7 Insights from Home Schooling: A Different Kind of Transition

It was a sudden and disruptive shift!

As an Executive Transition Coach, I work with senior leaders to help them transition into a new role successfully and do it with ease and grace. But how does that apply to being a parent and looking at the same when it comes to home schooling?

The truth is that these are two fundamentally different situations, however some universal truths are applicable across the 2, nevertheless. This post is dedicated to all parents who are working their way through home schooling.

First things first: Home schooling is no easy feat, even for the most mindful parent or senior leader! If you disagree, try to publish an executive memo or make a written announcement to your teenage child and see how much they care about aligning with the executive order or would like to consider you being a “key stakeholder”.

As parents my wife and I went through a week-long home schooling in January. And we were lucky enough to have to do this only for a week. This was part of the @ISL experiment with virtual schooling for the preschool children on the back end of the year end break. Given that our son’s class is classified as pre-school, the classes have been running without interruption. Hence we feel very fortunate to have our son attend school without interruption during the pandemic.

A year earlier our son had to stay home because his nursery closed during the first lockdown for a couple of weeks. The learnings were similar, albeit it is fair to say that home schooling a school child is probably a different league compared to that of a nursery child.

Also, to be perfectly transparent right away, my wife did the vast majority of the home schooling so I’m not planning or going to claim any credit here ;-)

And now to our learnings:

• Check your tech/software setup well in advance of the actual sessions. I was somewhat puzzled when the school gave us an email address and Microsoft Teams details for our 5-year-old when we registered him on day 1. Little did I know how valuable and meaningful that actually was when the home schooling began!

• Have a toy/prop ready for when the virtual class begins! Having his favourite toy right in front of him helped him to feel somewhat home in the home office and how proud he was to show it in the camera to his teachers and friends, particularly as toys aren’t allowed to be brought into class. As parents we know how meaningful that policy actually is ;)
• Energy level is everything. If getting out of bed in the morning is already a drag for your child, then this is going to have a direct impact on their attention span, listening skills as well as the quality of work on that particular day
• Be flexible on the day and go with the (energy) flow. At times our son woke up, had his first group session on MS Teams and had his breakfast during the first break following that session. The wise parent knows that there really is no point of having arguments over breakfast early in the morning with your child, when it threatens to ruin the mood and energy for pretty much the rest of the morning.
• Build meaningful breaks throughout the day and have them play/enjoy themselves in-between longer class breaks. At one point my wife took our son to a nearby park for a walk and they played. Having a small break with fresh air and a bit of play worked wonders for the afternoon class!
• His classes included both peer interactions and teaching in smaller groups. Both of these did provide motivation and improved learning outcomes. The key is to have a mix.
• Apply incremental, gradual improvements. If something worked well on day 1, take it over into day 2 and build on it accordingly. This way you will see improvements over a longer time span. The few things we did each day that worked well, made the experience on the last day of home schooling much more enjoyable, and allow me to say: for all participants involved ;)

It still amazes me how well all children behaved during the virtual classes and how caring, thoughtful and patient his teachers were. Kudos to all parents and teachers who have gone or are still going through this experience. It is inspiring to see how so many families and parents have also played an integral role to students’ learning from home during this pandemic.

And I think I speak on behalf of the entire human race when I say that we can’t wait until this pandemic is over, when we can celebrate the journey of each child and reflect back on these turbulent times that hopefully also offered some learnings despite the pain, anger and many struggles.

And before anyone asks me this question, let me answer it right away:

"NO, absolutely do NOT even attempt to coach your own child or spouse during home schooling!"

What are your learnings with home schooling?