Lori Borgman: Home-schooling grandparents need schooling

Lori Borgman, Tribune News Service on Feb 17, 2026

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Against our daughter’s better judgment, she sometimes asks if we can homeschool her youngest when she has a scheduling conflict.

Her concern is not that we don’t cover the material; her concern is that we modify and augment the material or sometimes deviate entirely from the material.

We call it enrichment.

The last time our student was here, she asked me to check her work on a metric conversion problem involving kilo, hecto, deca, unit, deci, centi and milli.

“You know the mnemonic for metric, right Grandma?” she asked. “King Henry Doesn’t Usually Drink Chocolate Milk.”

I told her all I knew for sure about metric is when the obstetrician says, “You’re at 10 centimeters,” the baby is coming real soon.

She gave me a puzzled look.

Instead of doing a lot of conversion, I suggested King Henry swing by Walmart and buy anything he wanted in pints, quarts, 2-liters, six-packs and cases of 24.

The look on her face said this was not helpful and that I was going to be reported to the principal.

To my credit, I excel in language arts. I do good with grammar (well, sometimes), and specialize in pronouns without antecedents, my favorite example being: Susan told Emily she was looking old.

Our occasional student also has been covering all the major body systems with wonderful charts, graphs and overlays. I did well on the cardiology unit, probably due to being of a certain age and knowing a lot of people with heart issues.

This week, when our student was going to do her schoolwork here, her mother sent an early morning email with the subject line, “Urology Test.”

The email said, “Mom, would you mind printing this at your house? I'm currently out of paper. She needs to take this test. You can attempt it, too, if you want.”

Maybe it’s because I just had a physical, but I was flummoxed. I called our daughter to clarify that the urology test did not involve anybody taking strips of paper and little plastic cups into the bathroom.

When she finally finished laughing, she confirmed that was correct. The only testing would be with pen and paper.

Whew. Close one.

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