In January, when history professor Karen Miller first arrived in Manila, the Philippines, she expected to spend several months studying internal migration patterns in the Southeast Asian country. As a Fulbright Scholar on sabbatical from her job at LaGuardia Community College, she quickly enrolled her eleven-year-old son in an elementary school program and began to settle in.
But two months later, Miller’s plans were upended by COVID-19, and she and her son opted to return to their Brooklyn home.
“Regular school may give students a lot of assignments and parents may need to be hands-on in helping. Our classes never ask a kid to do homework. They can just show up and have some fun.”
One of Miller’s first tasks was finding online classes for her son. This was necessary, she says, because their neighborhood public school was closed for a week to plan remote instruction, leaving her scrambling to find classes where he could engage with other kids and boost his curiosity and creativity.
Programs were easy to find, Miller says, but the ones she and her son favored bore a hefty price tag.
“I found an interactive program where he could learn with other kids. He had a really good experience for a couple of days, but at a cost of $10 to $15 per class, the fees racked up,” she says. “This may be affordable if you only sign on for a few classes a week, but four or five classes a day gets really pricey.”
As Miller thought about their options, an idea began to take shape. “Everyone I know is a professor, teacher, artist, librarian, or poet,” she explains. “What if we made something, an online program, that could be available to all kids for free?”
The result, The Homeschool Cooperative 2020, went live on March 16. Six weeks later, the co-op has offered more than 120 classes, some single sessions and others ongoing, that run from early morning until late afternoon Monday through Saturday. More than 600 kids from the United States, Canada, the Philippines, and Singapore have enrolled in diverse classes including Latin for beginners, hand sewing, yoga, human sexuality for middle schoolers, French conversation, cooking and baking, basics of Epidemiology, exercise for endorphins, dream interpretation, poetry writing, and astronomy. There’s also a Harry Potter fan discussion and several storytelling hours.
“Regular schools provide instruction,” Miller says. ““We fill in the holes. Regular school may give students a lot of assignments and parents may need to be hands-on in helping. Our classes never ask a kid to do homework. They can just show up and have some fun.”
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The Homeschool Co-op 2020 initially found teachers through Miller’s personal networks, but the program has since expanded to involve people she has never met in person—including several talented children who’ve taught drawing and origami courses. Potential volunteers can simply fill out a form on the co-op website and indicate their interest and availability.
Samuel Stein taught a two-session course called Map Your World, which introduced children aged ten to eighteen to cartography. “It was basic map literacy,” Stein says. “I had the students make maps of their block and their neighborhood and they seemed to enjoy the opportunity to think about places beyond their homes.”
Stein adds that this teaching audience was a first for him since he had never before worked with either elementary-aged kids or teenagers. “I loved seeing what they came up with,” he says.
For history professor Robin Kietlinski, teaching A Brief History of the Olympic Games gave her a chance to practice online instruction, something she worries may be imperative if distance learning becomes the norm.
Guardians are also effusive. Pennsylvania mother Ellie Collier’s seven-year-old daughter has taken numerous courses—Fun Facts about Sharks, Bats are Awesome, and Your Amazing Brain—in the past week alone.
“Classes are very relaxed compared to public school,” Collier says. “My kid really craves and thrives on a lot of personal interaction so these classes, with students taking turns sharing, are great. Classes are very relaxed compared to public school where classes don’t have as much student-to-student interaction.”
The most popular classes, Miller says, are cooking and the sciences. “There are classes for preschool through high school aged kids, and we have started to expand into adult courses. A session on how to cut your partner’s hair had thirty people sign up and cooking classes for grown-ups and a class on sprouting and fermenting have been well received.”
And the future? As of now, The Homeschool Cooperative 2020 is committed to continuing through the summer. After that, the volunteers will decide whether to keep it running, a decision that will depend on how COVID-19 plays out over the next few months.
“This has been a lot of fun,” Miller says. “Parents tweet us all the time and say that their kids love the classes. A few days ago, a parent told us that her child starts his morning with our daily Cat Chat. He said that it sets him up for the day and helps get him organized.”
Still, Miller stresses that the co-op’s main aim is to make learning fun and build community during a time of isolation and social distancing.
By any measure, The Homeschool Cooperative 2020 has done that—and then some.