This is not homeschooling
March 30, 2020 by Amy Welborn
The author, about 1966.
So, almost everyone is educating from home right now…
Here’s a map, in case you’re interested. It’s updated daily.
And it’s not just in the United States. Most countries — worldwide — have closed their schools.
The coronavirus has disrupted schooling for more than 87% of the world’s student population, UNESCO says.UNESCO-the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization-says that as of March 25, the pandemic has led 165 countries to close all their schools. That equates to 1,524,648,768 students, or 87.1% of the world’s student population.
That is really stunning. More than anyone else, I feel for the teachers, who are having to continue their efforts either online or through some other means.
(I was thinking last night — if I were an administrator of one of these schools, I’d be tempted to just send every kid home with twenty books from the school library, and be done with it….)
Hopefully, this will be a disruptor of sorts. No, I’m not for the end of the brick-n-mortar school — I’m for the radical reshaping of the system at both macro and micro levels, a reshaping that has flexibility, rather than top-down control at its core. One that is about introducing and guiding rather than imposing and judging.
Perhaps this will shake us all up and encourage us to take an honest look at what education actually is.
BUT…for those of you lurching into this sudden transition from classroom to home, just know, that this is not homeschooling.
I mean, of course it is, in a way, but even homeschoolers are having to adjust right now. This type of doing school-in-the-confines-of-home is not , for most of us, the “homeschooling” we know and (sometimes) love.
Why?
We can’t gather in groups — and gathering in groups — on playgrounds, in church facilities, in each others’ homes — is a huge part of homeschooling. For classes, tutoring sessions, field trips, or just playtime.
Almost everything’s closed. No museum trips, no zoo trips. Heck, I just checked and even our botanical gardens — only one little part of which is enclosed — is shut down. No concerts, no plays, festivals or fairs. The outdoors is open (for now), but organized outdoor activities are mostly cancelled. One of my sons’ guy groups had a big canoeing trip planned for two weekends ago, but the outfitter cancelled.
I’m sure that’s just a partial list, and you could add to it.
Everyone homeschools differently. Some replicate a classroom environment. Some use online classes. Some don’t use any traditional materials at all, others let the kids follow their bliss. But hardly any homeschoolers stay in the house all day, doing worksheets. In fact, those of us who left traditional schooling left it in order to escape that worksheet regime. I often tell the tale that one of the aspects of my kids’ schooling that pushed me into this world was my then 5th grader’s experience in a very small class (no more than twelve kids, all well-behaved and motivated) in which they were studying plants in school, in a building right across from a nice park — and at no time in this unit of studying plants did the teacher actually bring a real, actual plant in for the kids to examine or take them across the street to look at even more real actual plants. Just worksheets. Lots and lots of worksheets. And if it were today, probably lots of Ipad or Chromebook time.
Take that, fifth grade!
So yes, we’re all educating at home right now — but while workbooks and online classes are certainly part of the experience for many homeschoolers, know that the appeal of this way of life isn’t about doing the same type of work, just in your living room. It’s not about doing what other people have decided is the right way, just at a distance. It’s about looking at your kid(s), at the nature of this world in which they’re living and will be growing and working, and being willing to question your assumptions about all of it — about “learning” and “teaching” and “education” and “school” and, most importantly, being willing to make some sacrifices as the power of those assumptions collapse, along with so much of what we thought was true and important about “life before.”
Originally published at http://amywelborn.wordpress.com on March 30, 2020.