Well, not really. From the moment your child became part of your family, you began teaching him or her. But now that you all are having to stay at home, you have become the ex post facto teacher of your child's "school". That just means you have taken back the reins and direction of their education. You may be given outlines of specific topics to teach, but now you have the opportunity to put your life's learning, values, and expectations into those subjects. You now get to explain the "whys and wherefores" of historical events, scientific discoveries, and language skills.
One of the subjects that seems especially intimidating to many parents is the new math. The math isn't actually new; it's just that the way of teaching it and the terminology used are different.
When I began tutoring one of my students, I asked her to bring her textbook along with her to the first session to show me what lesson was giving her difficulties. It took me about 10 minutes of searching the
2-page spread to figure out that finding "benchmarks" was what we used to call finding averages. Her text told her to use stacks of blocks of different heights, breaking them all down to the height of the shortest one, then adding blocks one at a time to each pile until all the blocks were used and the stacks were all the same height. When I finally understood what they were teaching, I could proceed to explain the process and reasoning to her. It was not the same procedure the book taught, but what she learned helped her to do her lesson the way they wanted.
That is how the old school mixes with the new school. Old school usually is easier, so once your child (and you) can do the "old math", you have a way of checking if the "new math" method has come up with the right answer. And you both have learned that there is more than one way to work a problem. This is very helpful when you need to teach or learn something new because everyone has a process that works more easily for them.
That being said, one of my daughters did not like all the options. She finally said, "Just give me the book and let me learn it myself." So I did. Thus she was taught to teach herself, the real purpose of all education. What we really want to do is to create lifelong lovers of learning.
If you think your child will not be allowed to do things differently once he is back in "real school", it may help to hear some results from another of my students. He was about to flunk his math class when his grandmother brought him to me. This was in the spring of the school year. After working with him until the end of the term, his school wanted his mother to let him skip a grade, or at least go into the advanced math program for the next year.
Just try to relax, teach the school subjects so that your child can learn them, then adjust and adapt what you both learn to the new ways that are being taught. And I’ll tell you a “secret” -- It is okay to have fun learning it together.
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