Crisis Homeschooling

At the end of September 2024, a massive hurricane barreled north from the Gulf of Mexico and slammed into southeastern states of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, but this was after a previous storm had dumped inches of rain upon these states. The hurricane ravaged the mountainous areas of these states, especially North Carolina, creating mudslides, incredible flooding, and immense loss of life and property. 

It's being described as a once-in-5,000 years event. 

The states that are affected have many homeschoolers. What do homeschoolers, or kids in public or private schools, do when life is so interrupted that school takes a back seat? 

You shift. Homeschooling becomes about learning survival and being together--and that is okay. 

Tragedy and Trauma
In 2015, my husband was shot and paralyzed in an attempted armed robbery, That singular event on November 28, 2015 created a distinction of time within our family: "before the shooting" and "after the shooting." Life changed in an instant. I was homeschooling my daughter Laura, who was in kindergarten at the time, and homeschooling immediately shifted. 

For Laura, who would spend her days at my mother's apartment while I visited my husband in the hospital, it was all about sitting at my mom's dining table coloring and drawing. My mom would read to her, and hold her as she cried. In the evenings when I would be there, I'd talk with her about her daddy. We didn't dwell on academics. We were all shattered, gutted, with pits in our stomachs, and reeling from the tragedy and trauma that we experienced with Greg--because we were with him when he was shot. We were dealing with images in our minds and sounds we had heard of which none of us were prepared. 

Nothing could have prepared the people in the mountains for the kind of natural disaster they experienced. In hurricanes, you have time to prepare: gathering water, batteries, food, battening down the hatches, or evacuating. But hundreds of miles from the Gulf, no one can prepare for mudslides that literally lower mountains by a hundred feet, bulldozing houses in their wakes, and killing people under the mud. No one can prepare for that. 

That is tragedy and trauma--trauma is the response we have to tragedy. We each deal with trauma in our own unique ways--some bury it deep within only to be crushed under it weeks, months, or years later. Some deal with trauma by freezing and others cope by doing. All are okay responses. 

Shoulds
One word to immediately toss in your crisis homeschooling vocabulary is the word "should." We should be doing academics. We should be doing homeschool. We should be (fill in the blank)." 

There are no shoulds here. No one needs that pressure. Academics of homeschooling (or public or private school) can wait. 

The September of my senior year in high school in North Carolina has one marked distinction: Hurricane Hugo. This monster of a storm slammed into Charleston, SC and kept going, careening into Charlotte, NC and its suburbs with disastrous effects. I lived outside of Charlotte in the little village of Waxhaw on thirteen acres, eleven of which had old growth trees that had seen Andrew Jackson born nearby. We lost 75% of them; the woods were covered in downed trees. That was a horrific night, seeing the hurricane-force winds and the tornados it spawned decimate our land. It gave me an immediate appreciation of the force and power of these intense storms. 

One thing my senior English teacher, my beloved Mrs. Helms, did two weeks later when school finally opened up again, was assign us all writing projects of various sorts to help us cope with what we all faced that terrible night and in the weeks after. She tossed out the normal curriculum and focused in on her student's needs: that was to cope with the trauma each of us had. I am forever grateful to Mrs. Helms for doing that. 

That's what we need to be doing, even students who weren't in the path of destruction but who have seen the devastation on the news or social media, or listen to their parents talk about it. Forego the normal curriculum and focus on mental health through drawing, writing, or talking about it. This will help students and parents. 

​Survival Homeschooling
Children learn from watching their parents. In survival homeschooling, children are getting real-world experience and learning so much more than what they can learn from books. How to deal with trauma, emotional coping, water filtration, taking care of others, demolition, construction, acquiring food, and probably most importantly: how to be a family without power. 

All throughout your life, there will be seasons of survival. It may not be from a natural disaster--maybe it's a medical diagnosis, or a car wreck. Maybe it's losing a parent. Maybe it's from stopping to use the bathroom at a rest area and hearing a gun shot from the men's bathroom and seeing the two men who shot your husband run out as you run in. All throughout your life, there will be seasons of survival. The key is, during these seasons of crisis homeschooling, will you tend to your own mental health so you can help your children with their's? It will be hard--but you can do hard things. 

It may mean shifting your vision of your homeschool in this season--but your kids will learn from this, despite and because of any storms you face. 

Resources and Roundup
I've created a page of resources and a blog roundup so you can do a deep-dive into crisis homeschooling on your own terms. For those who want to help people in the affected areas of southeastern states from Hurricane Helene and in Florida from Hurricane Milton, I'm donating 50% of all proceeds from the Homeschooling One Child Store through December 31, 2024 to disaster relief. 

If you're a homeschooler in the affected areas and need prayer or help, I'll do my best to help you. Just email me here. 

You are loved. 

In Christ,
Terrie

(C) 2024 Terrie Bentley McKee ALL RIGHTS RESERVED