He is educated who knows how to find out what he doesn’t know. –George Simmel, German philosopher
Lauren Calderwood, a 17 year old homeschooled girl, just finished up her mother’s three part series on the Self-Teaching Method in Home School Enrichment magazine. She had an interesting comment on views of this method.
This approach to learning usually gets quite a reaction from the public school crowd. After all, it’s “bad” enough to let the parent take the teacher’s place, but now we have the student taking the parent’s place in the teacher’s place…well, it’s unthinkable! HSE, Nov/Dec 2007, p. 40
Explaining homeschool can be difficult enough in a short, casual conversation. I can imagine attempting to explain self-teaching. Interestingly, I never really considered self-teaching as an actual method independent of the others. Instead, I have seen it as a goal of education. When those close to me ask about high school, I note that it largely depends on how well my educational theories work in practice. (To strangers, I just say we are undecided).
What are these educational theories? Largely, they are based on a statement made by Katherine Dang at a seminar I attended when we began first grade. “A child should be self-educating by twelve.” Since then, our homeschool has been reorganized in hopes of achieving this goal.
There is some truth to the criticism of parents being unable to teach their children effectively in all subjects. There are a range of answers to this concern, obviously, but the fact remains that no individual is expert enough in every field necessary to competently teach a child. We can try to stay a step ahead, learn alongside them, hire tutors and recognize that there are gaps in every child’s education, no matter what their learning environment.
We can also introduce them to self-discipline and to the masters themselves. Why worry about the gaps in my knowledge of early American history when my daughter can learn directly from those who took part in shaping it?
My daughter is only nine. In an effort to begin moving her toward greater independence in her learning, we purchased a planner in which we outline the lessons together at the end of each week. It began as a sort of exercise in letting her see how I plan our days, letting her see the goals we had and (hopefully) a way for her to see that school was not just about copywork. It was about all the other things she enjoys about her day. Three weeks ago, she asked me if she could “do school” on her own.
With some trepidation, I assented.
At first, this confirmed my first fear: my daughter wasted far too much time. But I stayed silent. After all, if it takes her until bedtime, who is she really hurting? She was getting her work done, she was learning and she was content with it. This lasted until the first time her friend called and she was unable to play because her work for the day was not completed.
Now she gets up and has most of her work done before our old start time. And she is learning. It took her awhile, but with her book and a pile of blocks, my daughter taught herself division. She worked and reworked the practice problems. I stifled the impulse to take over and show her. And then she got it. And she came bounding down the hall to announce her victory with a genuine sense of accomplishment. I was glad I had not taken that from her in my impatience to have her progress through her book.
Certainly, not every third grader is ready for that kind of independence in their studies, and I would guess few are in every area. But it is a process which challenges our views of what it means to be educated and the roles of teacher and student.
Let the children get the books themselves, and do not let them be flooded with diluted talk from the lips of their teacher. The less that parents ‘talk-in’ and expound their rations of knowledge and thought to the children they are educating, the better for the children…Children must be allowed to ruminate, must be left alone with their own thoughts. –Charlotte Mason
Sometime between birth and eighteen, a child needs to learn to stand on his own, to care for himself and to seek out the knowledge he needs for his endeavors of this world. By gradually increasing their responsibility in their own education, I hope my children will be fully prepared for this transition to adulthood.
[tags]homeschooling, education, self-teaching, Charlotte Mason[/tags]
This is my goal as well, but I have resisted giving Bug more freedom for various reasons. Fear, denial, and insecurity hold me back.
However, when I think about lessons this year, Bug does most of them on his own already. And he is teaching himself more about science than I even know. He reads and rereads every science book he gets. You should see the stacks he brings home from the library! I try to give him historical fiction, but he picks books about creation every time.
It would be one step up in his responsibility to get him a planner. I believe he would rise to the challenge. Thanks for challenging me.
I truly believe this acquisition of self-discipline and skills for self-learning are what make home-schooling so very successful. If you could pinpoint anything that causes homeschoolers to perform above their ps peers, it is this.
Studies have shown that even in homes where the parents have had little education themselves, homeschooled children still outperform ps kids. This is the reason. There’s just something about parents that make them make their kids learn.
Wow – I really needed this right now. I am currently homeschooling 5, with 2 preschoolers (and 1 homeschool graduate). I spend a lot of time worrying that I’m doing an inadequate job. I’m very focused on self-education for myself, and I worry sometimes that I’m educating myself more than my kids.
My 11th grader tends to do his work independently, he just sometimes neglects some subjects and focuses on others.
This is my first visit. I am an HSBA team member, and clicked here from the incoming links on the site. I want to compliment you on the way you moderated the discussion in comments.
Blessings,
Dawn
Renae, I keep wanting to pull back and as I reflect, it has more to do with me not being ready than her not being ready. But she is really thriving right now. We are not doing so much strictly PA, but I suppose we are living out the principle more than learning about it? We will add on more in the Spring, but I did not want to add on extra work just as she finally “got it” that doing it promptly got it done quickly. It would make it seem like a punishment.
Mrs. Mecomber, you are very right. It is interesting that homeschooling equalizes other socio-economic factors that we are told are almost insurmountable for some districts.
Dawn, thank you so much for stopping by and for the kind words! I think we all worry that we are doing an inadequate job. I think that came with the children. We love them so much and would do anything for them. So our greatest fear is naturally that our best isn’t enough. But I don’t think that is any different for parents with children in any educational setting.
We all worry about our kids (and what they’ll say about us when they are gone!).
This has always been my approach…I’d say at least from about 4th grade on. I stay very accessible and address issues as they occur. I have always told people that my teaching style is not so much “teaching”, as it is “responding to what they have learned”. And I have found that this works beautifully. Time is not wasted teaching children what they can learn on their own. “Mom-time” is much more focused on problem areas, subject matter that is difficult, or sometimes just reinforcing a more difficult concept.
Now that 2 of my daughters are in college, I’m VERY happy to report that this teaching method works. My oldest is a junior. She has a 4.0 grade point average through 5 semesters. She made this statement early on in her college experience…”Mom, I don’t think I’m smarter than the other kids, I just know how to learn.” As an honors student “competing” against other honors students (the public schooling “cream of the crop” if you will), she very clearly saw that her homeschooling experience was MUCH more effective in than her public school peers.
Thanks for a great article!
This is something I’ve been striving towards, and floundering many times. Thanks for some new ideas.
When my first daughter was still just a baby, an older mom of eight let me in on her homeschooling “secret”. How could she possibly homeschool so many children at one time? She did exactly what you are doing, and her children all loved what they were learning. I was so impressed with how lively and personal their learning was. The proof is in the puddin’.
My oldest is now about to turn 7, and her personality is a very structured, disciplined one. She’s up with the sun, dressed, and reading with her chores done before I even stumble out of bed in the morning. Very convicting, let me tell you
We are hoping to give her gradually increasing responsibility for her lessons. She reads well, so we’ll start there.
Thanks so much for such a fantastic post. I’m certain many readers will be blessed by your encouraging and thouht-provoking words.
Blessings,
Jacci
Thank you, Jacci. When they are independent, even in just some areas, it makes it easier to teach multiple children I am sure. I have four, but the others are not really doing formal lessons, yet. It also helps you know they are learning a few of the things you hope to teach them: personal responsibility and initiative for starters!
I hope your daughter does well with it…she sounds a bit like mine.
Dana,
I came here by way of Cindy’s blog. Your post struck a cord with me as I have a just-turned ten year old dd; she decides how to organize her days for school, chores, piano practice, etc. Rarely do I step in to tell her when to do something.
She floundered a bit at the beginning of our school year–she really wanted me to tell when to do each subject. I firmly but lovingly put the decisions back on her. She figured things out.
Totally off topic, but this is my first time to your blog and I immediately knew from your template I was looking at a picture of the sandhills. My husband grew up in the sandhills region; we live just a few hours away from there.
I’m looking forward to exploring your blog more another time. Cindy says the nicest things about you and your writing.
~Sarah
It is a process!
It is definetly a goal that I agree with… to attain self learners!
Thank you, Keri and Sarah!
And only a few hours away? That makes us (almost) neighbors! We are only about two hours away from where I took this picture. Thank you for saying such nice things about my blog and I hope you find it worthwhile to explore! I have some catching up to do after Thanksgiving, but I’ll be looking through yours as well.
I read this article as well and found it a very insightful writing by what is obviously a very intelligent teen. I have always approached homeschool with the idea that my goal was to create self- learners. Even in 1st and 3rd grades I give my children quite a bit of independent seatwork in the mornings, only stepping in to explain a math problem or clarify an assignment. Thanks so much for the post!
Leila @ Freedom Academy
Yeah! Someone else who reads the same magazine I do! I agree. She does seem very insightful and intelligent. And when she goes off to college, I doubt she will struggle much with deciding whether to study or party. : )
Great article! I’m amazed that your third grader was mature enough (given enough practice) to manage schoolwork independently. I didn’t really begin to self-teach until my freshman year of high school. Even now (sophomore in community college), my planning notebook is my best friend
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