Rightly or wrongly, the responsibility for the daily health and well-being of Australian families rests on the shoulders of our educators.
Why?
Because our ability as CEO of our households sees us now responsible for feeding, clothing, educating and supporting our children while also managing through the financial complications associated with managing the delicacies of employment in the COVID-19 era.
If you’re a parent who has taken responsibility for the daily educational needs of your child/ren, you know the challenge is real.
If you’re like me, you value the quality of education your child receives.
And yet you know you are failing to keep up.
With life, with work, with your child’s education schedule and the house keeping!
In the first note after isolation was enforced, I couldn’t have loved my daughter’s teacher more.
‘Thank you for taking responsibility for your child’s education’ she said.
I cried. Knowing this was as hard for her as a dedicated educator to relinquish her daily responsibility to us – the unqualified.
As a tertiary educator and online educator for close to a decade, some might assume I had this in the bag.
I certainly wasn’t phased.
I’d downloaded the 13 page .pdf, expertly crafted to scaffold both student and parent through this new educational reality.
It was articulate in the daily requirements and included links and hard copies in a folder painstakingly collated and that we’d excitedly collected (while observing strict social distancing instructions).
I was beyond confident.
Then I started reading….the first lesson was phonemes.
My daughter had been speaking about them for weeks and I had congratulated her excitedly.
Yet when it came to teaching them – I had NO idea!
Enter Dr Google… okay, I had a definition. I could make this work. I could participate.
Then I saw that the wonderful educators at her public school really had my back – they’d included an explanatory video!
Now I felt invincible. 🙂
As a working mum and sole parent, I knew the road ahead was going to be busy.
I never imagined it was going to be so challenging. But it was for my daughter and I was beyond committed.
As the days turned into weeks, I spoke to close friends and associates, my struggles, were also their struggles.
Now I was determined to ease the burden for all of us and let the teachers get back to teaching. After all, they’re the ones best qualified. And my daughter deserved them.
So I decided to build a solution to help us all.
In doing so, our wonderful DMA team of like-minded Australian educators and parents stretching four generations who share not only my educational vision but also a community spirit… and alas Our School Online was born.
So if you’re a parent, carer or teacher we’d love to hear how you’re managing via our online survey because it’s really easy to think you’re all alone on this journey.
And let’s be honest, those What’sApp class groups don’t help our self-esteem! 🙂
If you’re and educator, feel free to call 1800 469 233 or email us at admin@online-school.com.au to see how our custom-built solution can ease the operational burden of moving your classroom online.
After all, we’ve built this to honour and support the brilliant work you do and the dedication you show towards educating our children.
Consider this our Thank you!
xo
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