By Shannon Proudfoot, Maclean's
Updated Jan 11, 2022Photo: iStock/selimaksan
Here is what has particularly chewed me up during this latest round of school closures in Ontario, the province that has deprived its children of education and normalcy more than any other in Canada, and more than virtually any other jurisdiction in the world: it feels like we are all actors in a commercial that says things are basically fine when they are manifestly not.
We are all muddling through a situation that was forced on us, because this is what we need to do for our kids, our jobs and whatever remains of ourselves. But the longer we keep finding a way to soldier through this, the more it feels like we are aiding and abetting the colossal lie that this is okay, that this was a reasonable and necessary choice, that there is not massive damage being sustained by these decisions every day, with the full, horrifying toll unknowable for years.
I gave serious thought to deliberately and completely opting out of “virtual learning” this time around, for reasons both practical and symbolic. On a practical level, my kids hate it—or rather, my incandescently bright Grade 2 student, who has not had a normal school year since she was in junior kindergarten, hates it to the point of tears. Her brother, now in junior kindergarten himself, in what I desperately hoped would be a somewhat normal school year, has yet to learn the hell of online learning.
So I considered giving an answer I have not given before to any of the impossible, punitive things that parents of young kids have been asked to do over the last two years: No. I will not. I refuse. It would have felt satisfying to adopt the stance that this is not a meaningful education in any way—and even if it was, closing schools is not helpful to the project of supposedly containing COVID-19—and I resent being made to play along as though it is.
Eventually, I talked myself off that rage ledge because I realized it would have no effect beyond depriving my kids of whatever small benefits they might get from seeing their friends and teachers through a screen. So we will do whatever we can do without causing tears to any of us, and no more.
But I still think people need to see what this actually looks like on the ground, how impossible and cruel and ridiculous it is.
So this is what that looks like in my house, which is probably more or less representative of others going through this, except for a couple of very large asterisks. My husband and I both have portable and flexible jobs, so we can be at home to supervise our children, even if the balancing act of trying to do that and work is absolutely impossible and terribly costly. But we can do it, we are here. I literally have no idea how people with on-site jobs, hourly wage workers who lose a shift or get fired if they can’t come in, are handling this. We are lucky to have a comfortable middle-class life where our kids have quiet space in which to work, access to technology, an internet connection and whatever supplies and help they need to try to learn something or take at least some enjoyment from online school.
Our school also has a large proportion of low-income families. There is a breakfast and lunch program, and a clothing cupboard for those who need them. That has all been wiped out for those most fragile kids and families in our community, for at least the next two weeks and for months and months before this, and many teachers will be unable to reach those students and families because of language or technology barriers. They will disappear into the neglected shadows until the province sees fit to reopen schools, but even when that happens, those lost hours, essential needs and connections will never be recovered.
This is absolutely awful for my family and we have every advantage we could wish for to deal with it. It is no less than catastrophic for so many others.
Both of my kids have wonderful teachers that I am incredibly grateful for, and throughout this terrible experiment of the last two years, I have often felt a deep kinship with the people in the classroom trying their absolute best for my kids and for all of us. This is not about teachers. This is about the horrible reality of virtual learning, and the provincial decision that has been made, over and over, to shutter schools and force teachers, kids and families to do this.
Here is the Grade 2 schedule for my daughter:
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