App Schooling

I recently listened to a podcast episode in which the hosts talked about app schooling. The podcast was Homeschool Unrefined, and in this particular episode, moms Maren and Angela discussed using screens in their homeschools.

There was one particular moment that stuck out to me, and that was when Maren and Angela mentioned that one benefit to having children use apps is that moms are then freed up to do other things, things other than teacher things. Administrator things, maintenance and operations things, cafeteria manager things.

Homeschool moms, you run your own schools. Classroom teachers don’t do that. Classroom teachers have principals, office managers, cafeteria staff, custodians, recess, lunch away from their students.

It’s unreasonable for you to believe you should be teaching and running a school from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Classroom teachers don’t do that. We also give students work they can do independently. We use that time to work with an individual child, work with a small group, grade, fill out paperwork needed ASAP by administrators, mediate conflicts, console or give pep talks to individual students, prep materials for a hands-on lesson.

Sometimes that independent work time is screen time.

You aren’t failing as a mom if you have your child use an app.