The thought of homeschooling my kids has always intrigued me but I’ve long assumed it’s not for me. We like supporting our local public school. Our kids are thriving there. I like outsourcing some of the things my children need to learn; it’s good for them to experience how different teachers do things differently even when the end goal is the same. I’m also an introvert who loves her children AND desperately needs them to go away sometimes.
What I’m realizing after a month or so of school-at-home is that homeschooling could feasibly work for us…if we have outside resources to rely on.
This is not something I understood about homeschooling in general. I thought if I did it, I had to do ALL of it. Evidently that’s not the case. (Forgive me, homeschoolers, for being so ignorant.) Between co-ops, tutors, study groups, play groups, field trips, and extracurricular classes–some of which we do already–it could be comparable to public school for us, but without the homework and the rigid schedule.
It’s something to think about, anyway. Particularly if the school calendar is going to continue to be disrupted by COVID outbreaks. Maybe a year or two of homeschooling would be better. Maybe. If I could gather the motivation and mental energy required.
While a lot of families I know have been stressed out by frequent Zoom meetings with teachers, our home learning experience has been really chill. We get a list of assignments for the week (only math and English) and a suggested daily schedule. Math is a combination of worksheets and an online program. English consists of reading short stories or articles and more worksheets. For those, I just sit down and discuss the concepts instead of having them do the worksheet. Seems to be effective and it saves paper. Each girl has had one check-in meeting a week with their teacher and a handful of classmates.
All of it is optional, as every student will be receiving the grade they earned in third quarter and moving on to the next grade regardless.
It’s super manageable.
It’s not, however, comprehensive.
Luckily David’s mom, who is a retired elementary school teacher, has been supplementing their work with science, art, geography, and more. Again, it’s been super chill–obviously nothing is required and some days we just didn’t do any of the assignments she suggested–but mostly it’s been nice to have projects to keep the girls busy.
(I say mostly because there have definitely been days where someone felt overwhelmed by or didn’t understand the assignment, or felt like a failure for not finishing. Some days were pretty emotionally fraught. Sometimes that was my fault.)
The school district has been offering school lunches for pickup a few days a week. We have taken advantage of that a handful of times. It’s a reason to leave the house, even if they don’t always like the meal and inevitably feed the baby carrots to the tortoise.
Both girls had checked out library books for spring break. When the principal announced that we could drive by to return them, we did. It was a relief to not have to worry about keeping track of them until next school year.
Which should start in a little more than two months. Is that long enough for the district to figure out how to educate kids while still being cautious about public health? What is that going to look like?
My guess is either shorter school days or an every-other-day schedule. Probably more reliance on online and at-home learning. It’s an adjustment but not a huge burden for us; I don’t envy families without a stay-at-home parent.
Again, it’s got me wondering whether homeschooling might not be a better option for now. Less disruptive. Lonely, maybe. And we wouldn’t be supporting the public school system, which I have mixed feelings about. And tending a baby while educating a preschooler and a second- and fourth-grader feels like a lot. Doable, but not long term without support.
We’ll probably stick to outsourcing as much as we can. If we can at all. Not that we can plan ahead very far anyway.
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