KIDS say the darnedest things, but what about the crazy questions they ask?
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Parents and guardians have heard it all before, "Mum, why is the sky blue?", "Dad, where do babies come from?", "why can't the dog talk back to me?".
But adults are dealing with a new question in 2020, "what's coronavirus?”
This was a question Moama's Carri Carter not only had to answer for her own children, Ashlyn and Murphy, but all the students she teaches at St Mary's Primary School.
And all the while, she didn't know the answer herself.
“I think because it was so unknown it was scary for the kids in the beginning,” she said.
“My kids personally didn't understand that it had never happened before. So when I told them I'd never seen anything like it, they didn't know what to do or how to deal with it.
“There were so many questions they had that I didn't know the answers to.”
As difficult as it would be, she said honesty was the best policy.
“I think we just had to be honest and say there was a lot of unknown,” she said.
“Kids are pretty adaptable and I think they handled it pretty well in the end. They all just went with the flow and did what they were told to do because they knew it was for safety reasons.”
This added a whole new level of difficulty in her home and work life, as it did for many teachers around the state and country.
In the days before coronavirus, Carri was run off her feet as the physical education co-ordinator and teacher at St Mary's Primary.
“Usually I would be up at around 5am to exercise or take the dog for a walk and get the kids ready to leave the house by 7.30am,” she said.
“When I got to school I would help supervise students in that half an hour before school starts, take three different classes leading up to lunch time and use the rest of the day to plan for my next class, plus my jobs as PE co-ordinator in between.”
But when COVID-19 hit, staff and students were bound to their dining tables or desks while they entered the world of virtual learning from home.
But for Carri's kids, they were able to attend school when she did.
“My kids were lucky because they only had to do homeschooling on my day off, every other day they came in and learnt with other kids of essential workers,” she said.
“But it was hard for the students that didn't get the chance to learn on site. They didn't get that socialisation they would usually get in the playground or classroom.”
The teachers were also worried about the impacts going back and forth into lockdown may have had on the students.
“I know the kids were very excited to come back to school. There were a few kids who would usually not want to get up and go, but now they were keen,” Carri said.
“They were disappointed going back into lockdown, but now coming back out again, it might take a bit of getting used to it rather than this new normal they had.”
As a specialist, Carri was not only supporting students during lockdown, but her fellow teachers as well.
“I was working out of a classroom during our first lockdown and I was supporting the grade five teachers mainly,” she said.
“We were told by the government to not actually teach the kids who were on site, but just to follow the plan so the kids learning from home wouldn't be at a disadvantage, which was very hard to do.
“The first lockdown was the hardest for me because we couldn't do what we naturally do, but our school decided to do things differently the second lockdown.”
This change allowed Carri and a few other teachers to get creative.
“We were allowed to go live, so myself and Kristi Larkin teamed up and changed our plans to make sure everything worked for kids at home and on site,” she said.
“Kristi is a performing arts teacher so she likes to be energetic and think outside the square and because I couldn't do PE outside with wi-fi, we had to come up with new ways to teach.”
The pair made it their mission to not only get their students up and exercising, but do it with a smile.
“Every week we had a different topic or area of study we wanted to look at and we dressed up according to those topics,” she said.
“The students couldn't stop laughing the first time we did it and after doing this two weeks in a row there was an expectation that we would keep doing it.
“We had kids asking what we were going to be next week or they would tell us they liked these characters so could we do that again, so they really enjoyed it, it was something fun and exciting for them.”
Carri remembered one of their most popular characters also brought families together.
“A few weeks before the end of term we dressed up as 1980s gold medallists to learn about steeplechase, we had these horrible 80s wigs and bright jumpsuits,” she said.
“So after that we designed a Google site that encouraged the students to do their own activities at home with minimal equipment. We actually started to see parents and other family members joining in and we got lots of great photos.
“There were parents playing balloon parents with their kids and grandparents getting involved and seeing everyone enjoying themselves.”
All the while, thankfully there was little change in the Carter family's home life.
“Apart from the kids not being able to play sport in Victoria, there wasn't much difference at home,” she said.
“Because we were in NSW, they were still able to play sport and dance here and even with young kids, we don't really go out a lot anyway.
“Working in Victoria meant getting across the bridge was a bit tricky, but I would just ride to work instead.”
Carri did find seeing family was made more difficult because of the border closure, but being a teacher did help this to a degree.
“All our families are in Victoria and out of our bubble so that stopped us from seeing a lot of family for about three months,” she said.
“But a few of my nieces and nephews go to school at St Mary's so I was still able to have some contact.
“We were very thankful for FaceTime and the phone during that time, but I was used to seeing my mum every second week so it was tricky not being able to do that.
“We definitely realised we took it all for granted, so we're able to appreciate family time now more than ever.”