Jonny McCambridge: Homeschooling horrors just keep on multiplying

‘Come on son, put the Nintendo away, we need to get some school work done now.’

There is nothing. I try again.

‘Son, I said….’

‘I HEARD YOU DADDY!!’ he bellows.

‘Well, can you put the console down then please?’

‘Just let me finish this level.’

‘Uh, alright, but be quick. I haven’t got much time.’

I sit and wait. I scan the room and notice that there is what I believe to be a half-eaten biscuit underneath the armchair in the corner. I squint my eyes. I think it may be a Bourbon Cream. I hear the squeak of my boy’s thumbs working relentlessly on plastic controllers. Occasionally he emits a little gasp of frustration or excitement. I wait some more.

‘Um, can we start with the work now buddy?’

‘FINE THEN!!’ he roars, slamming the games console down and shaking his head angrily in a manner that suggests he does not think it at all fine.

I shuffle through several of the pages sent home in this week’s pack from school, trying to find something which I understand and which does not involve glue.

‘OK, what about some maths?’

He shrugs.

‘It’s multiplication. Have you done multiplication before?’

‘No daddy.’

‘Do you know what it is?’

‘No daddy.’

I think about this. There are certain things which are so intrinsic and long-rooted within your experience that they tend to defy easy definition. I know what a horse is, but would struggle to come up with an easy way of describing it to someone who had never seen one before.

‘Multiplication is…’ I begin. ‘When you multiply things together.’

My son stares at me. I can hear a pinging noise coming from my work computer in the next room, which means that someone is trying to contact me.

‘Right,’ I go on. ‘What is two times two?’

‘What do you mean two times two?’

‘OK, if I have two bags of sweets in one hand and two bags of sweets in the other hand, how many bag of sweets are there?’

‘Four, that’s easy.’

‘Yes, that’s it, that’s two times two!’

‘But that’s just adding daddy, that’s just two plus two. Is multiplication just the same as adding?’

‘Well, it’s not quite the same thing. Try this one, what is two times three?’

‘Two plus three is five.’

‘No, that’s adding. Imagine you have two bags of sweets, and then another two bags of sweets and then another two bags of sweets, how many bags of sweets are there?’

‘So, it is adding?’

I think about this.

‘Well, I suppose multiplication is like a quick form of adding. So, two bags of sweets and two bags of sweets and two bags of sweets?’

‘What kind of sweets are they?’

‘Eh?’

‘What type of sweets? I like Haribos.’

‘Well, that’s not really the point, but if it makes it easier then we can say they are Haribos.’

He looks serious. I can hear several more urgent pinging noises from my work computer in the next room.

‘Do we have any bags of Haribos? Can I have some for my lunch?’

‘You’re not getting any Haribos! Just answer the question.’

‘Two bags of Haribos, plus two bags of Haribos, plus two bags of Haribos, is six bags of Haribos.’

‘Yes, that means two times three is six. Do you understand?’

He nods, but looks uncertain.

‘Perhaps daddy, it would be better if I did this when mummy comes home?’

Reluctantly, I have to concede that he has come up with the right answer.

**

There is perhaps no worse feeling as a parent than when you believe that you are failing your own child.

The closure of the school gates for the best part of a year has revealed a clear and disturbing truth, I am not temperamentally or cerebrally suited towards educating my son. The harder that I try, the less satisfactory the results are.

It is with something of the hopelessness of a drowning man that I can feel us slipping further and further behind, and there is nothing it seems that I am able to do to get our heads back above water.

It is at night, when I cannot sleep, and when reason and peace is hardest to find, that I think the worst. I imagine that my boy, because of my deficiencies, will be well behind when the schools reopen, he will never be able to catch up, and his prospects will be permanently limited because of it.

During the days, I try to push my thoughts in a different direction. We are all in the same situation, the school will ensure that his advancement is not hindered and his own precocity and creativity will ensure that he succeeds regardless.

I took my son to the park recently. While there, by chance, we ran into some of his school chums and he quickly ran off to play with them.

I watched him. He played with excitement and abandon. I saw the return of a certain kind of animation in his features which I have not witnessed nearly enough of for the last year.

It reminded me of how much he is missing out on, and how much of what he needs is beyond what I can give him.

* Jonny McCambridge’s new book, Afraid of the Dark, published by Dalzell Press, is available now on Amazon.

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