When the shelter-at-home orders began and schools were closed, many families found themselves as insta-homeschoolers. Having seen the joy and beauty of our own homeschool, I knew that this isolated effort was not homeschooling, but pandemic education while being stuck at home. We had to miss our weekly community day, our lessons, and activities. Homeschooling is rarely done at home; it is mostly about living life together as a family. Yes, we spend about 2–3 hours a day on formal school work, not including reading, helping mom (or dad) make dinner, counting the apples while we load them up in the bag at the grocery store, or playing outside with our friends, but this was new and unpleasant for veteran homeschoolers as well.
My experience was that many homeschoolers were trying to help their insta-homeschooler friends navigate whatever the public or private school was sending home to their kids or the virtual learning that everyone was trying to comprehend. Teachers are heroes, doing so much to try and help these kids in an uncertain time, but the system was not prepared or equipped for something like this. It wasn’t pleasant, and as homeschooler we weren’t sure how these families were going to respond. We tried to let them know that this was not how homeschooling works, being all cooped up in your house, trying to do homeschool sent from someone else for you to do.
My organization saw an uptick in interest, we had nearly 25,000 unique visitors to our covid-19 resource page created for those finding themselves stuck at home. Inquires into our program have risen 15% over last year. Our social media channels are seeing over a 60% increase in interactions. The difficulty for Classical Conversations, and many homeschool service providers, is that we normally tour homeschool conventions in the summer, which allows us to interact with families who are considering homeschooling. With those events canceled, it is difficult to get a good read on how families were responding to the virus and uncertainty of the next school year. We want to help!
Then scientific studies and unscientific reports started to come in. First an EdChoice study was published which found 52% of parents had a more favorable view of homeschooling as a result of their insta-homeschooling experiences. In response to that study, a non-scientific study followed by Reason that showed nearly 15% of those from public or private school were planning on homeschooling this fall. Now those who follow Reason, are probably less in the mainstream than your average American, and so more likely to homeschool. Even if only 4% of those whose children are in government-run schools decide to homeschool this fall, the number of homeschoolers will effectively double overnight.
Hopefully, more studies will be done, and we will find out this fall how many more parents take the leap into genuine homeschooling – where you aren’t stuck at home, where you can join a local community for support, where you can choose a curriculum that is right for your child(ren) and your family. Many parents were already up in arms at some of the progressive values that are being taught but did not feel like they could leave the system. Now that the system has temporarily forced them out, how many will return, and how many will stay in their newfound family freedom?
