In Ohio, our governor just announced that schools would stay closed and that students would be distance learning for another month until the end of the school year. Many of my Facebook friends are understandably upset. I’ve also seen a number of articles about how hard it is to do this at home.
- Episode 74 of the Dr. Phil Podcast
- Teachers deserve more respect.
- Psychological problems of forced homeschooling
- Parents Daunting new responsibility.
For the most part, homeschoolers have been very welcoming and helpful to the new parents trying to educate their kids at home, We know it hasn’t come without some problems. Parents who are struggling to work from home, or keep a business going during these tight restrictions, AND educate their kids at home have very full plates. Telling them that they will LOVE homeschooling is not going to be helpful.
The truth is, this isn’t homeschooling. This is distance learning at home. Even the media is starting to use this term more and more.
So what’s the big difference between the two?
Families that are distance learning now because of government mandates, didn’t choose to do this. They didn’t pick a charter school and have materials sent to them. They didn’t sign up to homeschool and then find programs online that they liked. This was thrust upon them very quickly without any warning and very little time to prepare. In contrast, even during normal times, homeschoolers usually have months to get their materials together and chose their programs.
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That’s another big difference between homeschooling and mandated distance learning. Homeschoolers have full freedom to pick and choose the material they want to use. New distance learning families and teachers have had to come up with systems and ways of teaching very quickly. They didn’t have the luxury of time or the luxury of being able to pick and chose curricula.
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Parents have no control over what’s being taught or how it’s taught. They don’t have any power over time demands either. Teachers and school systems are deciding that. Homeschool moms can take their foot off of the gas if their student needs to slow down and focus on a topic a little longer. They can also work faster if that’s what the student needs. That’s a lot easier for the homeschooler to do than for the distance learning parents.
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And if parents feel pressure, kids do too. They also had little voice in how they would spend the rest of their school year. Now they have had to come up with new systems and ways of working from home and staying motivated. There has been virtually no change for homeschoolers. My daughter and granddaughter follow the same routine we’ve followed before.
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Lastly, ways of evaluating students are different in homeschooling than mandated distance learning. I can evaluate my student anyway I want, with tests, essays, or just daily work and observation. A teacher will evaluate how to grade distance learning students and it’s up to the parents to determine how to help their students meet the expectations of their evaluators. That’s got to be more stressful.
It’s clear that even though students are being mandated to do distance learning at home with their parents, this isn’t the same as homeschooling. For distance-learning parents, this is an add-on to their lives and schedules. For homeschooling parents, it’s just what we do. But every family trying to make this work during an already stressful time has my full support and admiration. It might take a while, but this too shall pass and maybe next fall, life will look a little more like what we’re used to.