Hi there. In this short post, I talk about homeschooling during school strikes and sickness. This is based on a short period of times when I was young (grade 1 or 2). Schools were closed often during a certain period of time due to teacher strikes. Also, I did get sick often when I was young (won't disclose more personal details). My dad at the time was not working so he would bring me homework from the school, take care of me and cook.
School Strikes Take Away Class Time From Students
Regardless of the reasons and motives behind school strikes, it is the students that suffer as schools close. This takes away class time from students. No class for young students also means not seeing friends at school. Closed schools also make it hard for parents to find someone (babysitter) to take care of the kids as the parents work.
Illness Is Unfortunate & Limits Learning Experiences
I did get sick often when I was young. There were many days when I did not go to school and stayed home. I did not like missing school in grades 1 and 2 as I thought school was fun and enjoyable at the time. My condition at the time was worse than the regular cold and flu. I had to go to different doctors and the Toronto Hospital For Sick Children hospital to get things checked.
Homeschooling Is Always An Option
For those dealing with illness or have no school due to school strikes, the homeschooling option is always there. If a teacher is not possible, you can have a parent as a teacher or do self-learning from a book.
I do recall receiving a math textbook from my parents in grade 2 I believe. This might have been at the same time during my illness and during school strikes. I am not sure how but I did self-learn multi-digit multiplication, multiplying decimals, long division from this particular textbook. When I got to grade 3 the multiplication was easy as I already knew it. (I even missed a couple of weeks at the start of grade 3 too.)
Homeschooling is adaptable to the learner's pace. You can go at a faster pace or dedicate more time on certain topics. Schooling in classrooms have to cover a wide range of topics within a certain time frame. They cannot really slow down sometimes. With homeschooling, you can slow down when needed.
The selection of topics is not restrictive in a homeschool setting. The student can choose to learn harder topics compared to the classroom. A local school for example may not teach money basics but in homeschooling that topic is always a learning topic.
I want to close this post by saying that even in non-ideal life settings, learning is always possible with homeschooling. I am sure that there are athletes who do homeschooling as it is flexible with their non-traditional schedules. Yes homeschooling is not traditional but if you have life situations that are not normal then the solutions and adjustments have to be non-normal as well.
Thank you for reading.