About a week into lockdown, a strange thing happened.
My sons suddenly became keen gardeners, especially the teenager.
Which is strange because we don’t actually have a garden, or any outside space for that matter.
What we do have are some seeds that I picked up for my youngest son when he was having a meltdown in Marks & Spencer. A staff member took pity on me and gave him around half a dozen seedling kits to take home.
The teen wasn’t interested at first, but when he saw the tiny green shoots of his younger sibling’s plant, he decided to have a go.
And he’s been obsessed ever since. He waters them diligently, daily, without me having to nag like I have to do with everything else. I’ve watched him move them around the flat to ensure they have enough sunlight, holding them like newborn babies.
It’s not the only thing he’s taken an interest in while stuck at home. He’s dusted off an old science kit, untouched for about six years, and is experimenting with his brother, again with no input from me.
The other day he said he could turn an egg into a bouncy ball by soaking it overnight in vinegar. It ended up a soggy mess on the kitchen floor but the boys had lots of fun doing it.
And there’s been practical stuff too with the teen. He learnt how to make a Ghanaian stew as I was on strike at the time, fed up of being eaten out of house and home. He cooked rice and bolognese ragu, both for the first time, and he made one of the best ice-cream sundaes ever from what was in the cupboard. Again with little or no input from me.
I realised he enjoys using his hands and making things.
And I’ve realised he’s also learning things at home that he wouldn’t have had the time to do otherwise and things that he wouldn’t learn at school. Practical things like cooking happen in after-school clubs which have few places and are oversubscribed.
Despite the shaky start, the children being at home hasn’t been all bad.
Unlike some European schools which have started to reopen, we still don’t know when ours will, even though the Easter holidays officially end tomorrow.
Before then I think we should seriously reflect on our education system and reassess its obsession with academic achievement as if that’s the only measure of a child’s success.
It’s time to look into how we can get more practical subjects, like home economics, sewing and so on, back into education rather than expecting children to spend five years studying 10 subjects, most of which they’ll forget.
Let’s face it, we are certainly learning what is useful and what isn’t in a global pandemic.
