Cate Blanchett Says She Had to Dress Up as Her Daughter's Teacher During Lockdown: 'Traumatic'
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Cate Blanchett is recalling one of her most difficult roles: playing her daughter's teacher.
The actress, 52, appeared on Tuesday's episode of the Australian talk show The Project where she discussed her experience homeschooling her kids during lockdown.
Blanchett, who is mom to sons Dashiell, 20, Roman, 17, and Ignatius, 13, as well as daughter, Edith, 7, said while she was "amazing for two weeks," things quickly took a turn when it came to teaching her youngest child.
"My older kids were fine, they would self direct. But I had to sort of do my 7-year-old, and I realized that I couldn't even teach her grade 1 math and she sniffed that out after 14 days," said the Don't Look Up star. "I was a dead duck. There was no respect there."
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Blanchett, who shares her kids with husband Andrew Upton, then revealed she had to "dress up as her teacher" and had to "put on her teacher's voice" in order to homeschool her daughter.
"She wouldn't start the classes until we had an array of stuffed animals, all of which had the names of all the people In her class," she continued. "It felt like some weird kind of cross between The Muppets and MasterClass. It was quite traumatic actually."
Blanchett noted that her experience with homeschooling made her even more appreciative of teachers.
"In Finland, which has the highest and most respected level of education anywhere, teachers are paid the same as doctors and lawyers," she explained. "And they should be because the level of skill to engage a bunch of, often disinterested, students for eight to 12 hours a day is one of the most profound, respected skills of any profession anywhere."
