We have nowhere to go but up!

My nephews are Nathan and Noah. Nathan is 10 years old and in the 4^th grade. Noah is 7 years old and in the 2^nd grade. They’re both super curious, highly intelligent, funny, loving young men. We’ve been living in the same town a couple of years now and were used to interacting at least weekly.

They were enrolled in a normal brick and mortar school but were having some issues which came to a head halfway through this school year. Their father, my brother Adam, is a single father with full custody. He works full time and spends most of his “leisure” time caring for his sons. He’s a great dad, loving and patient. He had some health issues, so my nephews were staying with my mom, their grandmother. She communicated with the school about the health problems my brother was facing because they were life threatening and it was emotionally traumatic for my nephews.

The school was unhelpful with the situation and called my mom nearly every day to come get one or the other or both for behavior issues. The school has refused to provide any practical assistance with them. My mother got them into counseling. We did the research and decided to remove them from the brick and mortar public school. That’s when we discovered neither was succeeding academically and the older one, Nathan, had straight Fs in every class at the end of the first semester.

Because of my vertigo, I can’t work or drive. I’m in the house all day. Pretty much the only thing that seems to really work is for me to try not to move, so that’s mostly what I’ve done over the past five months. Not who I am. Not who I want to be. I feel the need to work and contribute beyond myself.

I’m trying my hand at being their Learning Coach. Pretty much, I’m a teacher’s aide assigned to the two of them only. They are at my home four days a week to work on their lessons, which are mostly online but with lots of textbooks and workbooks to go with the online curriculum. I’m here to keep them honest, on task, and on target. It’s mostly a sit-down job.

Day #1 turned out much better than anticipated as the laptop which arrived the day before functioned in the way it was designed. I’m technologically inept so this was a huge bonus for me. We’ve had some technological issues. First and foremost is the school supplies one computer per family and we have two students. We didn’t think it would be a problem because the expectation was, they would each spend 30% of their time online. Turns out they spend closer to 100% each online. As the Learning Coach, I also need to get online to check planners, grades, webmail and confirm lesson completions. I’m unable to do this during school time as we each must log in as ourselves. We got the school laptop connected to my printer so both nephews can print when needed. Noah had his first live lesson today; Nathan and I enjoyed laughing at him because he seemed to be talking to himself when he was talking to his teacher. Noah and I were able to post a reply on the teacher’s message board and attach his photo and a sample of his artwork. Nathan and I couldn’t figure it out from the school laptop during school hours today; but we seem to have figured it out shortly afterward. We may or may not have figured out how to scan images to each computer.

Day #2 seemed a little better than day one and day one wasn’t that bad. Yeah, I was tuckered out by noon and laid on the couch resting while they ate lunch and played WII. Noah gave me another dozen or so hugs, just like on day one. Today, Nathan gave me a hug too.

Day #3 seemed to go even better! Nathan didn’t have any emotional outbursts. When I told Nathan I was spending more time sitting next to Noah because he needed extra help; he seemed to understand and accept that explanation. I’m very dismayed at their preparedness to learn. They don’t know how to be students. They don’t want to read or write more than a couple sentences. They want to skip around and guess. They don’t know how to take notes. We have nowhere to go but up!

I’m super grateful to have this opportunity to get to know them better (because they’re delightful!) and to have a positive influence on their lives. I would never have felt able to do this if I was physically able to work. God is good and I’m blessed!