Before COVID-19 upended life as we’ve known it, the average U.S. home at 10 a.m. on a weekday might be a pretty quiet place. Parents at work. Kids in classrooms. Maybe there’d be a spaniel or a tabby standing sentry at the homestead, or a long-tailed budgerigar.

Now, though, with the country in the full throes of the coronavirus crisis, the dining room table and the kitchen counter have had their functions radically changed. The ever-growing pandemic already had turned many homes into work from home outposts. This week, a chunk of them became e-schools.

Across the country, some schools are staying faithful to their basic mission: instruction. They’re pushing out new material, monitoring homework assignments online and generally trying their best to sustain education-as-usual.

None of this is easy. Parents working from home can multitask between company spreadsheets and making lunch for their kids. Even if that means chiming into a teleconference while a 6-year-old tugs on your shirt with nonstop pleas for attention. The barking beagle in the background is a bonus distraction.

But parents who can’t work from home have been foraging for child care, encouraging school-age kids to keep busy, and worrying about whether a youngster will inadvertently start a fire while heating mac and cheese.

Nor is this easy for educators. Teachers are seeking innovative ways to keep connected with students who no longer are sitting in front of them in classroom desks.

The most demanding lesson for students stuck at home: School at home, aka e-school, doesn’t mean “No school!” Yes, there’s a temptation to declare Spring Break Part I. Resist it, and realize that learning isn’t confined by geography. It happens everywhere — any time, all the time. Teachers will supply schoolwork that keeps you engaged with everything from past participles to quadratic equations. Sign off Candy Crush, and sign onto Google Classroom.

Many school districts across the country don’t have e-learning capability. That’s all right. There’s an easy workaround that involves paper, pencil and a parent committed to making sure this pause in the school year doesn’t seriously sidetrack a child’s academic growth.

With most states closing schools and at least 70% of students at home already, there’s no telling when the shutdown ends. On Tuesday, Laura Kelly of Kansas became the first governor to declare that her state’s schools will not reopen for in-person instruction this spring. Fair enough. Classrooms are hothouses for germ spread. And while young people aren’t as vulnerable to this virus, they can carry a contagion from school to parents and grandparents.

The new dynamic at home requires a rethink that creates comfortable environments for working, living and learning. Parents have to steel themselves from groans and grunts when they tell their kids to put down their phones; for the next few hours, class is in session.

The goals at e-school and home-school are the same as at bricks-and-mortar school: Keep kids learning. And keep everyone healthy.

---

&Copy;2020 Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

-----

PHOTO (for help with images, contact 312-222-4194):