The assumption that homeschooling parents somehow lack awareness of their children’s
progress, and therefore require formal
evaluation of that progress, is related to the fact that homeschoolers function
beyond the arena of the schools, and our
philosophies and methods are not always well-understood.
How do homeschooling parents know their children are learning? The answer to
this question is, to put it most simply, direct
observation. I have only one child. If a teacher had only one child in her classroom,
and was unable to describe the reading
skills of that child, everyone would be dismayed—how could a teacher have
such close daily contact with one child and miss
something so obvious? Yet many people unfamiliar with homeschooling imagine
that parents with just this sort of close daily
contact with their child require outside evaluation to determine that child’s
progress. This puzzles homeschooling parents, who
cannot imagine missing anything so interesting as the nature of their child’s
learning.
No homeschooling parents have twenty-five children, and we are thus free to
focus on the enhancement of learning without
being continually distracted by the many time-consuming tasks unrelated to learning
that are necessary in a classroom situation.
This freedom from distraction is a major factor in the establishment of a lively,
creative, and joyful learning environment.
Any parent of a preschool child could almost certainly tell us how many numbers
her child can count to, and how many colours
he knows—not through testing, but simply through many hours of listening
to his questions and statements and observing his
behavior. In homeschooling, this type of observation simply continues on into
higher ages and more complex learning.
There are many times in the course of a day when a reasonably curious child
will want to know the meaning of certain printed
words—in books and newspapers, on the computer or television, on board
game instruction cards, on package labels, on mail
that has just arrived, and so on. If this child’s self-esteem is intact,
he will not hesitate to ask his parents the meanings of these
words. Through the decrease of questions of this type, and the actual reading
aloud of certain words, (“Look, Daddy, this
package is for you!”) it seems safe to assume that reading is progressing
in the direction of literacy. This may seem to outsiders
to be somewhat imprecise, but homeschooling parents learn through experience
that more specific evaluation is intrusive,
unnecessary, and self-defeating.
If the government were to establish compulsory evaluation of babies to determine
whether they were walking on schedule,
everyone would think that was absurd. We all know that healthy babies walk eventually,
and that it would be futile and
frustrating to attempt to speed up that process; it would be as foolish as trying
to speed up the blooming of a rose. Gardeners
do not worry about late- blooming roses, or measure their daily progress—they
trust in nature’s good intentions, meet the
needs of the plants under their care, and know that any further intervention
would interfere with the natural flow of their growth.
Such trust is as essential in the education of a child as it is in gardening.
All healthy rose bushes bloom when ready, all healthy
babies walk when ready, and all healthy children in a family of readers read
when ready—though this may be as late as ten or
twelve. There is no need to speed up or measure this process.
The child’s progress is not always smooth; there may be sudden shifts
from one stage to the next. Thus, formal evaluation given
just prior to such a shift may give unfair and misleading information. At a
time when I knew (through a reduction in the number
of requests for me to read certain signs, labels, etc.) that my son Jason’s
reading was improving, but not, as far as I knew, yet
able to read fluently, I told him one evening that I was unable to read to him
because I wasn’t feeling well. He said, ‘Well, you
can rest and I’ll read a book to you." He proceeded to read an entire
book flawlessly, at a level of more difficulty than I would
have guessed.
Thus it sometimes happens in the natural course of living with a child that
we receive more direct and specific information about
his progress. But it should be stressed that this is part of the natural process
of “aiding and abetting” a child’s learning, and that
requiring such direct proof is almost always self-defeating. Had I required
him to read the book, he might well have refused,
because he would have felt the anxiety which anyone feels when being evaluated.
But because he chose to read voluntarily, and
his accuracy was not being examined, anxiety was not a factor.
Homeschooling parents, then, cannot avoid having a good general idea of a child’s
progress in reading, or in any other area.
Without testing for specific learning, we may underestimate a child’s abilities
to some extent, but all that means is that we make
delightful discoveries along the way.
If homeschooling parents do not measure, evaluate and control learning, how
can the child himself know when to move on to
the next level? If we were to ask a horticulturist how a rose knows when to
bloom, he or she could not answer that question; it
is taken on faith that such knowledge is built into the miraculous design of
the seed. A child’s schedule of intellectual growth,
like the rose’s blooming, may indeed be a mysterious process, but it nonetheless
exists, built into each child at conception.
There is no need to impose such a process from the outside, and no one but the
child has direct access to this process. Thus
any imposition of an artificial structure must necessarily be less successful
than simply leaving these determinations to the child.
That is, any attempt to make these determinations from the outside represent
mere guesswork that is unlikely to match up with
the actual unfolding of interests and abilities within the child.
Jason, though somewhat “late” in walking (17 months) and fluent reading
(7 years), one day at age three taught himself squares
and square roots. How could I have guessed that he was ready for that level
of mathematics on that particular day? Had I been
imposing a standard curriculum, I might have discouraged early mathematics and
emphasized reading, and to what end? He is
now proficient in, and greatly enjoys, both areas. Ultimately, it made no difference
that he achieved this mastery along unevenly
timed routes. As John Holt observed, children are not trains. If a train does
not reach every station on time, it will be late
reaching its ultimate destination. But a child can be late at every “station”,
and can even change the entire route of the learning
process, and still reach mastery of all areas of learning in good time.
The homeschooling child not only knows what he needs to learn, but how best
to go about learning it. Jason has always devised
ingenious ways for learning what is currently in the foreground of his interest.
His method for learning squares and square
roots—rows and columns of dots on paper—would never have occurred
to me, even if I had guessed correctly that he was
ready for this subject at that early age. At about evaluation given just prior
to such a shift may give unfair and misleading
information. At a time when I knew (through a reduction in the number of requests
for me to read certain signs, labels, etc.) that
my son Jason’s reading was improving, but not, as far as I knew, yet able
to read fluently, I told him one evening that I was
unable to read to him because I wasn’t feeling well. He said, ‘Well,
you can rest and I’ll read a book to you." He proceeded to
read an entire book flawlessly, at a level of more difficulty than I would have
guessed.
Thus it sometimes happens in the natural course of living with a child that
we receive more direct and specific information about
his progress. But it should be stressed that this is part of the natural process
of “aiding and abetting” a child’s learning, and that
requiring such direct proof is almost always self-defeating. Had I required
him to read the book, he might well have refused,
because he would have felt the anxiety which anyone feels when being evaluated.
But because he chose to read voluntarily, and
his accuracy was not being examined, anxiety was not a factor.
Homeschooling parents, then, cannot avoid having a good general idea of a child’s
progress in reading, or in any other area.
Without testing for specific learning, we may underestimate a child’s abilities
to some extent, but all that means is that we make
delightful discoveries along the way.
If homeschooling parents do not measure, evaluate and control learning, how
can the child himself know when to move on to
the next level? If we were to ask a horticulturist how a rose knows when to
bloom, he or she could not answer that question; it
is taken on faith that such knowledge is built into the miraculous design of
the seed. A child’s schedule of intellectual growth,
like the rose’s blooming, may indeed be a mysterious process, but it nonetheless
exists, built into each child at conception.
There is no need to impose such a process from the outside, and no one but the
child has direct access to this process. Thus
any imposition of an artificial structure must necessarily be less successful
than simply leaving these determinations to the child.
That is, any attempt to make these determinations from the outside represent
mere guesswork that is unlikely to match up with
the actual unfolding of interests and abilities within the child.
Jason, though somewhat “late” in walking (17 months) and fluent reading
(7 years), one day at age three taught himself squares
and square roots. How could I have guessed that he was ready for that level
of mathematics on that particular day? Had I been
imposing a standard curriculum, I might have discouraged early mathematics and
emphasized reading, and to what end? He is
now proficient in, and greatly enjoys, both areas. Ultimately, it made no difference
that he achieved this mastery along unevenly
timed routes. As John Holt observed, children are not trains. If a train does
not reach every station on time, it will be late
reaching its ultimate destination. But a child can be late at every “station”,
and can even change the entire route of the learning
process, and still reach mastery of all areas of learning in good time.
The homeschooling child not only knows what he needs to learn, but how best
to go about learning it. Jason has always devised
ingenious ways for learning what is currently in the foreground of his interest.
His method for learning squares and square
roots—rows and columns of dots on paper—would never have occurred
to me, even if I had guessed correctly that he was
ready for this subject at that early age. At about age 6, he was looking over
a new globe, and made a game of guessing which
of several pairs of countries was larger in area, then larger in population,
and so on. These sorts of games went on constantly;
his creativity in designing interesting learning methods far surpassed my own,
and I never had to give a single thought to
motivation. My child is not unique; many homeschooling parents have reported
just this sort of creativity and joyful learning in
their children.
Jason has had no lessons in the conventional sense. He has taught himself,
with help as needed and requested by him, reading,
writing, math, and science. However, these subjects are not treated as separate
categories, but as parts of the topic of current
interest. My role has not been that of “teacher”, but of facilitator.
I am not merely a passive observer, however. When he asked
a question—which he did many times each day, I answered it as well as I
could. If I couldn’t, I became a researcher: I made
phone calls, helped him to use the encyclopedia, accompanied him to the library,
or found someone with relevant experience
with whom he could learn; whatever helped him to find the answer. This was not
merely helpful in answering his specific
questions, but in the more general sense of modeling the many ways in which
information can be obtained. That is, regardless of
which specific topics were covered, our larger curriculum has always been “how
to learn” and “how to obtain information.”
In an age of “information explosion,” it is no longer meaningful
or realistic to require rote memorization of specific facts. Not
only are these facts meaningless to the child unless they happen to coincide
with his own current and unique interests, such facts
are simply too numerous, and many will in any case be outdated by the time he
is an adult. But if a child learns how to obtain
information, he can apply that skill throughout his life.
While we do not consider ourselves homeschooling for religious reasons, we
have always welcomed the time available to
explore questions of personal ethics, and to encourage such qualities as kindness,
honesty, trust, cooperation, creative solutions
to problems, and compassion for others. This is a significant part of our “curriculum”.
We have also appreciated having time in
the morning to discuss dreams from the previous night and plans for the day
ahead, when I would otherwise have been
preoccupied with helping him to get ready for school. Believing that modern
life is already overly hectic, we try as far as
possible to make room for unhurried time in our family.
What I have described above is sometimes called “unschooling”, in
which the child’s current interests determine the curriculum,
and the parents act not as teachers but as tutors and resource assistants. This
method, one of several homeschooling
approaches, is often misunderstood, because it is based on assumptions that
are quite different from those implicit in
conventional schooling.
Unschoolers are more often described by what we do not do; we do not “teach”;
we do not impose an arbitrary, artificial
curriculum; we do not structure the hours of our “school day”. Let
me describe what it is we do:
- Answer questions. Many of us believe that this is the most essential and
critical aspect of a successful homeschooling
program.
- Encourage creative and cooperative solutions to problems as they arise.
- Seek out resources and information to support whatever current interests the
child is exploring.
- Attempt to illustrate, through the daily decisions we make, the benefits of
such personal moral qualities as friendship, honesty,
and responsibility.
- Model the joys of learning through our own discussions, reading, and research.
While it is not impossible for a conventionally schooling family to pursue
the kinds of activities I have described, it is simply
more difficult to do so when parents and children have so much less time together,
and when even after-school hours are
influenced by projects, homework, and other school-related demands. In addition,
school children become used to seeking
emotional support from peers, and this pattern is difficult to interrupt even
when school is not in session.
Rather than being threatened by homeschoolers and unschoolers, who will always
be a small minority, educators would do well
to see us as colleagues and sources of information on the nature of learning
and motivation. After all, we spend nearly all of our
waking hours observing, studying, and participating in this fascinating endeavor.
Unlike school teachers, we also have the luxury
of continuity: we observe learning unfold over many years of spending time with
the same child. This helps us to understand the
nature of individual intellectual development over the long term.
Homeschoolers, unschoolers, and public school educators share the same goals.
That we take divergent paths to these goals
should be seen not as an obstacle but as an opportunity to explore—in a
cooperative spirit—the unique discoveries each path
offers.
Reprinted by permission of the author. Originally published on the Natural
Child Project website at: www.naturalchild.
org.
Copyright Jan Hunt (janhunt@ naturalchild.org).