As responsible Homeschooling parents, the primary goal is to train up our children in a way that honors and glorifies God.  The second goal after that is to give them the best education that we possibly can.  In this post, I will be looking at how online classes will actually enhance your child’s well rounded education, ultimately culminating in college prep homeschool style.

Computer Troubles

“Son,” my Dad said chuckling one evening, “you must have been born in the wrong century!”

Let’s just say, when God created me in my mother’s womb, I wasn’t given much technological literacy!  Once, while trying to play a prank on my sister, I pried out all the keys in a computer keyboard and replaced them, all scrambled up, hoping she would not look down at the keyboard the next time she went to type.  How hilarious was this going to be when she went to type and instead of words, jibberish appeared on her screen!  I decided to test out my foolish prank by typing a sentence into a document to see what crazy text would come out.  Doh! It was then that I realized… it doesn’t matter what the letter on the key is, the signal going to the computer remains constant!  Joke was on me.

Although I am not the best of friends with computers, the one saving grace to my life in the 21st century is that many of my classes were online, forcing me to “get used to it”.  I am sure many of you have a hard time deciding between the two alternatives, online classes versus regular textbooks, and that decision involves many aspects, especially when considering college prep as well. But that is okay since, according to quora.com, we make 35,000 basic decisions per day!  For those of you deciding, this blog post is for you.

Business of life

If your family is anything like mine, then you are constantly running errands, discharging duties, and dropping off children.  As parents, sometimes, amongst the duties of daily life, teaching your students may be brushed aside.  Then the guilt sets in.  Now you feel terrible that you haven’t given enough time to teach your student or students today.  Looking at the rest of the week’s schedule doesn’t procure any promise for the future.  Fortunately, one purchasing click can solve that monstrous problem!  With online classes, because someone else is responsible to teach your students, the pressure is off.  Now your child can learn even while you fulfill the necessities of life.  Frankly, this is not the only way that online classes take the pressure off the parent.

As the student grows in age, the courses and knowledge become more advanced.  Sometimes, since, a) the parent wasn’t particularly strong in a specific subject, or b) the fact that we can sometimes forget information we learned 20 years ago, or c) we want our child to learn a language because of the benefits that entails, it might be beneficial to have an online teacher teach your students.  Online teachers are extremely qualified to teach, namely because they only teach on the subjects that they a) enjoy, and b) are knowledgeable in.  Homeschooling online takes pressure off the homeschooling parent.

Homeschooling Online and students

I have found throughout the years that I have been homeschooling that textbooks can be forgotten about because of the misbegotten excuse “I can just do it tomorrow”.  Unfortunately, the tomorrow never comes, and the important subject is forgotten about.  According to the Coalition for Responsible Home Education:

“Homeschooled children can succeed academically, but only if given proper academic support from their parents. If homeschooled children are to succeed academically, their parents need to take their commitment seriously and provide individual instruction, seek out resources, and create a rich educational environment for their children. When these things do not happen—when parents are too overwhelmed to put in the effort or when homeschooled children are expected to work or provide instruction for their younger siblings rather than attending to their own studies—homeschooled children suffer educational neglect and may find their future prospects severely curtailed.”

(https://www.responsiblehomeschooling.org/policy-issues/abuse-and-neglect/educational-neglect/)

So we can see here that the homeschool parent is responsible to ascertain that their students receive proper education.  Thankfully, though, when your busy schedule hinders it, you can delegate that responsibility to another qualified teacher. Online teachers will keep your students accountable to hand in assignments, while teaching them subjects important for their education.

A very important way in which online classes are beneficial to homeschool students is that they prepare them for “the real world”.  Since your child is not always going to be living at home with you, life skills are extremely important.  I am not well persuaded that a student can obtain every skill necessary by only partaking in regular textbooks throughout his or her education.  As alluded to at the beginning of this post, online education has greatly allowed me to become familiar at least with computers.  Homeschooling online also enabled me to become suited to communicate via email to other students when class projects were due, or to communicate with the teachers and technical staff.  Online classes teach very important life skills such as handing in assignments, socializing with others, and asking a distant teacher for questions or clarification.

College Prep

Another key area in this discussion is that of college prep.  Colleges now provide many courses online.  Even though these still add the same amount of credits to your degree, they are often much cheaper and more flexible than standard college. Because many colleges now utilize an online component to their classes, it’s vitally important to expose our students to online classes, especially in their high school years.

All in all, homeschooling online provides a marvelous adjunct to traditional textbook education and should definitely be implemented.  As a homeschool parent, the pressure of keeping up with your student’s education is negated, allowing you to complete the tasks set before you on a daily basis.  As a homeschool student, accountability and learning important life skills is key, especially for college prep.

Now, with Luma Learn here, purchasing online classes couldn’t be easier.  You can feel comfortable and confident that, while you accomplish life’s daily duties, that you as the Mom or Dad can choose the teacher that you feel is most qualified to teach your child.  By taking online classes on Luma Learn, you are making sure that your child receives a well-rounded education within the confines of a God-honoring environment.  What could be better?