I am SOOO behind times in my lil corner of the world.:lol: I just recently realized that there is something called 'afterschooling.' I am not quite sure I totally agree with what little that I have learned about doing this with children on a regularly bases. (Note that I do acknowledge that I am jumping to an opinion before knowing much about it.) Not that my opinion matters or holds value to anyone but me & mine. LOL (I know of afterschool programs for kids who's parents are @ work when they get out of school.) So if anyone knows much about it or does it, could you please help me put it into perspectivve. Becuse when my dds went to ps, the last thing they wanted was more work (much less assigned by mom). I know life isn't ALL about what we want in life but much of what we need. So my question here is is afterschooling NEEDED? Some teachers aren't doing their jobs more than I realized if there is such a need for this. I mean no disrespect to folks who do this, I am just curious to it's necessity because our children need to be little as long as they can. Lots of homework comes soon enough so why start Kind. out with a full day of school & afterschooling in such a formal way. Whatever happened to learn through play? Maybe I am off kilter here, maybe I have read into this wrong. Have I? Blessings!
I suppose if afterschooling is like tutoring then there is nothing wrong with it. My daughter is currently struggling in math. I would love to get some extra help for her so if she were in ps, I'd be okay with extra help afterschool. But maybe I am not understanding what "afterschool" is? Oh and I doubt my daughter could learn Algebra through play...LOL...so you are talking about for little kids? I also guess this is for working parents. Maybe they just call it "afterschool" to make it sound more constructive. Since I do not know the format it may be learning through play or more hands on.
I know several parents who are "afterschool homeschoolers". Basically, they won't take their child out of PS to homeschool them, but the PS isn't educating them well enough. So the child spends all day in school only to come home and spend all evening in homeschool. Is there a need? Well, yes and no. No, in the sense that parents would be better off just taking them out of school. Yes, because PS generally does a lousy job of educating.
One of the things that finally decided us to go with homeschooling our ds (back in the day) was that he would come home from school and not have a clue about anything he'd done at school that day. He would get home at 3pm (his dad was home to meet him) and I'd get home from work about 5pm on a good day, and we'd work on homework until 9pm or so... and I decided that if we were having to do that much just to keep him somewhat on keel for school, we could do that with homeschooling, no matter what hours we did it. PLUS teach him what we wanted him to know, not kill ourselves trying to communicate with them and figure out from what they sent home what he'd done in school that day. So instead of "afterschooling" we decided on "instead of schooling". That said, I know there are some parents who want to homeschool, but they're biding their time until they can (for whatever reason) by doing homeschool after school but not necessarily with textbooks/etc. -- fun lessons and projects and whatever they can fit in between the time the kids get home and whatever else they have to do (school homework, scouts, church, team sports, supper, bath, bedtime) and on weekends.
I understand tutoring when there is a struggle in a subject for whatever age group. Algebra? :lol: yeah no amount of 'play' teaches this. Yes, I am referring largely to Kind. & lower elem. This seems to be a planned & assigned curriculum aside from & after ps work for a lot of folks. I understand that some are supplementing where ps fails to come through. (ps doesn't come thru for most kids these days.) I guess I am just having recurring ps memories & they are not pleasant ones. To make my dds come home from ps, do ps homework only to have to face 'afterschooling.' Good grief, where is the free time? Or shower time? Or meal time? Or toe nail clipping time? Ok now I am just being silly, but for real when is there time for these things in an 'afterschooling' world? I get when some folks want to hs but are struggling with making that happen. From my understanding, folks are buying curriculum the same way I do for homeschooling but for these kids it's 'afterschooling.' It makes me sad for their childhoods. Maybe I am reading more into this than I should. Blessings!
Afterschooling may fit some families well. It seems as though most ps parents do it to a degree anyway with scouts, sports, private tutoring, art classes, etc. I don't think it is the dread of every child out there. Some may actually enjoy the time with the parent at the end of the day. And some others may actually enjoy doing school work The alternative in many homes is hours of TV or video games instead of good old fashioned play anyway.
