Home schooling in Victoria has grown by 20% since previous years a trend which was already growing but received a massive boost since lock down. A large portion of campaigns to end lock downs have been surrounded by the use of children which I find to be a poor form of debate.
I've long since thought that my children's development received a massive boost once I started home schooling. I wasn't in the home school category but fell into it like most parents due to lock down. It has been hard and it involves being creative. Like my daughters art class under my work station while I was in a meeting. Argh, you learn to better cope with things once you get into the jist of things.
A surprising statistic that has arisen is with many parents of older children choosing to remain home schooling once schools reopened, I noticed a big change with my daughter when catching up with other parents that also struggled with work and home schooling. I felt that Lil Miss was learning more and faster but I put it down to bias as she is my daughter.
What's been identified in this
Article is that children have been excelling learning from home. Not suffering from the typical distractions and some even enjoying the learning process. A reduction in bullying and other social issues which present in a traditional institution appear to be massive barriers to children's learning development and switching to home schooling has seen school kids who weren't achieving now excelling.
Some parents are putting aside school fees to be used on private tutors or social programs as the lack of a school yard does present some barriers in regards to children social networks and circles.
This was something I did identify but was easily able to overcome this barrier with local community sports programs as I enrolled lil miss into soccer as it was a sport she wanted to play and she had made friends which she looks forward to playing with each week.
Lil Miss is such a social butterfly as many have said to me, she loves to talk, she loves to play and she loves to make new friends so social barriers weren't a major issue for her. Given that she has now spent almost two years of her 4 years on this rock in isolation social abilities seem to come easy for her to pick up and run with and she hasn't been impacted.
Lil bloke has also been quick on the buzzer to follow his big sister learning at a faster rate than she did at his age. I do put it down to first child and not knowing what to do. I was so scared of doing the wrong thing and hurting Lil miss that I may have impacted her development at times. When I watch these two play and fight. Yes they already fight, he is just over 1 year old and he throws punches at her and they roll around wrestling.
I think the future of home schooling will continue to increase with many parents finding out that through the pandemic home schooling isn't that hard. With increased learning capabilities and children's education outcomes alot better it's a no brainer on the benefits.
I'm actually amazed at the results as I was also concerned about what the outcome would be of homeschooling, clearly it is beneficial.
But of course the debate has now changed to be that home schooling impacts women more by making them have to quit work and home school children.
Interesting and I'm keen to see what more information and statistics come out in the near future.