The world didn’t go upside down for only adults this spring. It went sideways for children, too. Most schools suspended classes and instituted e-learning once administrators realized it was critical to practice social distancing to help prevent potential spread of COVID-19. Gov. Eric Holcomb eventually required all Indiana schools to cancel regular classes for the rest of the year.

That means thousands of children from prekindergarten through 12th grade have found themselves at home, communicating with teachers through the internet. Fortunately, most (but not all) schools provided students with laptops. Suddenly, teachers faced new challenges, parents became teaching assistants, and the value of fast rural broadband became apparent.

Because our daughter and four grandkids live with us, I found myself principal of Crazy Snake home-learning school. That’s what the kids named their own school. The three that go to school — Graham, Addy and Avery — plus their 3-year-old sister, Reagan, gather around the kitchen table for lessons from their real teachers and from their mom.

I only get involved if someone gets out of line. Then they get a trip to the “principal’s office.” My wife, Carla, started out as a teacher’s aide. Somehow, she later self-appointed herself as superintendent. I’m still not sure how that worked!

True teaching

The effectiveness or ineffectiveness of e-learning and the potential impact on kids caught in the COVID-19 crisis is a story for another day. The real message here is the lessons my grandkids learn when e-learning is over for the day and they go outside with Grandpa — “the principal.” To me, that’s when the real learning begins.

A spring storm knocked over three trees and blew down sticks and twigs by the hundreds one rocky evening in early April. The next day, the four grandkids picked up sticks while Grandpa supervised. They used a small pull cart to cut down on trips to the burn pile. By lunchtime, they had filled and emptied the cart multiple times.

No, they didn’t learn about how to improve writing skills or spell words correctly that day. And those are valuable skills — I’m not taking anything away from the value of basic learning. But somewhere along the line, this very young, tender generation needs to learn what many of us learned doing farm chores. When it’s time to work, you work. And if you do your job right, you’re rewarded one way or another. Maybe it’s by reaping the self-satisfaction of seeing animals well cared for or crops sprouting and growing.

Kids also need to learn self-discipline. There is a time to joke around, and a time to buckle down and work. And when you’re 3, 5, 7 and 10 years old, there is a time to keep your hands to yourself!

It’s hard to learn the value of teamwork when you’re one-on-one with a computer. Yet during that one morning, my grandkids figured out how to work together. They soon determined someone needed to organize the group — that was Graham. Someone must pull the cart — Addy. And someone must be a worker bee — Avery. Hopefully, they will pass these lessons on to Reagan as she gets older.

Their mother brought home Happy Meals for their efforts — from the drive-thru, of course. At the end of the day, there is something to be said for teaching good, old-fashioned values, including hard work, self-discipline, teamwork and spending time together, enjoying a job well done.

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