By Romy Stephens
A retired teacher from Clematis is calling on other former teachers to use their skills and help struggling parents during this period of remote learning.
Former humanities teacher at Boronia Technical College Peter Cook recently dug out his pre-retirement geography class work and updated it to match the current curriculum.
He is now offering it to parents as an additional tool they can use to help teach their kids studying at home due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Mr Cook said that by spreading awareness of the idea he hoped to find more teachers that could add their expertise.
“I can only contribute in my subject areas but it would be nice to be able to offer material in all subject areas,” he said.
“I hope that from this I’ll get enquiries from retired teachers who are prepared to offer work.”
Mr Cook said he was inspired to do something after seeing reports of families struggling with remote learning.
“I just kept seeing stories in the media about people trying to hold down a job, particularly people working from home, and trying to homeschool at the same time,” Mr Cook said.
“It sounded like a really tough ask so I thought can I offer something to help with that problem?”
Mr Cook said that once he had more contacts he would be able to assist more parents in need.
“I am keen to increase kids’ geographic literacy by the provision of interesting and engaging study at home work which can be done either online or with an atlas,” he said.
“I’m aware that when you look there’s an enormous amount of material available for parents that are home schooling.
“So we’re not trying to substitute or replace, we’re just trying to complement what’s already available including what’s provided by teachers to their students.”
For more information, or to register interest, email pcook@wildcoast.net.au.
