Living and learning in 2020: the Outschool blog year in review

The events of 2020 were unexpected and required many families to change the way they thought about education, school and learning.

Gratefully, we at Outschool found ourselves in a unique position to support families in dealing with these new challenges.

Below, you'll see some highlights of what it was like to live and learn during 2020, as told through the stories published on the Outschool blog.

Then, we'll recap the stories of 5 particular families who taught us how they Outschool.

Lastly, we'll finish off with some feel-good accomplishments from the most important group on Outschool: the learners!

👀 Looking back on 2020...

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools around the world to close, families found themselves quickly adapting to a new reality for how they lived, worked, and learned.

At Outschool, we found ourselves in a unique position to support families and tell your stories as you navigated through a rapid, unprecedented set of changes.

• Parents experienced homeschooling becoming mainstream and discussions of pandemic pods, micro-schools and homeschool co-ops.
• To support parents in this paradigm shift, Outschool shared tips for getting started with homeschooling.
• As families adjusted to school closures, parents sought information on helping kids succeed while learning online and supporting learners with unique needs during distance learning.
• Facing the new reality of at-home learning, parents shared favorite tips for keeping kids active while learning at home and creating "homeschool rooms" of all sizes and budgets.
• As the fall arrived, families discussed alternative ways to celebrate Halloween and found ways to educate your kids about the presidential election.

Through all that, the Outschool community grew a lot. Just consider some of these surprising numbers:

• Outschool reached 628k learners from 116 countries
• This was a massive increase from 2019, where we reached 40k learners in 65 countries
• Learners logged over 4 million hours of class time!

💙 How 5 Families Outschooled in 2020

Something that makes Outschool so special is the community of families who support their learners in exploring their interests and passions.

This year, in our How We Outschool series, we shared the stories of five families living and learning together.

Dive into their stories below 👇

• Meeting Taylor Swift, earning $2,000, and more: How Nicole Olson’s family does unschooling
• This Outschool mom teaches her kids resilience by example
• How Tamara's family finds "rare and wonderful gifts" through online learning
• This Outschool mom helped her son discover his superpower
• How the Snyders live on their terms through interest-led online learning

🎉 Celebrating our Learner Community

Outschool exists to help kids fall in love with learning, and this year we took a big step in fulfilling that mission by cultivating the Learner Community.

• Learners participated in Outschool's first-ever learner design contest, creating awards to share with favorite teachers. Check out the contest winners!
• Curiosity and creativity were on full display during the Learner Community's first-ever science fair, which featured tons of awesome learner-design experiments.
• We closed out the year by launching the dedicated space for learners on Outschool, where kids can log in under their own profile to take classes and interact with teachers.

As 2020 comes to a close, we want to THANK YOU for being a member of the Outschool community and joining us as we learned, empowered kids, and experienced many fun moments.

We’re so happy we had the chance to connect with so many incredible families, teachers, and organizations.

Sending you our biggest thanks and best wishes for a bright and healthy New Year.