The Unexpected Homeschooler

Before the days of vaccines for chickenpox I was not so fortunate to be covered with those itchy blisters at a young age, not succumbing to the virus until I was in my first year of high school, when a small number of students were infected one spring. I remember the evening before my unfortunate outbreak when my family attended a community Passover Seder, which was meant to be a joyful family mealtime gathering, and despite the delicious array of foods being passed around the table, I had no appetite. The next morning, the dreaded welts emerged across my body. 

In those days, chickenpox sufferers were required to stay home from school until all of the don’t-scratch-them scabs had fallen off—a long absence from class in the days of no online learning options. Even though a classmate bravely dropped books off at my home, I was truly isolated in the days of no social media and had no siblings living at home. I was not provided with any assignment details or teacher support. Thank goodness for my cat to keep me company! Six weeks later, when I returned to classes, it was evident to me how great the learning gap was between myself and my classmates—so unlike today’s access to online learning opportunities. Being an unexpected homeschooler in those days only meant being left behind.

Learning online today does not necessarily mean sitting behind a screen—or staying at home for that matter, and I’ll discuss that further in a future blog post with a re-“print” of my previously published article Every Parent is a Teacher.

Back to chickenpox—my own three children, born inside of four years of each other, contracted chickenpox in an overlapping sequence. My five-year old was the first to be afflicted, picking up the contact from her community soccer team games, which I can claim as the source since chickenpox was travelling through the Kindergarten classes in my neighbourhood—as a home education family at the time, soccer teams were the only individual activities for my young kidlets. Ten days and many oatmeal baths later, my calamine lotion dotted daughter’s older and younger siblings followed suit. Fortunately, all of my spotted little ones had less severe symptoms than my own teenage version. Additionally, their learning did not fall behind, but we will talk about that another day. I would include a recipe today but considering the topic I didn’t think that a fried chicken or drop cookie recipe would seem appealing.

Jennifer Brown is a Calgary, Alberta writer who home educated her children into the high school years.