School Year 2020/2021: A Strange Observation

For anyone with kids heading back to school, whether in person or virtually I wish you a happy and healthy school year.Our son, Jacob, now attends Resurrection School.

He was at Holy Ghost, which along with St. Anthony closed in the spring.

With Covid-19, many of us have had to make a tough choice as to whether or not to send our kids back to the classroom or keep them at home to attend class virtually.

My wife, Lisa, works at Stonehill Care Center. We agreed that to minimize our exposure to illness and to protect the residents there, it might be best to keep Jacob learning away from school.

He is proficient with technology and we have a few open offices at the radio station, so my new routine is to now bring Jacob with me to the Y105 studio each morning. He changes out of his pajamas and eats a little breakfast, then he helps me ask the questions for "Toaster Trivia."

Around 8am we shuffle him back to the empty office where he has his school provided Chromebook, notebooks, pens and pencils.

At 8:15 or so, he clicks a link and immediately sees his classroom, teacher and fellow students. There are a couple other kids that have decided to learn virtually and he can see them in little windows, too.

I shut the door so he can learn and he only comes out during breaks or when he has to use the bathroom.

There have been a few instances where he gets confused as to what he's supposed to be doing, but I keep reassuring him that if he types a quick message to his teacher, Mrs. Herkelman, she will let him know what he needs to do.

(God bless these teachers! It's a learning curve for them, too!)

Hopefully in the next few weeks Jacob will be able to rejoin his classmates in person. Me and my wife worry about the social interaction our son is missing over the last few months.

In the meantime, if you hear a strange voice on the air asking trivia questions... that's my kid.

As for the "strange observation," my family got into a conversation at dinner after Jacob's first class on Monday. He told us he got to "meet" the other kids in his class. He told me there's a "Madison, Addisyn" and a "Liam."

I asked him if there was a "Chris, Mike, John or Tom?"

"Nope."

"How about a Jenny, Stacy or Sarah?"

"Uh-uh."

"How about a Tara or Gina?"

"I've never even heard those names before, Dad" he told me!

Me and my wife started to go through the names of all the kids we went to school with, but obviously times... and names... have changed!

It got us talking about names you don't seem to hear anymore. When was the last time you ran into a Sally or Mary that wasn't over the age of 35?

I hope you have a great school year.

~Chris Farber