I tried to find some articles today online on how the education system and the imparting of knowledge and wisdom to children and young adults might change for the better as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. I found lots of articles like this one extolling the virtues of technology and computer-delivery of education. Many subjects and skills do lend themselves well to online video education as venues such as Khan Academy and BrainPop and MIT Open Courseware have been demonstrating for quite a while. While I’m glad we have the resource of online classes and online educational plans and ebooks, I’m also hearing a lot of complaints from parents about the online lessons that are being provided and sometimes required by public and private schools. The parents and older students say these online classes are no substitute for in-person classes with a teacher. Some students and some subjects just aren’t ready or aren’t suited for computer-based classes. So, I say digital is not the complete solution to education in a corona world.

For example, my daughter teaches French at the university level. Without the ability to meet with her students in person both in class and during office hours, she feels she is unable to give them the individualized learning experience that she could give before the pandemic shutdown. Some of these students have little or no access to technology–computers, internet, recording and playback equipment, etc.–and even those who do have that access are struggling to learn a language without face-to-face contact with teacher and classmates. In person discussions are important in learning about literature and history and philosophy. Individual attention is vital to teaching young children to read and write and make music and art.

In the meantime, I read other educational and disease experts who say we will not be able to go back to “school as normal”, not in the fall and maybe not for a long time, if ever. They’re talking about classrooms with only ten or fifteen students (an improvement over class sizes of 30-40) and desks spaced six feet apart. They write of schools where the students stay in cohorts of 10 in one classroom all day, and the teachers move around to the different classrooms. Also, there are perhaps to be no visits to the playground, or the library, or the cafeteria (lunches served in the classroom), no team sports, no choirs, no large group activities, since social distancing in those communal spaces is almost impossible to maintain. And to get those smaller class sizes, maybe students will only be going to school two or three days a week, trading off school days with home days when they do assigned school work at home.

While those don’t sound like schools where I would want to send my children, many people will have no choice. In families where both parents must work as well as single parent families, children must be in school for the family to survive economically. In other cases, the parents just are not prepared emotionally or physically to homeschool their children.

However, wouldn’t it take some of the pressure off of the public schools if those parents who can and who want to homeschool were encouraged to do so? Instead of seeing homeschooling as a threat to public and private schools, maybe it should be seen a true and even noble alternative. If many parents choose to give up time, energy, and extra income to educate their own children at home while still paying the same property taxes to support public schools for the benefit of the entire community, wouldn’t that relieve some of the pressure on class sizes and individual attention and give teachers and administrators a bit of breathing room and time to focus on those students who need public schools the most?

Instead of telling parents that they are not qualified to teach their own children, what if we came alongside and helped them to see how they can, if they have the desire, be effective educators, give individual attention, and help their own children to thrive in a home atmosphere free of worry about spreading disease or social distance? What if those parents who have enjoyed the somewhat constrained and limited introduction to homeschooling that they have experienced in the last month or two were encouraged to continue to homeschool, for real this time, in the fall? What if we quit instilling fear about children “falling behind” (behind what?) and “falling through the cracks” and instead assured parents that their children will learn and can learn if only they are given the opportunity to do so–at school or at home or at some combination of the two?

What if public schools re-thought their purpose and became resources for the entire community, both the in-schoolers and the homeschoolers? Maybe teachers with expertise in specific subjects could teach their small 10-student cohorts in the mornings and could then be available in the afternoons to meet one-on-one or two or three at a time with students who are being homeschooled but who need extra tutoring once a week. Or maybe those libraries and playgrounds could be available for all the children to come to, a few at a time on a sign-up basis. Or the libraries and the cafeterias could do curbside service as some are already doing. We can all work together to spread the feast of learning before our young people, and this crisis can become a catalyst for change.

Some good ideas are in these articles as well as some I don’t agree with, but let’s start talking about how homeschooling can be part of the solution instead of its being a problem or a threat.

Homeschool goes digital during coronavirus outbreak. The title to this one is deceptive. It starts out as pro-digital education, then quickly veers to something I’m much more interested in: unschooling or freedom to learn. “With all these new ways of schooling available, families will be able to choose the kind of learning environment and education that works best for their kids when the pandemic is finally over—whether that’s in a conventional school or not.”

Education Won’t Be the Same After the Pandemic Passes.

The World’s Homeschooling Moment. “While the virus has caused illness and hardship for many, keeping children out of school is not a global calamity. It is worth remembering that children can be educated without being schooled. They may even be better educated.”

Fraise: Coronavirus Has Turned Families Into Unwitting Homeschoolers. Some Suggestions for How They Can Treat It Like an Opportunity.

A few books that might be helpful in rethinking our approach to education as individuals and as a society (disclaimer: I haven’t read all of these):

• The Case Against Education by Bryan Caplan.
• Rethinking School: How to Take Charge of Your Child’s Education by Susan Wise Bauer.
• Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakeable Peace by Sarah MacKenzie.
• A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levinson.
• For the Children’s Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.