How lockdown taught me the most important lesson of all

Iremember dropping my four-year-old – four! – son off at school for his first time. After knowing his every move and planning each day, down to the mouthful, I was handing him over to strangers, who had not been chosen by me.

I couldn’t quite compute that I would have no idea what he would be doing all day, nor that that would be the case for the next 14 years.

Someone I know calls it “de-bonding”; that process of handing your child over and accepting they really aren’t yours any more. Yes, I know: give them roots and give them wings and you have to let them fly, and all that, but school is a big adjustment for all concerned. And the whole process is a colossal leap of faith: once you’ve picked a school you must surrender to the staff and curriculum and, more or less, you then have to just hope for the best.

Sure, there are parents’ evenings and reports. But other than the broadest sense of termly topics and learning landmarks like times tables, the nitty-gritty business of learning has – I now realise – been distinctly vague.

And then in March, the unimaginable happened. Schools closed. And parents everywhere added the job title of teacher – albeit unqualified – to their portfolio.

And with each history worksheet, every bite-sized film about fractions, and each attempted essay plan, it slowly dawned on me the degree to which I, like most parents, have outsourced education.

And rightly so, you might say. One thing I’ve learned over the past few months at the coal face of homeschooling is that there are good reasons that we ask teachers to teach while we get on with the business of parenting.

But I’ve also realised something else. I have previously adopted a sort of close my eyes and hope for the best approach to school, with no idea of what or how my son learns; the opposite of a “tiger mom”.

So. Now, after four months, I know. I know the gaps, the propensities, the predispositions and the resistances. I know the challenges, what is avoided, and what is easy and fun. I know which words, the spelling of which my son has repeatedly wrangled with, to point out when we are reading. I have acquired new methods to add and subtract decimals and fractions. I have learned more about planets, birds, heart-rates, Olympic flags, and geography. I have found new ways to explain similes, metaphors, and hyperbole.

Yes, we have had disputes; too many to mention.

And yes part of me is, frankly, quite desperate for schools to reopen.

But there is also a part of me that knows that, when it does, the de-bonding will begin once again.

And also now that I’ve had this extended glimpse into the way that my son learns, there’s no going back. Now I know the role I can play I will never again outsource education so completely. And, for that, I have lockdown to thank.

After this extended glimpse into how my son learns, there is no going back