Proponents of online education assure us that this is the education of the future. I’ve been teaching part-time for a virtual school served by a famed national company, and in the early days, there was a lot of rah-rah about this being the best, perhaps the eventual only, mode of education.
I won’t argue the pros and cons of that here; in fact, I’ve already addressed some of it in my earlier blogs. It is true that most states now have a free, public online option for education and there are more springing up all the time.
Even so, I am certain that schools will always be there, not for the typical socialization arguments, but for one simple reason:
People need babysitters for their children. In many families, both parents work, or increasingly often, a single parent must work to support her children. Therefore someone needs to take care of the children during the day.
You could imagine schools as one big, expensive, clumsy, well-meaning babysitting service. Within that, we strive against all odds to also educate children, but if it were simply a matter of transmitting information and skills to kids, well, then we’re back to the virtual option, which is cheapest and most direct.
No, we need responsible and caring people–educators–to help us take care of our kids. And that is why we will always, always have schools.
