What is Pandemic Schooling?
Spring 2020
COVID-19 forced many schools to close. Parents were home with their children, often trying to work a full-time job and help teach their children. As a mom who homeschooled her children, I'm here to argue that what my two granddaughters were doing each day, when school was in session, WAS NOT HOMESCHOOLING. In an effort to preserve an unpolluted idea of what homeschooling is or might be, I suggest we refer to what has happened in our homes this past spring as something we might call Pandemic Schooling, not homeschooling.
"The thing that I have found interesting is that the people who know that we homeschool, who do not homeschool, have caught themselves when they start complaining about their kids having to be home doing school. They hesitate, then say, “Oh, but you homeschool.” And I’m insisting, “But it’s not the same thing. You are not offending me, because it’s not the same thing, at all. At all!! You would enjoy homeschooling, I think, if you were actually homeschooling. But you’re not. You’re trying to hold down a full-time job and do what the school is telling you to do. It’s completely different.”
My sister is an attorney with a very demanding schedule. Her kids are my kids ages and she was complaining about all this busy work the kids are doing all day. They have to do PDF worksheets. I’m thinking do you hear yourself? That’s crazy. There’s no reason those kids have to do that. There’s no reason they should be scanning and submitting busy work. That’s insane. It’s only stressful because of the format. You could be working from home on your briefs and have them learning independently and it wouldn’t be stressful."
WHAT HOMESCHOOLING PARENTS SAY ABOUT PANDEMIC SCHOOLING
“Nothing changed!! Everybody was home, and then everybody was home all day,
The pandemic left the evenings open for fun family time. They did a rotation of activities. One night they would play a family game. "We are going through dad’s game collection alphabetically, just to give us focus, so we don’t have to decide every night what we want to play, It’s like what’s next in the alphabet. We’ve been playing at least two games a week since March, so we’re up to J. Another night we watch a movie, and then one night a we'd do a kind of do your own thing, getting together at like 8 or 8:30 to watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Another evening activity was a pinball tournament on the PlayStation, and they had other video game tournaments as well.
Pandemic Schooling if Fly-by-Night Cyberschooling
Honestly my message to parents about Pandemic Schooling was why don’t you just let your children off the hook. They could go for these last three months of the year not learning any of this stuff and still be fine. Why are you torturing them and yourself? All these parents are having this horrible experience trying to force their kids to do this stuff. People were creating this hell for themselves and complaining about it. Honestly if I was a parent, I think I would have felt inclined to tell the teacher we couldn’t do online school. I just felt really bad for everyone. Everyone was so locked into the idea that school is so important and whatever is on this curriculum you’ve lost three months; it can’t be let go. To me that was just insane.
“I hate them not getting to see their friends.”
“I hate them not getting to do the things they want to do.”
This family of four has homeschooled for both boys’ entire lives. The boys turn 14 and 17 this summer. Their day-to-day lives had been very busy outside their home before the pandemic, so the effects of sheltering-in-place have felt very restrictive. There are some really positive family things happening. Music recording, big laughter. Not ever having to rush off somewhere means cool things are happening here. And she's so thankful that the boys have each other.
Both boys had been attending a lot of live music events as well as participating in a variety of group music, lessons, and recordings. The lock-down allows for listening to and playing music at home but attending live music events will probably take a long time to recover.
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They are not homeschooling!
I’m generally annoyed with others bemoaning homeschooling now. I try to reframe for friends that they are not homeschooling, that they are substitute teaching in a crisis. They are not homeschooling. They are not choosing or collaborating on choosing education for/with their student: they are doing the school’s bidding and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. That is NOT THE SAME!
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