Home Learning Year By Year by Rebecca Rupp

This is the 7th post in my series about books related to teaching, learning and homeschooling. 

(See my earlier post for a description of the series.)

"There are many roads to an educational Rome," writes Rebecca Rupp in her book, Home Learning Year By Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. While she isn't the first to advocate moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach to education, she is the only experienced homeschooler I know who has written a comprehensive book aimed at helping those who want to design their own course of study.

I remember when I first came across her book. I was feeling anxious, eager to try something new but not entirely sure how to go about it. I hadn't been homeschooling for long, maybe a few months, but I had already reached a point where I knew the curriculum I'd borrowed from the school wasn't going to work for us. The pre-planned activities were contrived and unrelated to my daughter's interests, and she quickly became bored with the worksheets and textbooks. Now what? I wondered. My trouble was that I had no experience with designing my own curriculum. I'd been assuming I'd be able to depend on McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton-Mifflin to lead the way.

Home Learning Year by Year was just what I needed at the time. It offered me guidance without being prescriptive. Instead of mandating "What Your First Grader Needs to Know," it outlined a typical program of study while allowing for individual differences. Her goal was to help parents become familiar "with the general course of the standardized educational curriculum," but only so that they could use it "as a reference point and a guideline rather than a set of predetermined assignments."

And that's exactly what I used it for: a reference and a guideline.

As a reference, the book offers recommendations for books, websites, games and more. While the recommendations—particularly the URLs—are mostly out-of-date now, they were incredibly helpful during the pre-Internet years, back when I first started homeschooling. Thanks to Rebecca Rupp, my kids and I were introduced to:

• Funny history books by Kathleen Krull and Jean Fritz
• Entertaining math stories, creative hands-on activities, and the remarkable Marilyn Burns
• Janice Van Cleave's science experiments (for all grade levels)
• . . . and much more

As a guideline, Home Learning Year By Year was essential to me because my kids straddled multiple grade levels throughout their homeschooling years. I would skim the chapters to get a sense of how my children were doing in various subjects and adjust my plans accordingly. For example, if at the age of seven my daughter was already comfortable with "fourth-grade" mathematics but hadn't yet figured out how to use a dictionary, I might spend a little time showing her how guide words work instead of recommending yet another math game to her.

Home Learning Year By Year was a book I turned to again and again because it comforted me to see that even though I wasn't dictating what my children should learn from one year to the next, they were always making progress, mastering different skills each year. I took Ms. Rupp's wise advice to heart, and I share it with you here:

"No parent should view the standardized curriculum as cause for worry. Children vary, and homeschoolers inevitably will find that their more-or-less first grader isn't quite standard. . . . The standardized curriculum can indicate academic areas in which kids need extra help and support—or creative substitutes and alternatives, or stress-reducing periods of being left alone. Variation, though, is normal, and our many individual differences are what make the world the interesting place it is. Kids are natural learners, and each will find his or her own best way to learn."

Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto

This is the 6th post in my series about books related to teaching, learning and homeschooling. 

(See my earlier post for a description of the series.)

I first came across Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling (1st edition, 1991) at a homeschooling conference. At the time, I was trying to understand why my mostly positive memories of elementary school in the 1960s were not enough to overcome my adverse reaction to sending my daughter to school in 1996. How had something that had felt so right for me, when I was a child, become something that felt so wrong for my own free-spirited little girl?

At first, all I had to go on was a gut feeling, because I hadn't yet found the words to describe exactly what it was about the school environment that bothered me, but the feeling wouldn't go away. I just knew there was something about the way my daughter was being instructed and confined all day that didn't sit well with me. What had been OK for me was not something I was willing to accept for her.  It was as simple—and irrational—as that. What I needed was a rational explanation for what my instincts were telling me.

I think that's why Dumbing Us Down caught my attention. "Strong Words from the New York State Teacher of the Year" the cover proclaimed. Glancing at the back of the book, I learned the author was a teacher who had broken ranks and turned against the system that had employed him.  He had resigned "after 26 years of award-winning teaching in Manhattan's public schools." What had happened to provoke this teacher, who in his book describes school as "a twelve-year jail sentence where bad habits are the only curriculum truly learned"? 

Strong words, indeed, but was there any truth to them? I bought a copy of the book to decide for myself. In the first chapter, I read about the seven lessons that make up the "hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling." They are, according to Gatto:

1. Confusion—"Everything I teach is out of context."
2. Class Position—"The variety of ways children are numbered by schools has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human beings plainly under the weight of the numbers they carry."
3. Indifference—"The lesson of bells is that no work is worth finishing, so why care too deeply about anything?"
4. Emotional Dependency—"By stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors, and disgraces, I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestinated chain of command."
5. Intellectual Dependency—"Good students wait for a teacher to tell them what to do."
6. Provisional Self-Esteem—"I teach that a kid's self-respect should depend on expert opinion. My kids are constantly evaluated and judged." "Self-evaluation, the staple of every major philosophical system that ever appeared on the planet, is never considered a factor."
7. One Can't Hide—"I teach students they are always watched, that each is under constant surveillance by myself and my colleagues."

Although I didn't agree with all the libertarian rhetoric in Gatto's book—too many sweeping generalizations and not enough evidence to convince me—his list of lessons validated what I had been feeling. My daughter had already complained (in first grade!) about doing work that seemed meaningless (i.e., out of context). She grumbled about not having enough time to finish her work and the lack of "alone time." And, as her mother, I was concerned about her lack of freedom: her teacher made all the decisions about what, when and how to learn, leaving little opportunity for self-directed learning or "free play." 

So, why hadn't these things bothered me when I was in school? I think it was because I was the kind of child who needed a place that was predictable, where expectations were clear and consistent. I thrived on the gold stars and approval I got from teachers. For reasons I won't go into here, I didn't expect to have control over my own life, so I was ripe for schooling.

But a child who has always been encouraged to believe in herself and pursue her own dreams knows what freedom feels like. She takes for granted her ability to branch out and explore, gradually widening her reach as she grows older. I think that's why putting my daughter into school felt so much like putting her into a cage. Compared to her life at home and within a larger community, it was too limiting, too confining, too prescriptive. I wanted her to have access to a bigger experience than school could provide. 

That's what Gatto's book helped me to see:

"Whatever an education is, it should make you a unique individual, not a conformist; it should furnish you with an original spirit with which to tackle the big challenges; it should allow you to find values which will be your road map through life; it should make you spiritually rich, a person who loves whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whomever you are with; it should teach you what is important, how to live and how to die." 

The Art of Education by Linda Dobson

This is the 5th post in my series about books related to teaching, learning and homeschooling. (See my earlier post for a description of the series.)

Imagine that all the books I'm writing about are having a conversation. Here's what the books I've written about so far have had to say: 

• Homeschooling for Excellence says it's possible for kids who do not attend school to excel academically. It provides an example of one family's approach to homeschooling.
• Family Matters makes a compelling case from various points of view (emotional, familial, academic, social, political, philosophical) for choosing to homeschool.
• Learning All the Time argues that children are typically born knowing how to learn and will continue to do so if we don't get in their way (similar to the way an object in motion will continue in motion unless an outside force acts upon it). 
• In Their Own Way explains why it's important to consider how someone learns, their preferred learning style(s), before you try to help them with what they want to learn.

The Art of Education by Linda Dobson adds another voice in favor of homeschooling. Unfortunately, the first six chapters come across (in my opinion) as unnecessarily inflammatory, reactionary and specious. For example, she writes:

" . . . public school programming has managed to create a society void of internal moral motivation and filled with hate, violence, and distrust." 

Well, maybe. But I've seen school "programming" that's inspiring, and I've known students for whom school was a sanctuary. It's not a black-and-white situation (school = evil, family-centered learning = good).

I'm glad I didn't give up on The Art of Education after the first few chapters, though, because the book also offers compassionate advice for those who believe homeschooling can be more than simply an alternative way to learn math and science. For instance, I agree with Dobson when she writes:

"Balanced learning with loved ones provides that sense of wholeness it is our nature to seek. Instead of feeling denied, we feel fulfilled, instead of feeling disrespected, we respect Self. Instead of separation, we experience connection."

How I chose to educate my children—striving to respect their choices instead of dictating their lives, for example—has had a lasting impact on the quality of our family relationships, our community of friends, and even how I feel about myself. The point Dobson makes is that homeschooling is not simply a matter of replacing school teachers with home tutors—if we are open-minded and willing to adapt, the experience can be both personally and socially transformative.

"We're free to do things you can't do in school. We can make noise; we can talk to each other; we can help each other [without being accused of cheating]; we can take as long as we want when a topic of book captures our interest; we can follow our hearts and interests wherever they lead; we can make mistakes without ridicule and attempt something new without fear of being graded, judged, and labeled should we reach a bit too high. We can do many of those things research shows increase the odds of children enjoying the learning experience. We can practice the art of education." 

I'd argue that students may also be allowed do these things in schools, where teachers and administrators have worked together to find creative alternatives to the old-school model of lecture, test, grade, repeat. What I like most about The Art of Education is that it pushes all of us to re-examine our priorities, deal with our personal baggage, and become better human beings in the process. 

The Art of Education includes an introduction by John Taylor Gatto, professional educator and author of Dumbing Us Down—the book I plan to review in my next post.

Learning All the Time by John Holt

This is the third post in my series about books related to teaching, learning and homeschooling. (See my earlier post for a description of the series.)

One of the points that David Guterson makes in his book Family Matters (the focus of my previous post) is that the word "homeschooling" is a misnomer, "a newspeak word for the attempt to gain an education outside of institutions." He writes:

"A homeschooler is not really a homeschooler at all but rather a younger person who does not go to school, a person best defined by what he does not do as opposed to by what he does. (It is sometimes used, too, to describe his parents, so that the term has often a double meaning: It encompasses both children who do not go to school and those who guide them in schools' stead.)" 

I've always felt slightly uncomfortable with the homeschooling label, as applied to myself or my children, and I know many others who feel the same way. Half the problem is that the "home" part of the term obscures the diversity of our individualized, out-in-the-world educational experiences. The other half of the problem is that describing education received outside of institutions as "schooling" tends to influence expectations.

If homeschooling is merely schooling at home, the thinking goes, why not expect parents to copy what teachers in schools are doing? In some highly-regulated states, this school-centric bias influences legislation as lawmakers and teachers assume that parents who choose to homeschool should be required to develop formal lesson plans and daily activities contrived to revolve around a standardized curriculum. They insist student progress must be evaluated frequently with timed tests and recorded in percentiles or letter grades.

But here's the problem: some of us who homeschool our children are doing so because the school model isn't a good fit for us. I tried the top-down, mom-as-teacher approach for a while when I first started homeschooling, but it felt wrong to me. Not only was it a struggle to get my daughter to do assignments that were contrived and not what she wanted to be doing, it was also hard for me to believe that I knew best what she needed to learn on a given day. She had been curious, motivated and able to learn without my intervention before we started homeschooling, so why did I now feel compelled to slip into the role of teacher? Why had I stopped doing what had been working so well?

Thank goodness someone handed me a copy of Learning All the Time by John Holt. What he wrote validated what I had been feeling:

"Anytime that, without being invited, without being asked, we try to teach somebody else something, anytime we do that, we convey to that person, whether we know it or not, a double message. The first part of the message is: I am teaching you something important, but you're not smart enough to see how important it is. Unless I teach it to you, you'd probably never bother to find out. The second message that uninvited teaching conveys to the other person is: What I'm teaching you is so difficult that, if I didn't teach it to you, you couldn't learn it." 

What Holt describes as "uninvited teaching" was what I had been doing when I'd been following a curriculum. I'd gone from being a mother who shared ideas and showed my daughter the world to being a teacher who said, "This is what you need to know, and this is how you will learn it." No wonder my daughter was getting angry: I wasn't trusting or respecting her choices.

Holt gave me the confidence to go back to being the person I was before I started thinking I had to be a schoolteacher. The way he wrote about children resonated with me because what he described matched my own experiences with my own children:

"Children are passionately eager to make as much sense as they can of the world around them, are extremely good at it, and do it as scientists do, by creating knowledge out of experience. Children observe, wonder, find, or make and then test the answers to the questions they ask themselves. When they are not actually prevented from doing these things, they continue to do them and to get better and better at it."

Intuitively, I knew I didn't need to force my daughter to learn; I just needed to avoid getting in her way. The best way to help my child, Holt explained, was to do what already came naturally to me as a mother.

"Like a naturalist, an observant parent will be alert both to small clues and to large patterns of behavior. By noticing these, a parent can often offer appropriate suggestions and experiences, and also learn whether the help and explanations already given have been adequate."  

John Holt changed the way I thought about education. He helped me to see the difference between being responsive to my child's needs—essentially, being the kind of mother I wanted to be—and being intrusive, turning my home into a school.

For More Information About John Holt and Learning All the Time

• Who Was John Holt? (Growing Without Schooling, JohnHoltGWS.com)
• A Conversation with John Holt (The Natural Child Project)
• FUN Books (formerly John Holt Bookstore)

Teachers Learning From Each Other

Last May, I wrote about "Homeschooling, Big Picture Learning and the Met," because I was excited to see some overlap between Big Picture Learning ideas and homeschooling. I wrote, "As public schools begin to offer more interesting educational opportunities for students, homeschoolers may want to take a closer look at their local schools. Perhaps there's some common ground that hasn't been explored, some mutually beneficial ideas we can share with each other.  Hopefully, those of us who feel we've learned a thing or two about education will feel inspired to ask, 'How can we work together to improve the educational alternatives for all the children in our communities?'"

If we were to aggregate all the experiences of home educators, teachers, mentors, coaches, and other types of youth leaders, imagine how much we would learn from each other. We have a wealth of experience from which to draw, but too often doors are closed and people are unwilling to subject themselves to public scrutiny. As a home educator, I certainly understand and respect the desire for privacy. I also recognize the risks of exposing ourselves to criticism—or worse—especially when our methods are unconventional. Yet, as scary as it may be to show others exactly how we do our jobs, I'm beginning to think it's perhaps the best way to illustrate a new way to learn. 

Minnesota New Country School

As a participant in the Deeper Learning MOOC (DLMOOC), I had a wonderful opportunity to take a virtual glimpse inside the Minnesota New Country School (a public charter school serving grades K–12).  It was enlightening for me to see how teachers were offering personalized learning experiences and taking student choices seriously within their school setting.

If you would like to see for yourself, watch "Deeper Learning Through Personalized Learning Plans," one of many Vimeo videos available from TeachingChannel.org.

This on-the-spot glimpse into the Minnesota New Country School shows how teachers and students use personalized learning plans for their projects. What I find especially interesting is how much overlap there is between the Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach and what I would describe as child-led learning, or "unschooling." Specifically:

1. Students are encouraged to choose their own projects, which increases their level of interest and sense of control.
2. Students select an adult advisor with whom they can establish a longterm (more than a single semester or year) connection, which leads to a greater sense of continuity, familiarity, mutual understanding and trust.
3. Students work at their own pace, uninterrupted by bells.
4. Adult mentors assist with planning and record-keeping. 

As you may have noticed if you've been reading this blog, I've always believed in involving kids in decisions about their learning. Even though I wouldn't allow my kids to avoid entire disciplines (math or writing, for example), I could still talk to them about why a particular subject was important enough to merit their consideration. I could also help them find ways to connect topics to their own interests. At a minimum, they could choose the specific topics within a general subject to be explored. They've always had a voice—a say in what they were doing—and a range of choices.

Along with seeing the similarities between child-led homeschooling and project-based learning, I noted some obvious differences:

1. Standards. Teachers in an accredited school must consistently evaluate the work being done by students in terms of mandated standards (state curriculum frameworks, Common Core—or whatever comes next). In contrast, even in "The 8 Strictest States for Homeschooling" (as of 2012), home educated students generally have more freedom to deviate from the norm than their schooled peers. 
2. Documentation. Students in a school prepare extensive formal documentation to demonstrate what they have learned; students in a home setting keep records but tend to rely more on dialog and informal assessments (with formal evaluations typically conducted once a year to satisfy state requirements).
3. Resources. I should probably state the obvious here: I envied the equipment and materials those students had at their school. Although homeschoolers have virtually unlimited access to an astounding variety of craft and science supplies sold by hundreds of vendors, there are still budgetary and practical limits to what makes sense in a home. A school, by comparison, can obtain large or expensive equipment and (potentially dangerous) lab materials. Overall, I think my kids did a great job of cobbling together what they needed for various projects, but how wonderful it would have been to have everything at our fingertips day after day! 

Our experiences don't have to be identical to be worth sharing. By observing the interactions between teachers and students at New Country School with an open mind, I have been able to evaluate what I do as a home educator from a different point of view. I have also gained a more optimistic outlook on how schools are striving to meet the needs of their students. Although a teacher in a classroom may be working with different constraints and resources than I am, I can still learn from watching how he or she teaches. Reciprocally, as I present the experiences I have had as a home educator, I hope I will help someone who is interested in exploring a different approach to teaching.

If you're a teacher, have you been willing to share your work openly with others? Tell me, what has that been like for you? In what ways have you been able to learn from your students and other teachers?

Self-Assessments: "How Am I Doing?"

Every year at the New Hampshire Homeschooling Coalition Spring Workshop, a handful of experienced homeschooling parents, serving as panelists, answer questions about homeschooling. The workshop typically begins with an overview of the NH Home Education law (RSA 193-A). Panelists are then asked about their personal experiences. Why did they choose to homeschool? How did they get started? Where do they find educational resources? How do they connect with other homeschoolers?

At some point in the middle of the workshop, there's one question that's always asked:

"What are your goals and how do you know you’re accomplishing enough?"

While (as a panelist), I realized this question was about educational goals, I couldn't answer without stating the obvious: my highest priority as a parent was my children's well-being. I wanted them to have fond memories of our time together, so I focused on how they learned—I adamantly refused to use a system of rewards and punishments to manipulate, coerce, or shame them into reaching academic milestones. If my kids didn't feel loved and respected and valued for who they were, no amount of accomplishment would ever make up for it.

If I'm honest, though, I have to admit: knowing whether we were accomplishing enough wasn't easy. Most of the time, I went through an informal process of trial and error. When my kids seemed bored, I tried to help them find more challenging work to do. If they were frustrated or stuck, I encouraged them to slow down and take things one step at a time. "Assessment" was generally something that happened dynamically and continuously as I had regular conversations with my children about how they were doing, what interested them, and where they were struggling.

More formally, I could see my kids were making progress when I helped them assemble their annual portfolios at the end of the year. Their portfolios included a written summary of the major milestones in their lives, photos, samples of work, programs from performances, and other evidence of what they'd done during the year. It was always obvious that they had accomplished much, but was it "enough"? How much was enough? That was difficult for me to evaluate without comparing what my kids had done to what other kids the same age were doing.

All of which leads me to these questions: What can an educator reasonably expect from a student? What should students—or lifelong learners—expect from themselves?

Deeper Learning Goals Require a Supportive Infrastructure

“A life worth living, and work worth doing—that is what I want for children (and all people), not just, or not even, something called 'a better education'.”—John Holt

It isn't easy to walk the fine line between mentoring and meddling, between offering support and insisting on "helping." Over the years, as I have been experimenting with a curriculum-free approach to education, three things have helped me more than anything else:

1. Permission to make mistakes. I had to give up the notion that I would get it right the first time. I had to be able to admit—to myself and my kids—when I had erred on the side of providing too much guidance (or too little). I had to experience a sinking ship a few times before I could turn things around. 
2. Trust. Patience, faith, trust—whatever it takes to step back and observe instead of interfering when things aren't progressing exactly as one might like them to be. When it comes to helping another person become who they are meant to be, there's so much we can't possibly know. There's a temptation to deal with the uncertainty by trying to control everything, but that seldom succeeds. 
3. Support. I could not have stayed the course if I had not had a community of people who were willing to listen, empathize, and share their own stories with me. 

When my kids were learning according to the expected or traditional timetable, and they chose academic subjects that educators have typically valued (reading, writing, math, science), it was easy for me to trust that everything would work out fine, regardless of the teaching method I used. The hard part was having faith when their interests were unconventional, bordering on obsessive, or proceeding at an unusual pace. I had to ask myself, "How resolved am I, really, to allowing my children to learn according to their own, unique internal plans?" If one of my children was" falling behind," what did that mean? Did I need to be concerned, or could I trust that he or she would eventually "catch up"?

Knowing when to intervene and when to trust the process is difficult but extremely important.

Most of the time, I simply had to learn to trust my kids and myself. It was not particularly helpful when concerned strangers would ask what I was doing, or how I was doing it, or "exactly what my kids were learning from playing all afternoon."If I had been required to report regularly to an oversight committee or school official, the days when it seemed like nothing was being learned (or everything was falling apart!) would have been much harder for me to recover from. I imagine the same might be true for teachers who are trying to encourage deeper learning in their classrooms. 

It takes courage to do something unconventional, and educating children without knowing for sure whether or not you are going to be successful is terrifying, especially when the stakes are so high. No adult wants to be responsible for messing up a child's future, so the pressure to do the job well is immense. Having others you respect say, "It's going to be OK, you are doing fine," or "Here, this is what I did, and it seemed to work," can make all the difference.

Can a Class Be Too Small?

In his book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell opens a can of worms when he asks the question, "Can a class be too small?" When it comes to the number of students in a classroom, most of us assume smaller is better. I know I do. The low student-to-teacher ratio makes sense to me intuitively: the fewer students a teacher has in his or her class, the more individualized attention each student would receive.

And yet, Gladwell argues that "The small class is potentially as difficult for a teacher to manage as the very large class size." To test his theory, Gladwell polled a large number of teachers in the United States and Canada. In David and Goliath, he quotes some of those teachers as they offer plausible explanations for why small class sizes are problematic:

• Interactions are too intense. While there are, presumably, fewer interactions in a small class for a teacher to manage, the interactions that do occur are more difficult to handle. "There is simply no way for the cantankerous kids to get away from one another." There's no place for students to hide. According to one teacher, "the students start acting 'like siblings in the backseat of a car.'" 
• Insufficient "critical mass" for discussions and group activities. As a middle school teacher explains, "students are awkward and self-conscious and anxious about seeming too smart. Getting them to engage . . . can be 'like pulling teeth.'" Also, as one teacher states, "It's difficult to play games . . . the  momentum just isn't there." 
• Lack of peers at a similar academic level within a class.  In a really small class, it is harder to find others who are just like you. There are no subgroups. Complains one teacher, "The chances that children are surrounded by a critical mass of other people like them start to get really low." As one teacher explains: "What you need [as a student] is to have people around you asking the same questions, wrestling with the same issues, and worrying about the same things as you are, so that you feel a little less isolated and a little more normal." 
• Lack of diversity in discussions. Fewer students means fewer (if any!) participants in a discussion. If the group is too small, "it's like they have a muzzle on." 

The magic number for class size, according to the teachers Gladwell polled, seems to be between 18 and 30 students. Since I have trouble understanding why a teacher would actually prefer to work with so many students at one time, I would like to contrast my experiences as a homeschooler with the experiences of the teachers Gladwell interviewed. The main question I'm attempting to answer is this:

Exactly what is it about certain settings—in particular, the various discussion-based classes that are taught by homeschooling parents like myself—that makes small class sizes desirable?  

(Although my response is necessarily based on my experiences as a home educator, I imagine there are many other situations where small class sizes are preferable, too.)

Excuse My Absence: November Is National Novel Writing Month

For the past couple of years, I have set aside time during the month of November for National Novel Writing Month. Although I've yet to take my "novels" to the next stage to have them published, I have enjoyed the process immensely. One of the highlights of my years of home educating has been to participate in NaNoWriMo with my kids.

I have to thank my kids for this. They were the ones who discovered NaNoWriMo. When my oldest daughter was around 15 and an avid writer, she successfully completed the challenge: writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Her younger siblings, who were only nine and twelve at the time, entered the competition, too. Although they didn't reach the 50,000 word goal that first year, they got a taste for writing that stayed with them.

Choices: Too Many, Not Enough, or Just Right?

What could possibly be wrong with having lots of choices? Choices acknowledge our individual differences: when we advocate for choice, we promote diversity, creativity, and critical thinking. As a parent and home educator, I favor creative alternatives to traditional forms of education—choices!—because I have met many students (my own children included) who do much better when they are not forced to conform to a single, prescriptive approach to learning. I have frequently argued that being able to choose for oneself is empowering, especially when it comes to education. Thanks to advances in technology, open educational resources, and online courses, hundreds of thousands of adults now feel empowered to pursue higher education on their own terms and schedules.

So, choice is good; but, what about too many choices? Recently, when I wanted to learn more about blogging, I used Google to search the Web, and I was presented with over 127 million results. Which ones were worth my attention? Later, when I needed to buy sunscreen, I made the mistake of going into a Walmart "superstore" and was stymied by the number of brands and varieties they sold. How is a person supposed to choose from so many seemingly identical choices?

It was after these two experiences that I came across Sheena Iyangar's TED Talks on "The Art of Choosing" (2010) and "How to Make Choosing Easier" (2011). She describes what happens when we are faced with "choice overload," and how some of our assumptions about having an abundance of choices can actually make us miserable. While we Americans like to believe that "the more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice," in practice, people tend to second-guess their choices and thus suffer from guilt, frustration, and even depression as they dwell on the choices they didn't make.

 

Looking back on my experiences as a home educator, I can see how having an abundance of choices has hampered me at times. When I first began homeschooling, I had to decide what sort of method and materials I wanted to use. The New Hampshire Home Education law (RSA 193-A) allowed me to choose any approach or curriculum as long as it consisted of "instruction in science, mathematics, language, government, history, health, reading, writing, spelling, the history of the constitutions of New Hampshire and the United States, and an exposure to and appreciation of art and music." I could also choose which of those subjects to teach each year as long as the annual evaluations demonstrated that my children were "making educational progress at a level commensurate with their ages and abilities."This freedom was both liberating and daunting. How was I ever going to choose the best educational materials from the wide selection available? (Consider: a single homechool curriculum vendor, the Rainbow Resource Center, offers over 40,000 educational products, and there are many other curriculum vendors.) Once I had chosen, would I be plagued with doubt, wondering whether I should have chosen differently?

Homeschooling, Big Picture Learning, and the MET

Scholastic recently posted an interview with Daniel Pink (Motivation 3.0 by Dana Truby). In the interview, Pink mentions "The Big Picture Learning high school in Providence, Rhode Island" where "kids' interests dictate the curriculum." Kids who are dictating their own curriculum? Sounds like interest-based learning to me. My curiosity piqued, I used Google to learn more. 

I discovered that Pink wasn't talking about a single high school; he was referring to a whole network of schools that started with six small high schools in a state-funded public school district in Rhode Island. Additional funding for the schools came from a variety of sources, including a non-profit company called Big Picture Learning. The schools are referred to collectively as "The MET," and they serve as a model for 80 other schools across the United States (see The MET: Our History for details). 





Once I made the connection between Daniel Pink, Big Picture Learning, and The MET, I realized these schools were being talked about everywhere: The MET has been reported in the news repeatedly and was even praised by President Obama ("President Obama Praises the Met and  BPL"). 

Although I'm a home educator, I'm very interested in projects like The MET for two reasons: 

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?"

"Math-Speaking" Adults as Role Models

To say that parents and teachers are role models for children is to state the obvious. We do our best to avoid swearing, show kindness to strangers, and generally be on our best behavior in front of our kids. But how many things are our kids learning from us that we never intended to teach them? Those of us who spend an unusually large number of hours in the company of our children are perhaps most apt to torture ourselves with this question.

Some might argue that if I had chosen a different approach to homeschooling I wouldn't have worried so much about what my children were (or were not) learning from me. A formal curriculum, one which covered every subject my children "needed" to know, would have provided uniform and consistent lessons that would make irrelevant my personal aptitudes (or ineptitudes). After all, if the textbook publishers and vendors at homeschooling conferences are to be believed, the "right" curriculum is all an instructor needs to be successful.

As it was, I decided to skip the curriculum-based approach and experiment with various ways of supporting my kids as they learned. I worked to redefine my role as a teacher. Instead of asking how I should teach a subject such as math or writing, I asked myself:

How does a parent who isn't directly teaching a subject, such as math, cultivate an environment that nurtures the type of thinking and skills that the subject requires?

Deciding Who Is Qualified to Teach Our Children

From time to time in New Hampshire, questions arise about the efficacy of allowing parents with no formal teaching qualifications to instruct their own children. Some demand an increase in the regulation of homeschoolers, and it's no idle threat: As recently as 2008, court battles were being fought in California over the constitutionality of teacher certification requirements for homeschooling parents (see Conard's 2009 article in the Drexel Law Review).

Although there is no evidence that parents with teaching credentials would be better at homeschooling (see "The Myth of Teacher Qualifications"), the assumption that children cannot learn unless they are taught by an expert is still pervasive. In "Chapter 7: Instructionism vs. Constructionism" of The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer (1994), Seymour Papert points out that this assumption about the causal relationship between teacher quality and student learning leads to a faulty conclusion:

". . . the route to better learning must be the improvement of instruction—if School is less than perfect, why then, you know what to do: Teach better" (p. 139).

What Do Our Children Need to Know?

Every teacher dreams of working with students who are passionate about learning. Every home educator strives to nurture his or her child's innate potential. We observe an abundance of natural curiosity in our two-year-old and wonder how we can preserve or inspire the same kind of enthusiasm in our older children.

It's rarely a challenge to generate excitement for something a child already wants to do, so why not allow a child to follow his or her own interests? Advocates of interest-based learning, child-led learning, and unschooling all recommend this approach.

Sometimes it's easy to go along with a child's choices: when a ten-year-old happily spends every day reading stacks of books, no one is likely to complain. Other times, it's more difficult: if that same ten-year-old devotes hours every day to playing with Barbie dolls or video games, we are likely to think she should stop "playing" and make "better" use of her time.

How much playing is too much? What role should parents and teachers have in setting limits? As a  home educator, I have struggled to answer these questions for myself while also considering the larger implications of how we as a society choose to educate our children.