Opinion | Lesson in Innovation: Homeschooling is More Than a Class in Zoom | Israel today

In recent decades, homeschooling in the Western world has grown in size and at a rate of hundreds and sometimes even thousands of percent.

There are only about 1,500 children in the country, but the number is growing at a very high rate, since until two decades ago it was only a few dozen.

Children in homeschooling do not go to school and study at home, usually with their parents.

Homeschooling creates a very different framework for children.

It is therefore not surprising that much research in Israel and around the world has examined the phenomenon, the academic achievements of children raised in homeschooling, its impact on the family, its emotional impact and even the degree of happiness of its graduates.

But one of the biggest lessons that research in homeschooling has to offer, education systems missed out hugely when we moved on to learning from home.

People think, by mistake, that what they experienced in quarantine when the children did not go to school and study at home is homeschooling.

Definately not!

Every study we have done or have done other researchers, in Israel and around the world, shows how different the experience of families whose children did not go to school during quarantine is different from the experience of families who chose homeschooling.

The linguistic reason is mainly the different form of conduct at home and understanding it is key to a different kind of learning.

When in the Corona crisis all the children switched, with no choice, to distance learning an attempt was made in a large proportion of cases to move the class to zoom and actually teach as they were taught in school, except that the encounter is not face to face but through the computer. Classroom learning in school, which has hardly changed in the last 150 years, is an outdated model that many perceive as interfering with the acquisition of 21st century skills. In other words, it is a miss of the huge variety of tools and innovative ways of learning that homeschooling offers us. Some of the schools initiated charming and original programs, but these were local initiatives of talented and caring teachers and principals, rather than a choice of system. Most of the children found themselves struggling in the "zoom class".

When researching families in homeschooling, one finds that these are communities that produce encounters and a variety of joint activities. This, of course, could not be copied during the closure. But it is also possible to learn from home education the suitability for the learner, his needs, abilities and desires. This is one of the most important characteristics of homeschooling and it stands in stark contrast to the uniformity that usually exists in the system, where the curriculum is generally uniform and students adapt to it.

Every person learns differently and the environment today makes it possible to adapt the learning to the specific need, interest and skills.

There are programs today for learning to read or learn arithmetic online, which for many children are an experience full of joy and interest.

A variety of online lectures are very suitable for a different type of learner.

Some children learn much better in online study groups while others need self-study instruction.

Some will internalize English or Hebrew from quiet reading and lessons are simply a distraction for them, and others will need to conduct online or chat conversations to internalize a language.

When the mode of learning and the content of the learning are adapted to the learner, the level of internalization and also the joy of learning increase greatly.

But instead of opting for a homeschooling class, instead of learning from industry research in the field, most of the system chose to copy the 19th-century model into the Internet.

Why?

As a researcher in the field and as a researcher of the future world of work, I have no real answer.

conservatism?

Mental closure?

Ignoring the study?

You choose.

It is never too late to get to know home education and see what can be derived from it to create a better education system, to raise our children's academic achievements, and no less importantly, their joy of learning that is so essential to success in life.

That's why we're initiating an online zoom conference on November 8 that deals with homeschooling.

I invite everyone to get to know the research in the field and meet the families who learned from home even before the Corona.