their poor teachers will have to do to get them up to where they should be - “I’m sorry I tried. I’m not a teacher.”
Last week our children received their school supply list which surprisingly read much like all the other years. In reality I think the list should read:
- Patience
- Understanding
- Flexibility
- Faith
- No judging
- Manners
To mask or not to mask? In-person or online? These are the questions for many Americans. Whatever choice you feel is best for your family, great. Embrace it, encourage each other, and continue to check in on your friends because no matter what choice you make, I know it wasn’t easy.
Heather is the District 7 representative on the NDFB Promotion and Education Committee and is a member of the AFBF Promotion and Education Committee. She farms with her husband and three children near Sterling.