No One is Homeschooling Right Now
Millions of families around the country and perhaps billions around the world have their children at home because schools are closed during the height of this pandemic. Parents and caregivers are making an effort to coordinate their children’s education from home, sometimes with help from their schoolteachers. Many laughingly say, “I never thought I’d be homeschooling!”
To be clear: you are not homeschooling. Homeschooling is a considered choice and lifestyle embracing the learning relationship between parent and child. I’m certain almost none of the families newly educating their children at home thought about this in advance, or feel they had even the smallest choice about whether or not to do so.
You are crisis-schooling. In fact, homeschoolers are crisis-schooling right now, too.
My 14-year-old and I decided to build a garden from nothing as part of our crisis-schooling.
© 2020 C.M.P. Sonas
This distinction doesn’t mean the undertaking is any more or less, but it does mean it is very different. Crisis-schooling involves levels of stress and disruption that aren’t normally present and must be taken into account. I think it’s safe to say that all homeschooling families have shifted to crisis-schooling one or more times. My own family has experienced it multiple times: once with a new and unwell baby; several times when I was suffering acute depression; when one of the kids was really sick. We know what it is like to be struggling with home education.
Here are some great tips from those who’ve been in the trenches before...
Be your child’s parent first and foremost. Crisis-schooling includes trauma by definition. Your #1 priority is to protect your child’s present and long-term well-being. If staying caught up with schoolwork is interfering with this, set it aside immediately.
Let go of the long list of school standards and requirements. Those are designed to be achieved by full-time classroom teachers with lots of training in how to work through the scope and sequence lists. What you do or do not accomplish at home with your kids will have little impact on what teachers will need to do once school is back in session again.
Be flexible with routines and schedules. The school day is long and blocked out because it needs to be; it’s necessary for efficient operations. Some families homeschool that way - but not during crisis-schooling. A rule of thumb homeschoolers use is 20-30 minutes per day, per grade level; that’s 20-30 for grade 1, 80-120 for grade 4, etc. Classrooms need more time because they have more students.
Pick a few things from the school pile and focus on those. What you choose will be different for each child, based on what they enjoy or what they struggle with, and what can be done while meeting priority #1.
Tap homeschooling strategies that make learning at home fun. Pick books to read aloud with one or more kids; have any readers participate in the reading. Review what your kids would be studying if they were in school, and find videos and websites they can gain from on the same topics. Pull up some kitchen science activities or spend time observing nature.
Use the #1 homeschooling trick: have them learn when they don’t know they’re learning! For example, cooking is a fabulous way to keep kids working on their K-6 math skills. Books that fictionalize topics in history and science are great (confirm they’re reliable first). Writing and penmanship can be tied into relationships and public service: a letter to their best friend, a postcard to a grandparent, a thank you card to local first responders.