Questioning assumptions

Before I knew anything about homeschooling, I imagined there were only two kinds of homeschoolers:

1. People who got a copy of their local school’s curriculum and followed it to the letter.
2. People who let their kids do whatever they wanted and called it “homeschooling.”

Ahem.

Now that I’ve done a ton of research and am homeschooling myself, I’m embarrassed. Because the truth is, there are more distinct approaches to homeschooling than you can shake a stick at, and parents are free to pick one approach and then change it from year to year—or even mix-and-match strategies based on what works best for their kids at different times and in different situations.

In this month’s issue (April/May 2009) of Home Education Magazine, for example, professional violinist and “unschooler” Rachel Barton Pine says wonderful, positive things about her unschooling experience growing up, but then notes that “…if you are serious about studying a musical instrument, you will need to receive intense, traditional training…self-taught instrumental skills aren’t going to take you very far.” Mix and match. The pragmatist in me rejoices.

What is “education” anyway?

Before you can choose an approach, though, you first need to decide why you’re educating your kid in the first place.

Is it because the law in this country says you have to? So your kid can get a job and move out when she hits 18? So she can become a responsible citizen? So she can explore her own interests?

To me, education is all that and a bag of chips. It’s about preparing K-S to make a living, yes, but in a larger sense: her education should equip her with the tools to be self-sufficient. It should prepare her to take her place in society (that is, to take an active part in the political process, get along with folks who don’t share her views, speak at least a couple of languages, and use the correct fork at a fancy dinner).

In addition, her education should give K-S the tools to make sense of the world. I want her to develop at least a passing familiarity with the “greatest hits” of the last few thousand years of human endeavor so that she can take pleasure in art, get righteously cheesed off at injustice, and in general spot Shinola when she sees it. To live a good life, in other words.

When you assume...

Beyond the purpose of an education, the single biggest difference I’ve noticed among homeschooling approaches is the underlying assumptions each one makes about how human beings learn.

Some assume that children are born with an innate drive to learn that should be honored and nurtured above all else; others, that children are blank slates that need to be filled up by adults. Some believe students should be introduced to formal learning as early as possible; others, that the appropriate (and most effective) approach is to hold off on the formal sit-down-and-study stuff until seven, eight, nine, or even older. Some say you should teach kids to read before you teach them to write; others, that the first text they read should be their own writing.

Here’s my personal shortlist of educational theories:

1. Kids need to be with their mothers the first five years of their lives, which is when they’re laying down their concept of the world (hostile? loving?) and their place in it (is it okay to be here? can I get what I need?). You can talk about daycare all you want; nobody’s got your back like your Mom—and that matters at a cellular level. To me, this is a no-brainer, but researchers like John Bowlby have come to the same conclusion.
2. Kids need as much one-on-one as they can get with competent, encouraging teachers. Another no-brainer backed up by research (my favorite go-to guy in this field is Lev Vygotsky).
3. Until somewhere around age 6, kids learn best through play. Piaget and other luminaries in the field of early childhood education all came up with the same rough age, which just happens to coincide with when we westerners traditionally plunked our kids down in first grade. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t introduce the under-five set to art, literature, or math; just means you probably want to do so in the context of play (rather than sitting 'em down with a workbook).
4. Becoming competent at anything takes hard work (and this is A Good Thing). The trend these days is to present learning in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks. And that’s fine in some contexts—for very young kids, for example, or when you're introducing material for the first time. But “fun and easy” is hardly a prescription for deep learning. At some point, you’ve got to look a task or concept in the eye, stare it down, and master it—and that takes hard work. And time. And grit. The upside is that once a kid understands this, the whole world opens up. She understands that anything is achievable if she puts in enough effort.
   

Articulating and working through this list led my husband and I first to homeschooling, and, second, to the classical approach.

But I reserve the right to change my mind if I discover something next week I think will work better.