Homeschooling, one of the better byproducts of Covid-19

Chandni S Chandel

The difference between schooling and homeschooling could be explained thus: while the former teaches children how to light the fire, the latter teaches them how to make it. If the former is a result of cloning of education, the latter is a result of imagination guided by freedom. With students forced to study at home, the idea of ‘homeschooling’ has started taking shape in the minds of parents. They, however, are yet to understand what it really means.

Homeschooling is not curriculum-based teaching. There are various aspects to it, such as experiential learning, informal reading, cooking, cleaning, organising, managing time… things which are closer to life skills.

A mind shift

Chennai-based Arundhati Swami, head of parent engagement programmes with parenting magazine ParentCircle, says, “The lockdown will give a thrust to unconventional forms of education. It has created a conducive environment, which could make homeschooling a viable option.”

Sometimes crisis, like the present one, gives birth to evolution of sorts. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have come so close to homeschooling. We aren’t there yet, but have gotten closer,” says Pune-based Urmila Samson, one of the co-founders of Swashikshan, a non-profit initiative of homeschooling. Her colleague, co-founder Navin Pangti, feels our society still has a long way to go. “I doubt if anything will change. It is like if you don’t provide junk food to children for some time, it doesn’t mean that they have become health-conscious.”

But a recent nationwide survey conducted by ParentCircle, which covered 12,000 respondents in cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi, says 15 per cent of the parents are considering homeschooling as one of the options. According to the survey, 92 per cent Indian parents are unwilling to send their children to school when they reopen; 56 per cent will monitor for a month before sending their wards to schools; 21 per cent want to avoid sending them to school for at least six months.

Delhi-based Shweta Awasthi, mother of seven-year-old Samrudh, had quit her job at Infosys to be with her child. She says that the family had been thinking about homeschooling for about a-year-and-a half. “The lockdown precipitated our decision. Now, instead of me asking him to discuss concepts, he pushes me to talk about them,” she adds.

“Post-lockdown, around 10-12 families in my group have approached me to inquire about homeschooling,” says Saket Anand, a freelance animator from Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, who has unschooled (to follow no curriculum) his five-year-old daughter. “After wasting four precious years at an engineering college, I realised that to remain unschooled was way better than formal education,” he says.

In deep already

“We were earlier the odd ones out. Our neighbours would question us about our children’s social interaction. Now we reverse joke about the same since their kids aren’t used to staying at home,” says Ravleen Kaur, who is homeschooling her three children, an eight-year-old daughter, and twin boys aged four, in Assam.

Experts say the concept has been growing over the years with families living in smaller cities and towns like Rajkot, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara, Dharamsala, Coimbatore and Auroville near Pondicherry too homeschooling their children. “We regularly hold events on homeschooling, unschooling, etc. in different cities and about 200-300 families participate every time,” says Vidhi Bhandari, learning activist, Shikshantar Andolan, Udaipur.

Based in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, Sandhya, co-founder of Aavishkar, Centre for Science, Arts and Technology, says each family designs homeschooling differently and sets the right environment for the child. “Parents, not schools, are the biggest stakeholders in educating the child,” says Sandhya whose 18-year-old home-schooled daughter learnt ‘how to learn’ on her own.

Sceptics, however, feel incorporating homeschooling into one’s lifestyle is not easy. “A miniscule percentage of people in India are broad-minded and unconventional thinkers. Parents have to be very sensitive, knowledgable and aware, otherwise it can be disastrous, says a Chandigarh-based educator. However, Chennai-based Shyamala Sathiaseelan disagrees: “Home-schooling is the easiest thing as it is not parent-led but child-led.” Haven’t we heard of the adage, “Child is the father of man.” That’s what home-schooling is about.