Why We Decided To Homeschool Our Children This Year
Like millions of American parents this fall, my wife and I decided to homeschool our children this fall.
In March when schools shut down across Massachusetts and much of the country, the school where our daughters were enrolled was just starting spring break. We canceled our travel plans and used the two weeks to try and prepare for life’s new reality, blind to the dominoes that would fall and lead us to homeschool.
Talk of pods, micro-schools and schools at all levels scrambling to create viable options for families and students has dominated much of my newsletter for the past few months. But I kept saying I’d have more to say on the topic soon on a personal level. And now I have.
In my latest piece for Forbes, I detail the reasons my wife and I decided to homeschool our children this year.
I’m keeping this newsletter short and sweet. If you’re curious how we weighed the various factors in play, read the full piece. If you’re a parent, the hope is that it will offer a way to think through your own options for your children, or if you’re an educator it will help you imagine how you might serve your students and families even better.
Read it here, in “Why We Decided To Homeschool Our Children This Year.” And I promise to write soon about how once we decided to homeschool, we then weighed a variety of options to create a homeschooling experience that was safe, social, and outdoors—and offered some in-person childcare.
The Reopening Question
As schools grapple with the question of whether to reopen—and what that term even means (open their buildings to any students? bring back students full-time?)—Diane Tavenner broke down that all-encompassing topic on our latest episode of Class Disrupted. One of her central recommendations? Help all stakeholders think through the central purpose of schooling and how we might measure success in this strange school year. Listen to the episode here.
Communicating In Crisis
My mentor David Gergen taught me that how leaders communicate—in general but also in times of crisis—matters. Transparency, building trust, and being honest with what you know and don’t know should be staples in these times.
With schools’ plans shifting constantly because of external and internal factors right now and a myriad of concerns impacting the students they serve, their families, and teachers and staff, how do these communications practices translate in education?
Heather Vega of Larson PR, a strategic communications firm specializing in public education reform, joined me on my YouTube channel to talk about just that—and emphasized how important it is to make sure that communications and an organization’s decision-making processes are intertwined, not separate and linear. Check out our conversation here.
As always, thanks for reading, listening, and writing.