First Army families show adaptability and resilience while taking on schooling challenges

Photo By Warren Marlow | Lucas Deters tackles a craft project as part of his schooling day at home.  

ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL , ILLINOIS, UNITED STATES

04.23.2020

Story by Warren Marlow 

First Army

During the COVID-19 pandemic, State Governors have closed public and private schools as an enhanced safety measure against the virus. The overnight change has left many Army parents suddenly filling a larger, more direct role in their children’s education than they’d ever imagined.

Three groups of children in First Army families have responded to this challenge in different ways. One of the groups has always been homeschooled. One has never experienced distance learning. Another group of children is facilitating the teaching of Middle School Spanish alongside their still-working mother. The different approaches show the adaptable resilience of First Army Soldiers and their children.

Schooling has changed the least for First Army Plans, Operations, and Training Chaplain, Maj. Ryan Steenburg, and his wife, Kristen. For eight years, the couple has homeschooled their five school-age children: Caitlyn 13, Wes 12, Anabelle 10, Mikayla 8, and Joshua 6. Their other three children are pre-school age.

Kristen regularly compares the dynamic of homeschooling to a “One-Room Schoolhouse,” a once-common feature in rural America where students of all grades learned under a single roof with a single teacher who structured lessons for each of them based on ability.

“I have a couple of my older kids, when they are taking a break from their school, they play and interact with the younger ones,” Kristen said. “You see that one-room schoolhouse effect take place. My 8-year-old loves to sing the A-B-C song with our 3-year-old, and that’s not anything I’ve asked her to do. She just wants to teach and wants to share.”

The chance to employ different approaches for child is a strategy Kristen said she employs.

“We can tailor their education to how they learn and what interests them,” she said. “Some are more interested in arts so they can spend more time practicing the piano and doing things like that.”

For example, some of the children flourish best with a projects-based approach. The Steenburgs used this strategy when building a birdhouse as a practical school assignment.

“They learn about the various birds in the area, learn some math because of the measurements they have to do, and learn some science because of the feeding of the birds,” Maj. Steenburg said. “And then they can write papers about it, they can read books about it, and it touches each aspect of their academics with a single project.” On the other hand, homeschooling does come with challenges. These include having to tend to multiple children simultaneously and working with different ages, stages, needs, interests, personalities, and work habits. Over the years, the Steenburgs have adapted their teaching style to meet these disparate needs, Kristen said.

There are also issues beyond the academics, according to Maj. Steenburg.

“Some of the bigger challenges come with the emotional connection,” he said. “You’re not just the parent, you’re also the teacher. The times when the child is struggling, emotions can run high. That’s true in the classroom too, but when you’re home with them there’s just that added emotion to it.”

Unlike the Steenburgs, learning at home is new for Maj. Heather Deters, the First Army SHARP program manager. She has been tapping into the adaptability she has learned in the Army to adjust to her new reality of assisting in the schooling of her 7-year-old son, Lucas. The sudden change in routine wasn’t a completely smooth transition.

“He gets a little frustrated because he loves school, his friends, and his teacher,” Maj. Deters said.

Change, however, is nothing new to Lucas. Military families across the nation are utilizing the resiliency they have accrued during frequent deployments of family members and Permanent Change of Stations moves, and using this to cope. As a military child, Deters said, Lucas has been to three schools in three years. The flexibility he learned during those moves is helping him adjust to the new circumstances.

“He’s used to not being in one spot very long and has learned to deal with change,” she said.

Maj. Deters believes setting and maintaining a schedule has helped bring reassurance to both of them. Lucas’ school facilitates their schedule by sending lessons regularly. She and Lucas also do their best to get outside and ride bikes. Deters added that the situation has given her an increased appreciation for teachers.

Meanwhile, one of those teachers finds herself remotely instructing her school students while also teaching her children at home. Victoria McCollum, a military spouse and Spanish teacher at Lourdes Catholic School in Bettendorf, Iowa, prepares lesson plans for her pupils while also assisting with the education of her three children: Ian 10, Malcolm 8, and Kellan 6.

Between teaching the children from her classroom and her children at home, McCollum estimates she spends seven hours a day educating in one form or another. McCollum said she adapts to the needs and abilities of each of her children and gives each as much or as little assistance and prodding as is necessary.

One of her main challenges, she said, is technology.

“We are a limited technology household, intentionally,” McCollum said. “Our kids don’t have their own devices. That means in this distance learning modality, there’s only one computer so if all three of them need it, we have to space it out.”

Compounding that is the lessons she gives to students in her Spanish class. She navigates between teaching her students on web conferencing applications and the physical world her children inhabit. At first, this was unsuccessful.

“I cannot be teaching my students, and still have my children doing their homework. It has to be one or the other,” she said.
But she has since learned how to balance the two.

“My kids are now involved in my lessons,” McCollum said. “They act as my teaching assistants. They help bring me things. They help me write things on my makeshift whiteboard.”

Another technique which has helped the family adapt is incorporating household activities like baking or gardening into the lesson plans. They also go on scavenger hunts or take walks around the neighborhood to identify plants, McCollum said. But she stressed that all this is not necessarily homeschooling.

“Homeschooling is specifically for people who chose to not send their children to a school building and there is a lot of access to groups, to socialization, and to field trip activities,” McCollum said. “It’s intentional. What we are all doing right now is navigating this new, different, distance learning.”

While the pandemic brings its stresses and frustrations, McCollum noted that the Army lifestyle is built on adapting to change and developing new connections.

“Military kids have a lot of resilience, which is built by facing a very difficult situation and finding the healthy coping mechanisms and the grit and tenacity to push through it,” she said. “When children are moving around every few years, they have the opportunity to reinvent themselves a lot. This is an opportunity to rethink and reevaluate what is important, what we like, how we can stay connected, and I think military families are really good at this. And if they’re not good at this, there are Family Readiness Groups and community outreach services that create a social community no matter where you are or what your situation is.”

Teaching at home is just one part of a new reality to which individuals, families, groups, and communities are adapting. Despite the changes, First Army Soldiers remain focused on protecting the country, their Soldiers, and family members, maintaining open and honest communication, and keeping the positive attitude displayed by these three First Army families.

• Date Taken: 04.23.2020
• Date Posted: 04.23.2020 16:50
• Story ID: 368325
• Location: ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL , ILLINOIS, US