'Homeschooling' and the COVID-19 Crisis: The Insights of Parents on Curriculum and Remote Learning.

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis forced schools to temporarily close from March 2020 to June 2020, producing unpredictable changes in instructional contexts and patterns. A new concept of ‘homeschooling’ emerged which required parents to support the implementation of the curriculum through remote learning. This article is based on a case study focusing on the perceptions of experiences of ten parents of Elementary school children during the school lockdown in Alberta, Canada. Parents argue that the schools’ demands on them were unreasonable. These added to the stress of the quarantine and professional losses, and to the burden of working full-time, fulfilling household responsibilities, and having children rely mostly on parents to deliver an often brief, ‘shallow’ weekly lesson plan that lacked clear expectations and reliable assessment pieces. Parents also strongly cast doubts on the popular reliability of online education by suggesting the unsuitability of online tools to promote independent learning among young children. The study may provide valuable contributions to further inform how to better support learning from home during this ongoing pandemic.