• A sniffle sent you home for two weeks from school or work; no questions asked—no more heating thermometers on lightbulbs.
• It was okay to play video games with your friends in your free time whenever you wanted to. Mom said so!
• Parents couldn’t take kids’ devices away because it might limit their socialization. (And the people doing studies on device usage by kids couldn’t wait to see what happened next.) 
• Kids (far more apt at computers than their teachers) figured out how to place a screen saver up during class time so they could text their friends instead and could chat all through class without teachers taking the notes away.
• Teachers took classes on turning on computers and stopped class on Zoom frequently to ask a remotely working ten-year-old student how to fix something.
• A power or internet outage meant a school holiday and was the equivalent to a “the dog ate my homework” excuse to the modern era.
• The IT person became the most important member of the educational team.
• Homeschoolers and their parents suddenly were the resident experts on finding educational material.
• Finally, playing educational games counted as a class! And the millionaire esports success story heroes around the world said, “Told you so!” Sorry, mom!
• Parents learned that what they thought their kids were learning at school, well, wasn’t. 
• Many parents realized they didn’t remember basic elementary, middle, and high school concepts. 
• Kids got to say, “I told you so.” A LOT.
• Homeschoolers finally made it out of the shadows of education. They discovered to be, well, “normal,” surprising everyone who had never looked down a rabbit hole to learn something new. Homeschoolers themselves couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about and went back to doing what they had always done well and successfully!

With all of that said:

Wow-what a school year! No matter who you are or how you “school,” this year has been a doozy in both good and bad ways! But we all persevered! We survived. We all deserve a much-needed pat on the back! 

The year is coming to a bit of a close for most kids and parents. It’s been an interesting year with school interruptions occurring on and off for kids, teachers, and schools themselves! For the homeschooled child, field trips, a mainstay of the experience, were limited and may have disappeared entirely! 

Education took giant steps forward in rapid ways this year. With the disruptions of traditional brick-and-mortar schools, parents sought alternatives. Homeschoolers’ numbers grew unbelievably. As of February 2020, at least 9 million Americans had homeschooled. That number may have grown even further this year. While statistically, homeschoolers are usually 3-4% of the nation’s kids, it may have been as high as 10-12% this year. But what does this mean? Will it persist? Will these kids all go back to brick-and-mortar schools? Online school enrollment is also up. Florida Virtual Schools (FLVS), the online option for Florida Public schools, had a 98% increase in enrollment year to year! 

As we changed where kids learned, we also shifted how they learned. New online resources, online teaching venues, and educational apps debuted and shined as helpful tools for the year. Zoom and Google Classroom are now as common phrases as “cat” in most households with school-aged kids! Kids took online courses for fun, played learning games on devices, and learned how, in part, to teach themselves from fantastic new resources. Parents adapted to new ways of communicating with teachers and each other. Tools that might have taken years, maybe even decades to implement, popped up right and left into our educational toolboxes! Education will never be the same, and that is a good thing. As much of a struggle as it may have been, significant developments arose in education. 

In general, one thing is for sure. Thanks to the COVID-19 school year, parents and kids who would perhaps have never become aware of alternative education paths discovered them! Remote learning, online schools, homeschools all came to the center stage of the awareness for parents, teachers, and administrators who previously had little experience with such things! Mindset changes occurred quickly, and rapid adjustments were made! 

So, what does the future hold? Will families be taking a moment to ponder their options for the coming year? Many will gratefully return to brick and mortar schools of choice, happy to resume a more “normal” school life again for themselves. But while many students struggled with virtual and remote learning options this year, some actually excelled and did better in the new setting! Will those kids now pursue homeschooling or online school options in the future? How will the face of education in this country change as we move into the next few years? Parents are also looking to discover great new ways to educate their kids—everything from online tutors and classes to game-based learning online or in educational games. Learning from documentaries and videos or online websites took on a new shape in the past year alone.

So what will your year be like next year? Which path will you and your family choose? Choices abound! No matter what your choice will be in the coming year, Anything Academic is here to help. We will list everything you need to make the best choices for your family! No matter what educational path you pick, we have the resources you need—all of them in one easily searchable location. Discover something new today!