Social Learning: Deciding to Host a Study Group

We all have a basic human need to connect with others. Spending too much time alone is detrimental to our emotional, spiritual and psychological well-being. We're all aware of this, and so we make an effort to get out and meet people. As parents, we arrange "play dates" for our children and take them to social gatherings. As homeschoolers, we actively pursue opportunities for meeting and keeping in touch with other homeschooling families. Usually, friendship and a sense of community are the main goals, but there's an added benefit: "social learning," or learning through collaboration and discussion within a group. Studies have shown that learning with others is good for our intellectual development. As John Seely Brown and Richard Adler write in their article, "Minds on Fire" (Educause, 2008):

". . . our understanding of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning."

What does this mean to us, as educators? It means we need to remember that studying and socializing are not necessarily separate things to be done at separate times. Like chocolate and peanut butter, they go better together. It isn't enough for kids to get together to play after all their studies are done. They also need opportunities to learn with, and from, each other.

Social Learning: From Play Dates to Study Groups

"What about socialization?" is a question every homeschooler is asked, usually more than once. The question is so ubiquitous, books about homeschooling typically include a section devoted to the topic (as one example, see Addressing Homeschool Socialization in Homeschooling for Dummies). Homeschoolers soon learn to ask for clarification: Is the questioner asking whether their homeschooled children have any friends? Or are they worried that their children will become social misfits? By now, enough research has been done to put both of these questions to rest (see Socialization: A Great Reason Not to Go to School by Karl M. Bunday), and my own experience during the past two decades supports the prevailing research: homeschooled kids enjoy a reasonable social life and possess decent social skills.

By the time they are three or four years old, kids show an interest in making friends. So, when my kids reached that age, I found or formed playgroups and arranged "play dates" for them. As they got older, I drove them to social activities: dance, music and art classes; book groups; scout meetings; science workshops; homeschool group "field trips" and science fairs; special days at nature centers, science museums, and historical landmarks. There was rarely a shortage of things to do or people to meet, and socialization wasn't a big concern.

I noticed a change, though, at around the age of 10 or 12. There were three new developments:

1. My kids began to crave meaningful, lasting relationships with a group of their peers. It wasn't enough for them to participate in large group activities with kids of all ages. Although those activities were fun, opportunities to make friends and "really talk," one-on-one, tended to be limited. 
2. They became more selective about their friendships. Unlike younger children, who seem willing to play with almost anyone they meet, my preteens wanted to spend time with people who were special to them in one way or another. They needed to find their "tribe." As they connected with a handful of friends who shared similar interests and a passion for life and learning, they favored time with those friends over other opportunities for "socializing." 
3. They wanted company during the long hours their more in-depth studies now required. They wanted to engage in serious conversations about what they were studying, and it was more interesting to learn with friends.

It was at this point that a handful of parents and preteens got together to brainstorm ways to combine academics with socializing. Without ever having heard of "social learning," we helped our kids form various study groups (book clubs and poetry workshops; cooking, sewing, science, and history classes). Most groups met once a week. The format usually included an adult mentor (one of the parents or an outside tutor) and four to eight kids whose ages were within a few years of each other. When it came to participating, maturity level mattered more than chronological age. From one year to the next, the group would change slightly as a few kids moved, went back to school, or graduated, and new members joined.

The Benefits of Open Learning

This past week, MIT Media Lab's course in Learning Creative Learning focused on "Open Learning," a term that means different things to different people. Webopedia defines open learning as "an approach to learning that gives students flexibility and choice over what, when, at what pace, where, and how they learn." Described in this way, open learning sounds like it could be another name for interest-based learning. 

However, "Open Learning" refers to more than an educational paradigm; the concept extends to all the freely available materials and resources that support an interest-based (or open) approach to learning. You probably use some of these resources already—Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Earth, Khan Academy—but there are more being added every day. 

As John Seely Brown and Richard Adler state in their article Minds on Fire (Educause Review, 2008), "vast [Internet] resources include the rapidly growing amount of open courseware, access to powerful instruments and simulation models, and scholarly websites, which already number in the hundreds, as well as thousands of niche communities based around specific areas of interest in virtually every field of endeavor" (p. 32). These "open educational resources," or OERs, have expanded learning opportunities for anyone with an internet connection. People from all over the world—and that includes homeschoolers—can easily access, use, adapt, and share high-quality learning materials. 

When Play and Experimentation Aren't Enough

I love to watch toddlers at play—totally engrossed in what they are doing, blissfully unselfconscious. While nearby adults provide safe boundaries and may be consulted occasionally for help or encouragement, toddlers are at their best when they are self-directed. For long stretches of time, they tinker with the objects in their environment and use a process of trial and error to discover how things work.

What if people of all ages could learn everything they ever needed to know on their own, simply by tinkering? There's no doubt that we can learn a lot without any formal instruction or assistance, but not all of us have the genius of Michael Faraday (one of "Six Uneducated Amateurs Whose Genius Changed the World") or Kelvin Doe, the African teen who taught himself how to build batteries, generators and transmitters:


The rest of us ordinary mortals usually find that tinkering only takes us so far. Eventually, we get stuck and our learning levels off. Maybe we don't care because we're content with the level of learning we've achieved. For example, I learned all I wanted to know about paper quilling from a Klutz book and a few afternoons of tinkering. Then again, maybe we will care a great deal, because our passion is to become the best writer, mathematician, or musician we have it in us to be. When my music-loving daughter wanted to take her self-taught guitar playing skills to the next level, she sought help from a professional musician.

Nurturing Interest-Based Learning

"On some level we know that if we become really involved with an area of knowledge, we learn it—with or without School, and in any case without the paraphernalia of curriculum and tests and segregation by age groups that School takes as axiomatic. We also know that if we do not become involved with the area of knowledge, we'll have trouble learning it with or without School's methods. . . . you can learn without being taught and often learn best when taught least." —Seymour Papert, The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer (1993), p. 141.

Seymour Papert coins a new term, "instructionism", to make a distinction between giving someone directions when they ask for them (instructing) and insisting that someone is dependent upon a constant stream of directions at all times (instructionism). There's nothing wrong with teaching per se—tutorials, demonstrations, and explanations all serve a purpose—the mistake is in the cultural mindset that assumes we can learn only when a teacher decides what, when and how we should learn. 

In a school setting, teachers generally do not have the freedom to allow students to pursue their own interests at their own pace. Classes are organized by age, and curriculums are designed with a specific scope and sequence: in fifth grade, everyone must study U.S. history, earth science, and the metric system. Weekly lesson plans dictate what will be taught (and, hopefully, learned). There's a practical reason for this: when you have large numbers of students to educate, it's more efficient.

Although it's possible to follow a similar approach to homeschooling, and some do, it isn't necessary. In fact, it may even be counterproductive. If your goal as a home educator is to empower your children to learn on their own, why not begin by allowing them to follow their interests and see where they lead?

"Well, sure," you may say, "That's fine if my kids happen to be interested in reading, writing, and arithmetic. But what happens when they aren't?"