The “Lost” Year?

If you had to sum up your 2019-2020 homeschool year in one statement, what would it be?
If you had to take it down to just one word, would it be a positive one?

I don’t know of a single person who could say, “It went exactly according to plan,” or would use the term, “normal,” to describe their school year. Every single one of us— even the most remote, the most home-centered, the least socially active— found that the world grinding to a halt impacted their homelife and thus, their homeschool.

Shuttered libraries. Shut down parks. Cancelled co-op classes. Zoom everything.

It was not the year we thought we were going to have, was it? It wasn’t the year we saw coming when we bought the books and wrote the lesson plans and set out to engage our children in the kind of learning that happens on the deepest, most soul-enriching level.

COVID-19 upended so many of our plans and uprooted so much of our rhythm. There’s no denying that.

But a new and somewhat insidious moniker is making the rounds now— “The lost school year.” It’s meant to be applied to the fact that brick and mortar schools around the country closed their doors, scrambling to find ways to finish out the planned academics on differing platforms and with short notice. The general consensus is that these children have missed out and they are behind. They lost a school year.

The temptation to slap that label on everyone’s school year is strong in a world that neither understands nor appreciates nuances. I’m not going to share how I personally think that for a portion of those children used to spending their days in classrooms, the year wasn’t lost but rather, saved. Instead, I’m going to remind my fellow homeschoolers that while we were robbed of some things, we were not denied the very basis of what breathes life into the very heart of the living education we offer our children.

Our days were still centered around the organic, natural relationship cycle of parent/child/teacher/student. We still read together, explored periods of history, listened to musical compositions that left us breathless. We still asked questions that required digging deep for answers, we still puzzled over math problems. We still wrote essays and letters and journal entries. We still diagrammed sentences. We still made sketches of our nature finds and labelled them with the help of field guides. We still prayed as a family, played countless games, and lived out home ec, socialization, team-building, and critical thinking in the most hands-on setting possible.

In short, we did not lose our school year. Maybe it was disrupted. Maybe it was pared down. Maybe it deviated so far from the plan that it was nearly unrecognizable… but we lost nothing. There is nothing to be counted as loss if it accomplished the chief ends of education: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2).

Did that still happen in your home this spring? I’m guessing the answer is yes. I’m guessing your kids weren’t among those who will look back on this season of pandemic and feel that they gave over a portion of their learning to the chaos surrounding a virus. So be at peace, friends, as you end this school year— no matter what sentence you would offer in summary, no matter what word springs to mind as a single assessment. In the end, this unique year simply was exactly what it was: 2019-2020. No more, no less.