Following the news of school closures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, my phone and email started blowing up with questions from friends and family asking for advice on how to approach 4 to 6+ weeks of schooling at home during this national crisis. Based on my limited experience, yet extensive research, with homeschooling — and being so recently new to it myself — I’ve pieced together this blog as amateur advice for my friends, family, and dear colleagues. Most of this blog centers around 4 different approaches to next steps based on your child and your family’s needs. At the very end of this blog are my 14 tips for day to day success. I hope this might be useful to you!
ASSUMPTIONS
As I craft this advice, I want to make clear that I have a few assumptions about you as a reader, so my tone and the points I make have some context… I’m assuming:
- You are someone with a child in upper elementary, middle school, or first year of high school
- You’ve never homeschooled before
- Your school district and/or child’s teachers will be providing some sort of expectations on what work should be completed or mastered during the period of school closure, but you don’t yet know what that may be
- You or your assigned caregiver (ex: babysitter, nanny, grandparent, significant other) will be responsible for the supervision of your children (rather than say a YMCA or other local organization)
- You’re feeling somewhat overwhelmed by having your child home for weeks (it’s not summer yet!?), AND you’re overwhelmed or unsure about the extent to which you will need to wear the hat of “teacher” and how.
If this description applies to you, I hope you will find my thoughts useful. If not, perhaps you will be able to glean some perpective that can still be useful to you. I wish you well!
INITIAL CHALLENGES
The first challenge most friends have shared with me goes something like this: “What do I do with my kids all day?!” ” Do I create a schedule? Set an alarm?” “What are they supposed to do for learning?” “What online learning is out there?” “Where do I start?” My guess is your local school district is having similar wonderings and are likely busy focusing their initial efforts on things like making sure the kids who need free/reduced school breakfast and lunches can get them (it might be the only meals they eat all day in some cases), kids who are home alone all day can be supported without neglect, the principals and teachers’ unions are cool with all of the curricular expectations they will set forth, and their technological infrastructure can handle some sort of online learning and what that might look like. Worrying about what your individual child needs to be doing regarding the three “R’s” and common core is probably not their top priority right now. That’s probably more of the school based leadership teams’ focus area, and until they can collaborate with their respective district officials, they probably won’t have definitive answers for a while.
Without definitive answers regarding curriculum expectations, it’s hard to know where to start when attempting to guide your child’s education yourself. In an ideal world, you would get an email in the next few days with a list of the assignments for the next 4-6 weeks, a list of the criteria for success for each of those assignments to understand whether or not your child is achieving mastery during their study time at home, the materials to help you with the learning at home, exemplars to show you what mastery looks like, the description of how it will be graded, and a breakdown of suggested daily activities to engage your child in order to progress toward mastery. Maybe some of your schools/teachers have shared this with you and you’re off to a good start mimmicking conventional school at home. If not, you’re in no-man’s land, and it’s probably scary!
DON’T FREAK OUT
If your child is in pre-K, elementary, or middle school, take a moment to put things into perspective and remind yourself that if your child misses a month or so of school, they will still probably make it to college and/or have the opportunity for a very successful career beyond 12th grade. Your own child’s chances of attending an ivy league school are not going to be diminished because the entire country is shutting down for a bit. If your child is in their first year of high school, this is probably still true, too. As a former curriculum administrator at a high school, my guess is that there could be some tricky dynamics for the high school administrators to navigate regarding grading and therefore GPA which can affect some college or other type of continuing school admissions. Given that almost every high school across the country is going through this challenge, I’m sure some best practices will be generated quickly and shared amongst the high schools and with parents of high schoolers very soon. Take a moment to breathe, and know it will be ok. Everyone is worried just like you 🙂
EMBRACE IT
Having homeschooled for the first time this past year, I can tell you that the absolute most valuable thing that has come out of our experience is TIME – our TIME together. If this national crisis puts you in a situation where you may have to work and are significantly challenged regarding child care, I very much sympathize with that and recognize that the info in this post may not be applicable to you — I don’t have many suggestions regarding how to secure that much needed child care outside of hopefully relying on your “village” peeps to help you out. If, however, you are in a position where you will be having more time with your child/ren, I encourage you to see it as a beautiful gift that you might not have otherwise been able to engage. In addition to school, it’s likely that sports, activities, scouts, karate, volunteering, and all kinds of other activities that your child is engaged in are all cancelled, and so you don’t have all of the typical things that pull you, your child, and your family in a million directions tugging at your calendar, your focus, and your energy. This just might be an experience you can embrace together and enjoy the gift of time in a way that might never happen again.
WHERE TO START
Since I am biased in my working style toward needing a vision and an aligned philosophy in order to plan a course of action, I believe that it’s important for you and your family to take some inventory on where you stand on three key elements of schooling and learning, so you can take action in one of four ways I outline below.
Based on my experience, I’ve determined that how you approach any kind of learning outside of conventional school – whether homeschooling or even seeking out a private school – will depend in very large part on two things (these are made up by me – I’m not quoting specific research):
- the extent to which your child is self-motivated and/or has the ability to be independent in their learning
- the extent to which you want to maintain a strong fidelity to a traditional model of learning or the way learning happens in conventional school (ex: teacher welcoming students, 24+ students sitting at desks, students being given assigments, students working on assignments, teacher grading assignments, students getting a grade vs. alternative methods of learning like experiential, hands-on, project-based, online courses, etc.)
The diagram I created below illustrates how I see the first two intersecting:
EXAMPLES OF QUADRANTS
Quadrant 1 describes children who are highly self-motivated and/or able to be independent in their learning, yet they don’t necessarily benefit entirely from conventional school and so may want to veer away from high fidelity to things like schedules, structures, and traditional learning models. They may embrace hands-on, experiential, or online learning in very productive ways.
Quadrant 2 describes children who are also highly self-motivated and/or able to be indpendent in their learning. They want to maintain high fidelity to the traditional model or conventional school approach to learning. These children want to know the rules that need to be followed, the expectations of them, what mastery looks like and sounds like, and they can relatively easily carve their own path to achieving it. They have an easy time taking initiative, they probably typically already get good grades and perform well at school, and you/they pretty much like it that way.
Quadrant 3 and 4 describe children who have little self-motivation and/or ability to be independent in their learning. This may be for a variety of reasons. Some may have low confidence in their academic abilities, or some may be perfectly confident and able to participate in the traditional model, they just don’t seem to be invested in it and therefore have a hard time leading their own learning and maintaining independence with it. Some may have unique learning needs that prevent them from being fully independent in their learning. Some may simply not care very much about learning. Some might be perfectly capable academically, yet simply prefer to have others tell them what to do rather than decide for themselves. For a variety of reasons, they either aren’t motivated to learn indpendently or it’s incredibly difficult for them to be independent.
Quadrant 3 combines a learner with either little motivation or limited ability to be independent with the desire or preference to engage learning differently than the traditional school approach. These students may be struggling with the way things are taught at school. or they may be wanting more stimulation. These children might benefit from having a different type of structure or environment than what the traditional model offers, but perhaps that hasn’t been available to them. These children or families may want something different than the traditional model but for a variety of reasons have been unable to access it.
Quadrant 4 combines a child who either has little motivation toward learning or has difficulty being independent in their learning, yet they maintain a strong value that the traditional approach is the best way to go. They value the traditional model of school and want to be successful in it, but they may not want to have to work for it themselves, lead their learning themselves, or they may have unique needs that prevent them from being able to be completely independent.
EXAMPLES FROM MY OWN BOYS
In a blog I just posted at the same time as this one called The ‘Best’ Schooling & Parenting, I share a lot about how my understanding of where my kids stand within these quadrants evolved and what inspired me to address it. I learned quickly in the beginning of this school year that my 7th grader is more of a Quadrant 4 kid – he isn’t able to be totally independent in leading his own learning, nor was he interested in doing that when we started homeschooling. He started homeschooling with a high value for what goes on in the traditional classroom and has pushed me on my assignments saying things like, “Why do I need to do this? My friends don’t have to do this at their school!” Over the course of this school year, because I wanted my children to develop more into Quadrant 1 kids where they have both the desire and the ability to be independent within a non-traditional model, my 7th grader has evolved to being more of a Quadrant 2 kid. Strong fidelity to the traditional model is still important to him, and he wants to make sure that he can attend 8th grade at his local school with success next year, but he has become more able to be independent in that pursuit.
My 4th grader started this homeschooling year as a Quadrant 3 kid. He had little motivation to learn, having always felt like he wasn’t smart enough in his time in school, though he enjoyed the socializing. He also has some unique language processing needs that have prevented him from being independent in his learning, especially with grade level work. I, along with his teacher, realized he needed more support and variety in approach than the traditional model during his year in second grade, and the process for determining his eligibility for services was started. As this year has evolved, he has learned that he can be a Quadrant 1 kid and be successful. He is now incredibly motivated to finish the activities he puts on his goal sheets each week, he can work with a greater level of independence than he’s ever been able to before, and he is using a very non-traditional approach through our homeschooling and loving it.
WHICH QUADRANT IS YOUR KID?
These emergency school closures will likely have you reflecting on a ton of stuff like what is “school” and “learning” anyway? What are some of the best ways to learn? And why? While those are more broad topics, you can focus your immediate thinking to get started with educating your child at home by taking a moment to reflect on which Quadrant your child most resembles now and consider what outcome you want from these several weeks of home learning with your child. Are they the same? Do you want to maintain high fidelity to the traditional model (or whatever model it is that your child’s school embraces), or do you want to try something alternative? Do you want your child to develop habits of independence, or is it ok that they are not yet independent? Do you want your child to be self-motivated, or are you not expecting that of him or her right now? Depending on where your child is right now and where you want to end up will affect how you tackle your day to day activities and how you go about deciding on their journey in learning at home.
WHAT TO DO WITH WHICH TYPE?: MOTIVATION & INDEPENDENCE
When it comes to motivation and independence, Quadrant 1 & 2 kids have one or two things working for them that will, frankly, make your life of learning at home a lot easier than if they didn’t. Either your Quadrant 1 kid is already very invested in completing their learning and doing what is expected of them, so you won’t need to convince them it’s important AND/OR they are fully capable of leading their learning themselves or able to at least get an assignment and have at it with no need for much guidance from you. These two dynamics just make it a little bit easier and a little less exhausting for you, the teacher. Quadrant 1 and 2 kids who aren’t very motivated may need some pep talks from you or some reminders about the importance of learning and keeping up skills. Or, Quadrant 1 and 2 kids who are highly independent might simply need a list of what to do (unless they generate it for themselves) and then the time and space to get to it. Quadrant 1 and 2 kids who enjoy independence might benefit from checklists or charts where their assignments are organized and they can refer to them as needed and progress as they desire. They might particularly like creating those themselves.
When it comes to motivation and independence, Quadrant 3 and 4 kids may have either little investment in their learning and/or require support in their ability to engage their learning. The former may need some coaching on incentive for why they should bother to learn when school is closed — why can’t it just be vacation for several weeks?! They’ll need to know why if you plan on having them engage formal work. Cultivating this child’s buy-in is going to be tricky, and you may need to pay attention to what their currency is as well as have lots of dialogue around the importance of a good education and strong academic skills in order to get them invested. On the other hand, some Quadrant 3 and 4 kids may be very interested in learning and motivated to do so, but they just aren’t able to engage their learning by themselves. They will need a lot of help from you, and that likely means a lot of your time sitting with them to read, write, calculate, study, or even engage in executive functioning types of things like organizing their materials, remembering where they put certain materials, checking off what they’ve completed after they’re finished, how to turn on the computer and get to the website they need, and more.
WHAT TO DO WITH WHICH TYPE?: EXTENT OF FIDELITY TO THE CONVENTIONAL APPROACH
Thinking about the extent to which keeping fidelity to the conventional approach is important is something that may need to be explored collaboratively with you, your child, and even your whole family. Like me, you might have a child that values the conventional school approach, but you really want them to embrace this time outside the walls of school as an opportunity to explore alternative ways of learning (ex: online, hands-on, life experience, etc.) Or you might have a child who has been wanting out of the traditional model of schooling for a long time, and now you’re relieved and scared because they have the opportunity to explore alternatives, but it’s a bit daunting. Or you may be a person who has a high value for the traditional approach to schooling, but your child has rejected it over and over. Or, your entire family may have some combination of value and success with a variety of models from traditional to alternative. Somehow you will need to determine the extent to which you will want to keep fidelity to the way they do things at your child’s school and therefore mimmick it as much as possible with your family, so you will know which resources to access for your child’s learning and which structures, if any, to put into your day. You’ll need to determine if you are more of a Quadrant 2 or 4 type family holding high allegiance to whatever the school dictates during this time of school closure or if you are more of a Quadrant 1 or 3 family looking to explore outside of the traditional model. (NOTE: Most school districts are exploring some element of online learning during the school closures – online learning can be considered a non-traditional approach in some schools and in others it may have already been incorporated into their conventional model.)
If your family lands in Quadrant 2 or 4, you may have a strong value for – and likely your child has had great success with – a traditional model within the walls of conventional schools. Likely you’ve experienced that when your child is motivated, has independence, or is supported adequately in their learning, the traditional model works for your child. So why fix what isn’t broken? If you land in Quadrant 2 or 4, and you want to stay there – you have no desire to shake things up!! – then you will do very well with receiving the school closure directives regarding academics from your school, particularly your child’s teachers. As I mentioned in my description of the ideal world toward the opening of this blog, if you fall in Quadrant 2 or 4, your next steps are to reach out to your child’s teachers and ask them specifically for guidance on: a list of the assignments for the next 4-6+ weeks, a list of the criteria for success for each of those assignments to understand whether or not your child is achieving mastery during their study time at home, the materials to help you with the learning at home, exemplars to show you what mastery looks like so you know if your child is doing it well/correctly, the description of how it will be graded/evaluated, and a breakdown of suggested daily activities to engage your child in order to progress toward mastery. If your child has an individual education plan (IEP), the teacher should additionally provide you with the related adaptations, accommodations, or modifications for those assignments, so your child can be supported in their learning at home. You might also consider asking about any services to which your child is legally entitled to see if they can continue during the school closure (ex: psychological counseling). Given your value for the traditional model, you might also like to peruse the grade level standards for your child’s grade and get a sense of what those expectations are of your child. Based on what you’ve recently seen in your child’s report cards, progress reports, homework, and classwork before school closed, you may have a sense of what your child already has a handle on regarding those standards and to what level of mastery.
When it comes to the extent of fidelity to a traditional model, if your family lands in Quadrant 1 or 3, you are likely considering this time off from your child’s school as an opportunity to try something different. While it may be a bit overwhelming since it’s hard to think about how to do things differently (especially if you’re intimidated by the fact that you may not be a trained educator), you or your child might be considering this time as an opportunity to do things differently – that could either work better for your child or simply be more interesting or engaging for your child.
For example, if your child is learning basic fractions in 4th grade, instead of using worksheets or online materials, you might choose to do a lot of cooking with them and adjust the kind of tools they use for measuring (ex: only make 1/4 cup scoop even though the recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups of flour) Your child would still be learning fractions, but it would be a non-traditional, hands-on, experiential way. This could be an exciting time for you and your child to talk with each other about how to go about learning the different things that are expected of them and see if you can determine different approaches. (NOTE: You might think of field trips as an idea for an alternative approach to learning, but given the CDC’s suggestion to limit your exposure to public spaces, this might not be an option for you. Also, you might not experience success with field trips if you have kids with little motivation to learn. I elaborated on this dynamic about my own kids in my blog Field Trip Flops.)
As another example, maybe your child really wants to learn about the stock market given the recent steep ups and downs in the news, so maybe you sign up for the BusyKid app and allow your child to purchase stocks and pay attention to the DOW reports every day? This type of experience or learning is not always explicitly taught by way of the CA Common Core standards, and now you have time to teach them yourself or learn together. Maybe you want to learn a new language and you both do Rosetta Stone or something of the sort together? Maybe there’s a book you’ve always wanted to read together and it’s not on the course list, so you just go ahead and enjoy it?
If you have a Quadrant 1 child, especially if they are upper middle school or high school, they might really embrace the opportunity to know what what is expected of their learning BUT decide for themselves how they are going to master it. Maybe they decide to toss the math textbook and use Khan Academy instead? Maybe they decide to create an online blog instead of keeping a daily journal in a class notebook?
If you have a Quadrant 3 child who is not very motivated, the opportunity to veer away from a traditional approach just might get them motivated again. Maybe your child will be highly motivated by building a tree house with you rather than working on geometry and measurement through a textbook or worksheet? Maybe listening to a book on audible will spark their interest in reading?
If you have a Quadrant 3 child who has unique needs or simply needs a lot of your support and attention in order to be independent, maybe stepping away from the traditional approach will make approaches that are more accessible for your child’s independence possible? Maybe doing volunteer work would give them reason to practice speaking and listening skills or executive functioning habits of being organized? Maybe not having to do it exactly the way the school does it will allow you to help your child more easily than those battles you’ve have with traditional homework? Maybe you will be able to uncover some of the keys to your child’s success with learning?
A LOW FIDELITY TO CONVENTIONAL SCHOOL APPROACH HEADS UP…
If you are looking to shake things up and do things a little differently, my big heads up to you is three-fold: 1) You may need more creative resources to accomplish your goals (ex: supplies for hands-on learning or artistic approaches) and that can get expensive, 2) You have to be willing to own the challenge of what happens if your child doesn’t have a particular skill or content knowledge that their peers may have upon their return to the their conventional school. I’ve struggled with my own fear of being embarrassed if my boys aren’t at the right reading levels, and I’ve had to let it go, and that’s hard, and 3) It’s going to be harder to engage “unschooling” or an alternative model in a time-frame that is typically just viewed as an “independent study”. I caution this specifically because you and your child may have to go through a period of “deschooling” in order to be able to get to the place where alternative learning styles work for you — and if you only have a few weeks, it might not give you enough time to get there. So, if you are going to try an alternative route for learning, pick one or more that are reasonably attainable for the time period, your family, and your child. See my blog posts “Homeschooling: The First Three Weeks: and my recent one out along with this one “The ‘Best’ Schooling & Parenting” for more perspective if you are going to attempt an alternative path. Feel free to reach out to me via the comments box below (they don’t post unless I approve them, so you can let me know if you want our dialogue to be private), and I am happy to thought partner with you on your next steps!
TOP TIPS ON DAY-TO-DAY STUFF
Here are some suggestions for things that might help you stay sane regardless of the type of child or focus on learning that you have:
- Decide on which days at home will be “school” days. You’ll need to be clear when some extent of formal learning will take place and which days will be “vacation” days where formal learning will not be expected. Mark them on a calendar visible to your child.
- Have a schedule for each day where everyone can see it. Whether you create it, dictate it, and post it yourself or you have a family meeting the night before and plan it out collaboratively, have something that organizes what is happening with your time each day. This will allow your child to have a smoother transition from their highly scheduled traditional school environments to learning outside of school walls, and it will keep you from feeling like it’s a free for all each day.
- Have clear boundaries about “screens” usage. Whether you decide yourself or you collaborate as a family, have some agreements about which devices are allowed to be used for which reasons, when, for how long, and why. Determine in advance what happens if those boundaries are not respected (ex: loss of privilege, fine out of allowance, meaningful conversation, etc.)
- Share the responsibility of meals, laundry, and tidying. If you are going to be spending time as the authority on your child’s learning as well as any caretaking of the home, it will help you out tremendously to have help with it. If your children are upper elementary and older, they can take on making themselves breakfast or lunch at minimum (with your guidance the first few times if they are not used to it). There’s a lot of learning embedded in those ‘home ec’ experiences! Even if your child is younger elementary, they can help with laundry by sorting or transferring the wet stuff from the washer to the dryer. For more ideas about the types of helping out at home your child can do with you at specific ages, consult the aforementioned book How To Raise An Adult.
- Plan for your own alone time as well as theirs. It’s important for you to be able to recharge without interruption, and it’s critical for them to learn how to be alone without the need for external stimulation. Plan for the downtime.
- Exercise daily. You will need to keep both you and your child in shape, and it may not be easy in more urban areas or cold weather. Go for a walk at minimum or do a yoga video on TV if you can’t get out to anything else.
- Take advantage of the opportunity to sleep. Unless you absolutely have to wake up your child for an essential reason in the morning, let them sleep! So many studies show that children are not getting enough sleep because of so many scheduled activities, homework, and more. Set an agreed upon bedtime as part of your daily schedule, but then let them sleep until they wake up naturally. This will help their brains and their development.
- Keep a log of what kinds of formal learning you are doing with your child, if any. Note any particular adjustments or supports you provide to your child that seem to make a difference in their ability to learn, so you can share them with their teachers as needed upon return to school.
- Encourage writing and reading daily, regardless of whether or not the school has mandated it. These skills are essential and need to be practiced.
- Utilize online learning tools as needed or desired. World School Family has a great list here.
- Invite your child to reflect on their experience learning at home. Whether daily or weekly, invite your child to share with you what is working for them, what is not, what they like, what they don’t, and why. This will help you know them better as learners, so you can make adjustments as needed and support them as best you can.
- Invite your child to set some learning goals for the week. If they’re not used to this, it might take a lot of modeling and guidance from you at first. It’s helpful for them to have a list of what they are expected to accomplish within a certain time-frame and feel a great sense of accomplishment if they do it and insight if they don’t, so they can adjust for next time. Having their learning goals written down will also help you keep track of what they can do next, especially when they announce, “I’m done with….!”
- Play with your child! No matter what age they are, this gift of time is special, Paint, have a nerf gun war, dig out Monopoly, dominoes, heck even teach them how to play craps like I did LOL! (see my blog post Kids In Charge for details on that ) Here’s a printable list of 200 ideas for when your kids say they are bored.
- Connect with your higher power. From where do you source your inner strength? You’ll need to draw from it in order to navigate the ups and downs of extended time with your child as more than just their parent. And your parenting will be challenged beyond measure as you step into role of teacher or guidance counselor. So, have a way to source inspiration and guidance, be it meditation, prayer, online services, inspirational books, etc.
FEEDBACK WELCOME!
I hope this information has been useful to you! I’d love to hear more about your questions and comments, so feel free to click the button below and share. Stay healthy and strong through this challenging, but potentially exciting, time.
For more insight into how homeschooling and parenting has evolved for us over the last 6+ months, please check out my additional brand new blog post called The ‘Best’ Schooling & Parenting. I was just about to publish it when I got so many questions about the school closures, so it is now out simultaneously with this one. I hope you’ll check it out!
🙂 Carolyn