As I’ve noted in previous blogs, there are many reasons why online education is a good choice for parents and students. Yesterday, in conversation with a prospective parents, I was made aware of several reasons why more and more parents and students are looking at online education as an option.
From my early days in leadership, I was told that if you say your school doesn’t have a problem with bullying then you don’t know your school. Try as hard as we can, it is impossible to monitor every interaction between students and bullying by its nature is often covert, adding to the difficulties of dealing with it. If you take the child out of the physical school environment, you risk losing human interaction but you also minimise the risk of negative interaction – bullying. Of course, you could say that bullying can take place in an online setting but there are fewer opportunities and certainly physical bullying is eradicated. Additionally, students meet with coach/mentors to talk about issues impacting their education and problems can be resolved quickly and effectively.
A report in the BBC News (UK) today on growing up in today’s society, highlights the fear that young people, especially girls have of simply walking to and from school. Nearly half of the respondents said they don’t feel safe when walking alone – even during the day and across boys and girls the figure is around a quarter.
The parents I spoke to felt that, aside from the quality of education, if they knew their child was at home when school began and, at the end of the day had simply to rejoin the family in a different part of the house, they would feel more reassured. Another survey shows that almost every family in the UK worries about their child, boy or girl, when they go out alone or with friends and this figure moves close to 100% when the child is a girl. Add into this the prevalence of drugs in schools and the pressure of gang culture and the stay at home option looks increasingly sensible.
This is very telling about the state of society and its morals and online schools can provide the safe alternative. Whilst the choice of online education shouldn’t need to be based on this criteria, it is a solution to what is becoming a very serious issue in society.
