Due to the unusual situation that the Coronavirus has presented parents and students, the question of how school will proceed is a fairly blurry one—even as the beginning of the would-be school year approaches. This has led many people to wonder if homeschooling is the best choice rather than subjecting kids to distanced learning and online schooling that falls short of the experience of learning from an in-person teacher.
The Statistics
As of the spring of 2019, in the United States, there were approximately 2.5 million students in the grades kindergarten through 12th grade enrolled in homeschool programs, which accounts for almost 4 percent of all grade school-aged children. This number, though, has the potential to grow exponentially should public, private, and charter schools remain closed for the fall semester. This growing number of homeschool students, though, does come with change and a heavier burden on parents to educate their children.
A New Level of Commitment
Should a majority of parents decide to move their students to homeschool, there would be a significant burden placed on the parent to facilitate their child’s education. On average, a homeschool parent will spend 3-4 hours instructing their child, which for a parent or parents who work full time, might be a deal-breaker when it comes to deciding the next step in a student’s education. For parents of high school students, homeschooling becomes slightly easier because the student can be responsible for the majority of their learning experience by reading materials and watching online lectures. On the other hand, parents of middle schoolers and elementary schoolers have a larger task on their hands because children of that age need more instruction.
In addition to the extra commitment, parents will also be spending extra time and energy helping their child learn, which can be a tedious process. Choosing to homeschool your child means that you will likely have to expend more patience because they are learning something that you may not have all the skills to teach them. With this in mind, it is important to consider that you will have to learn the material with them in order to teach it, which also takes patience and dedication.
The Impact of COVID-19
Since COVID-19 already caused students to finish the school year through distance learning, which not every school district could facilitate, many parents see homeschooling as a logical jump since their students have already tried learning at home. At this point, where it seems that schools will not be reopening, if parents want to keep their child on pace academically, then choosing to homeschool could be a good choice.
Final Thoughts
The decision whether or not to begin homeschooling your child is a difficult one because it requires new commitment from you to the education of your child and requires a lot of patience and dedication. But, in light of the current situation, homeschooling could save you and your family from unwanted exposure to others who could be carrying the Coronavirus and could keep your child on track academically. Now it is up to you to decide if homeschooling is, in fact, the only sane option left for educating kids.
