John Dewey said in his pedagogic creed that education “is a process
of living and not a preparation for future living.”
This belief caused me to think about a few friends of mine that home
school. They follow the un-schooling
approach, and educate their children based on what they are working on in the
home, or what the child has interest in at the moment.
My friends don’t follow a curriculum and can often have topics
fly off into tangents. But the
process is intriguing to me, considering that is how I feel I learn the
best. By having a hands on
approach to what I am most interested in at the moment. I tend to be more engaged and
willing to work on things that I find important to me. I find that the same is true of my children. If they are excited about a topic, it
is easy to teach them. If they
have homework to do and are just checking the boxes, they give me a lot more grief.
My friend’s kids won’t be tested on reading or writing or math,
but they will have amazing knowledge about the world around them. Things like why baking powder makes
pancakes puffy, how your stomach breaks down the pancakes. Maybe, where the wheat comes from. Possibly even the weather systems that bring
the rain to make wheat grow.
Would this type of approach work well in school? No, probably not. Kids are interested in different
things at different times. I
think it’s important for them to learn grammar and math. However, I think if we allow
ourselves to follow children’s lead, and make school fun and more relative to
the world around them, a more meaningful and personal education will
follow.
I agree that children learn better when it is something they find interesting and something they are directly able to work with. However, it would be hard to follow the child’s lead as you said. In a class of 20-30 students, it’s near impossible to cater to every child’s interest directly.
ReplyDeleteI think home schooling has some great aspects, and then some that are not so good. The kids get one on one time every day, the teacher/parent probably has a pretty good grasp on what their child needs and how their child learns, there aren’t as many distractions from other students, and the student can move at his/her own pace (if they know how to do what they are learning they move faster through it and don’t have to wait for everyone else to figure it out too). It also allows the parent to give and model a specific set of morals and ideals that their particular family practices without a doubt. On the other hand, it has been noted that home-schooled kids don’t always have the social skills required to adequately interact with their peers. Yes, they are well educated in extremely practical things, but not necessarily everything the state requires them to know to pass ‘x’ grade. Regardless, I think there are both good and bad aspects to the two methods of education… Just depends on what is important to the parent.
Unschooling kept popping into my head too. But only if done right, which it sounds like your friend is. I homeschooled for a while and had encounters with unschoolers that were very negative, I think because the parents I met didn't fully understand the concept. The ones I've come across set no rules, guidelines, or boundaries for their kids. They completely overlooked that the child still needed to be guided.
ReplyDeleteBrecque, I disagree about the socialization part of homeschoolers. Homeschooled kids are some of the best socialized kids I've come across. And there is a lot of research out there that supports the conclusion that homeschooled kids are at least equally socialized than their traditional school counterparts ( http://delawarecatholichomeschooling.blogspot.com/2010/10/homeschool-socialization-studies.html). They are out in the communities interacting with a variety of different people in different situations. So when you think about it, they actually have more opportunities to gain socialization skills in real world situations, not just with like-aged others. My decision to homeschool was because my son hadn't developed adequate social skills needed to survive the school environment. I felt like we were able to make great strides during his middle school years and he transitioned back into traditional school for high school where he excelled academically and socially. But, like you said, in cases of homeschooling it is dependent on what the parent finds important to focus on.
Intriguing in itself, but problematic. Homeschooling is a tremendously diverse entity. There is an Amish and a gypsy community near where I went to postgraduate training. These children were locked in a world that was very different. They socialized, but not with children other than their group. Very difficult subject, but I will say that blogs are not science and are not objective. We must be careful what we use as "factual" and "propaganda".
ReplyDeleteWhich blog are you referring to? If the one I pasted, I chose that one because it was one I found that listed research articles that one could refer to not just in that particular entry but others as well.
ReplyDeleteUnclear- not directed at above, generalized statement. In world of today there is a significant number of expert bloggers that have followings and rant on dogma that is not factual- but becomes enculturated. My comment was on my own experience with writing and blogging. There also is a paragraph that didn't post, that might have made comment more clear. The content basically mentioned four blog types; 1. Experiential introspective (my life today, what I saw and felt), 2. Experiential external- (how I define what I saw today, felt today), 3. Factual Interpretive- (how I see the world and my interpretation), 4. Factual Presentative- (how the world is explained by research and studies). And this is of course an gross oversimplification. The third is the problematic one if misused. But if used to spur thought and not dogma can be the one that is of the most stimulating.
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