Don’t compare what you are doing with ‘homeschooling’.
I see something is shifting, but not for the better!
Let’s talk about the thing that you might call homeschooling, which is not really adequate to define as homeschooling.
I am addressing this, because for years and until now, desperate parents who do not live in fortunate regions or countries have struggled, advocated, and battled to get the legal right to homeschool their highly sensitive children.
Their children can be overwhelmed, and sometimes damaged by the school system. They may have social anxiety, school trauma, have been bullied, or sometimes just have a different kind of learning strategy than that which schools can provide.
Some sensitive children even choose to take their own life, because of the fact that they have lost a court case and had to go back into the standardized system; sometimes even before they have had the chance to defend themselves.
Among my sensitive clients many have had a really desperate educational journey, and what is so bitter is that, in the end, some didn’t get the legal right to homeschool, but it was too late, after they had to go back into the system, with all the subsequent psychological consequences in their personal adult life.
Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that now finally it does seem to be possible and accepted to let children learn from home. I want to salute the teachers who are making this possible, because this is once again a huge challenge for them. They should be repaid with holidays in the Bahama’s by the Government after this crisis recedes.
The statement that I want to make is that the current situation isn’t comparable with actual homeschooling. So, what I am worried about is that homeschooling in general will get a negative reputation, and therefore won’t be accepted and appreciated as much by the current and future Government. This would be devastating for the children who really need a different environment in which to acquire knowledge than that which is provided by standard schools.
You can’t compare this with homeschooling, because some families still get work provided and corrected by their schools. With ‘normal’ homeschooling there isn’t a fixed curriculum day by day, unless you make that personal choice. The children that are homeschooled due the lockdown know that they are going back to school and homeschooled children have the certainty of staying out of school. Normally, when you are a homeschool family, you enjoy visits to museums, nature parks or social gatherings during the week and now you probably don’t have the freedom to creatively seek out educational locations outside of your home.
Homeschoolers and non-schoolers are socially very active and that is for you a restriction at the moment, so again not comparable. In addition, homeschooled children learn from social interactions, developing and implementing their own interests from basic knowledge to more advanced. I could go on and on about the differences, but naming the current situation ‘homeschooling’ doesn’t do justice to actual homeschooling, by any means.
The danger of comparing the current situation with homeschooling, and of parents also complaining about it now, is that it risks damaging the term “homeschooling’ for the children who do really need it. Then the term ‘homeschooling’ will get a negative image after this lockdown and will be discussed in a negative way. That is exactly the opposite of what the sensitive children need who are fighting for this right. It will harm their position in ‘the system’.
You can contribute by rephrasing the current situation of your ‘homeschooling’ into ‘forced temporary learning at home’, because it isn’t voluntarily. This is also how children and parents feel when their sensitive child is banned from a school or not admitted due to unnecessary mistakes in the system. If the current way of educating your child doesn’t work for you, you could for example say “it’s not the right educational fit for my family (or child)”.
In this way you are still raising and maintaining the positive image of actual homeschooling for the sensitive children who do frequently really flourish in various educational environments.
It simply isn’t the same!
