Homeschooling = the New Normal?

Homeschooling = the New Normal?

But LEARNING must go on….
COVID-19 as an event hindered quite a lot. But the learning of children is something that can not stop, come what may! If not school, then they would learn from somewhere else but the explorer in the child wouldn’t stay idle. Even the present generation of parents have grown very mindful of their child’s learning. They take an interest in not just the ‘what’ of learning but also the ‘how,’ ‘why’ and ‘when’.

When the pandemic hit, the millennial parents underwent several challenges and dilemmas. As the school shifted to the screen in no time, the parents’ insight into their child’s academic life increased. After decades of ignorance, a generation of parents revisited the ideas of learning and education. They could easily understand the idea that schools, as structures, support learning.
They realised that schools were not the sole place where the child could learn. The parents, accompanying the child inside her classroom were able to appreciate both the yin and the yang of the school system. The screen demarcated the difference of home and school environment which brought parental attention towards the importance of ‘safe environment’ for learning and healthy development.
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The caregivers witnessing the ins and outs of the schooling system could acknowledge the threats posed by the system as well. The threat to a child’s safety, lack of value inclusion in learning, life skill development, etc. Earlier, what the parent used to witness was merely the by-product of these threats i.e parents had no insight into why their child is not a good team player, doesn’t like to share or is not able to apply the learned knowledge.
For the parent, earlier, the school was a place where their child must ‘score well.’ It was when they spent long hours in close proximity with their kids that they realised these voids. Many parents, as an answer to this, revisited the idea of Homeschooling.

As per the Decoy effect, when one can see something’s not working out, the first alternative to that looks the most lucrative choice. That’s exactly what happened here. Because of the pandemic scenario and lack of available choices, parents could not examine the pros and cons of their choices.

Number and percentage of homeschooled student 1
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Be it whichever system of learning, assuring that it focuses on the macro aspects of life is indispensable.
These aspects include:
  • building healthy value systems
  • rendering emotional education
  • building emotional quotient
  • pride and self worth in the learners
  • imparting cultural values
  • valuing fellow humans
Education home schooling

Other reasons which added on to such revolutionising of the thought process was the mushrooming cases of mental health disorders in the past decade. Most reasons for the Child and Adolescent concerns stemmed out of the school system.

12 Month prevalence for children 8 to 15 years 1
When the schools were not able to ensure the holistic wellness which they were supposed to, a large fragment of parental trust was lost by them when the pandemic hit. Homeschooling as a trend had already begun for a decade despite it being an added responsibility on the shoulders of the ever-busy-millennial-parent.

Ensuring these wouldn’t just guarantee retention in the learning system but assure a child’s holistic wellbeing which equips the learner with hope, gratitude, self worth and happiness
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