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.

Am I Doing This the Right Way?

After my youngest child finished with high school and left for college last fall, I was faced with an "empty nest" and an opportunity to embark on a new career. For nearly twenty years, I had been a home educator and advocate for other homeschoolers, but that work was over for me. I felt both excited and terrified as I explored different job options.

Doing something new is scary. Of course, doing something new can be exhilarating, too, but feelings of joy and excitement aren't usually a problem. It's fear that threatens to stop us in our tracks. Not knowing for certain whether or not we're doing something the "right" way is so disconcerting, especially when we care deeply about the intended outcome. Raising kids, educating them (at home or in a formal setting), providing guidance of any kind to another person—in each of these situations, making a mistake can be painful or even devastating.

So I think we can be forgiven for trying to do everything we can to avoid mistakes. It's not at all unreasonable to read instructions, follow directions, and chart a course that seems as certain to succeed as possible. Choose the safe path.

As a young adult, I liked the safe path. I had already experienced plenty of chaos and instability as a child and adolescent, so my goals by the time I graduated from college were to minimize risks, avoid embarrassment, and choose the safe route whenever possible. If you had asked me at the time, I would have denied it—I wouldn't have been able to tell you those were my goals—but looking back on my life now, I realize I rarely took chances on making big mistakes. I planned and prepared for everything meticulously, and I avoided actions that felt risky, unfamiliar, or uncertain.

High Stakes, High Levels of Uncertainty

My neat, organized life began to unravel when I became a mother—and I'm referring to the precise moment my daughter was born. Predictable and "in control" didn't really apply to childbirth, so letting go was really my only option from day one. Not that I let go easily or willingly. I read lots of books and tried to do everything "right" as a parent, but having a baby with colic who wouldn't sleep and wouldn't stop crying forced me to admit: there is no "right" way to calm a baby. You just have to try one thing after another and hope that eventually something will help.

And so it was with homeschooling. I started out thinking, "If only I can find the 'right' curriculum, all will be well in my homeschooling family," but I learned that wasn't true. There was no perfect fit, no one-size-fits-all program for us. Homeschooling, like life in general, was an ongoing process of trial and error.  It wasn't easy. My mistakes—such as introducing a difficult concept too soon, insisting we study a particular topic, or providing too much or too little guidance—led to messy conflicts and me wishing I could avoid all the pain and just get it right on the first try.

When the stakes are high and the outcome matters very much, it's hard to make peace with our own limitations.

Inevitable Messes

Of course, getting it right every time all the time would have required me to be perfect, and that was (and still is) an absurd goal. Fortunately, while I couldn't be perfect, I could be tenacious and open to possibilities. Over time, I discovered that the more I challenged myself to go "all in" and take chances, the richer and more rewarding my life became. I gradually became more comfortable with all kinds of messes: from the paper, crayon and play-dough messes that toddlers squash underfoot, to the wrinkled fenders of teenage drivers, to the emotional wrecks that adult relationships leave behind. If I had fought to avoid those inevitable messes—insisting on a perfectly neat house, a car that stayed in the garage, and carefully screened friendships—I would have missed out on opportunities to learn patience, practice compassion, and deepen my feelings of empathy and connection with others.

To be clear, I still don't enjoy not knowing whether I'm doing something the right way. While I've heard the cheerful anecdote about Edison and his "2,000 ways of how not to make a lightbulb," and I know the story is meant to inspire, I'm not consistently upbeat when it comes to my own mistakes. If I had been Edison, I would have cursed out loud and kicked myself hard after each one of those not-a-lightbulb attempts. I don't claim my pride is an admirable quality, but in general I prefer to get things right on the first try.

Helping Imperfectly

Recently, when I was editing pages for a writer who is eager to get published, I was afraid I might give her poor advice. So I did what I always do: I planned and prepared as much as I could beforehand. I gathered information, consulted with other editors, and thought carefully about the best way to present my feedback. Inevitably, though, I reached the moment when I had to trust myself and send a response.

I could hear the nervous voice in my head saying, "Are you sure you're presenting this the right way? What if you create a big mess and lead the writer astray?" But there were other voices (sounding a lot like my children) asking me, "How much help will you be to this person if you give up without trying? And if you bungle the first attempt, why not apologize and just try again?" Buttressed by past experiences and current networks of support, I made my final edits, took a deep breath, and pressed Send.

Words of Encouragement

I want to encourage others who, like me, struggle to accept the messiness of life. It doesn't matter whether your goal is to make a friend, draft a persuasive essay, teach a child, or write a book. Whatever your aspirations, it's unlikely you'll succeed perfectly the first time you try, but don't let that stop you.

Go ahead and try anyway. Solicit feedback. Evaluate as you go. And if you ask yourself or others, "Am I doing this the right way?" don't be surprised if the answer you get is vague or unsatisfying. Maybe your way is right for you but not for someone else, or maybe it was the right way in the past but it isn't the right way now.

So be brave, make your very best attempt, and humbly admit to your mistakes before going back to try again. If we can be patient with each other, learn to tolerate or at least see the value in temporary messes, then perhaps fewer people will fear their own mistakes. We have to keep trying, failing, and trying again. We don't have to enjoy failing, but we do need to recognize that it's an essential part of living. How else can we be expected to discover for ourselves what works and what doesn't? Even if we don't always manage to reach our loftiest goals, at least we won't have given up too soon.

Identity, Motivation, and Purpose: An Update on Thriving in the Digital Age

In the course I'm teaching, Thriving in the Digital Age, I seem to be learning and growing as much as my students. As I listen to them struggle to articulate how they feel and think about complex topics, such as identity, motivation, and purpose, I'm often forced to re-evaluate my own assumptions regarding these subjects. It's an extraordinary opportunity: how often do we, as adults, set aside time to think deliberately about our personal and social identities, about all the ways in which various internal and external motivators influence our actions, or exactly how our unconscious values might be directing our lives? These teens, in contrast, are profoundly and constantly aware of these things, and they are helping me to become more aware of them, too.

What I would like to do here is to share some of the materials we've used so far for the course. (For a more complete listing, refer to the Weekly TED Talks and Online Resources posted on the course website.)

We began the course with the book Quiet by Susan Cain . . .



I paired Quiet with Chapter 1 ("Attention! How and Why to Control Your Mind's Most Powerful Instrument") of Net Smart by Howard Rheingold, and this seemed to work out very well. We talked about introverts, extroverts and how to deal effectively with distractions in an "always on" world. We discovered that "distractions" can be a problem for introverts as well as extroverts but not in the same way. The extroverted students sought ways to control their multitasking habits—they loved all that stimulation and found it hard to stop—so they needed help focusing their attention. Meditation was a good addition to their tool set. The introverted students weren't attracted to multitasking; they preferred to do one thing at a time. What they craved was less stimulation, fewer interruptions, so they needed to find ways to access the digital world without becoming overwhelmed by it. The tools that were most helpful to them were dashboards and filters, which controlled the flow of information, and online discussion forums, where they could take as much time as they needed to compose and share their thoughts.

Next, we moved on to Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz . . .



The logical pairing for Schulz's book was Chapter 2 ("Crap Detection) of Net Smart. We talked about why we get things wrong, how it feels to be wrong, and what can be gained from learning to embrace our fallibility. Topics of discussion included "filter bubbles" and why it's important to consult a variety of reliable sources; optical illusions, phantom limbs and other errors in perception; internet hoaxes and other scams; the Enlightenment, the Scientific Revolution, and the ways in which changes in cultural attitudes toward error have transformed science and industry; forensic psychology and how people in general and eyewitnesses in particular sometimes get things wrong; neuroscience; cults; terminal illness and the stages of grief; and, as a recurring theme, how we feel about being wrong and why it's so hard to let go of our desire to be right.

Currently, we are reading Start with Why by Simon Sinek . . .


I'm combining this with Chapter 5 ("Social Has a Shape") of Net Smart by Howard Rheingold and selections from Connected by Dr. Nicholas Christakis. The primary themes for these four weeks of the course are leadership and social networks, but we're also exploring the connections between the two. How do good leaders participate in social networks? Or, conversely, how do our social networks—or lack thereof—influence our ability to become effective leaders?

So far, I've supplemented the primary readings with talks by:

• Drew Dudley ("Everyday Leadership"),
• Dan Pink ("Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"),
• Mike Rowe ("Learning from Dirty Jobs"),
• Seth Godin ("The Tribes We Lead"),
• and Tony Robbins ("Why We Do What We Do")

These presenters have inspired interesting and sometimes heated discussions. For example, we've debated the differences—sometimes subtle, other times extreme—between motivation and manipulation, particularly when it comes to marketing. Is it the message, the product, or the image of ourselves that influences our choices? We've also questioned the relative merits of "vision" and pragmatism, the pros and cons of going after a dream versus doing a job that simply needs to get done. Where one student emphasized practicality and argued the importance of quality control (the HOW and WHAT of a job), another admired leaders who could articulate a higher purpose for mankind (the WHY of a movement).

I'm looking forward to continuing this course in the months ahead and plan to share in future posts more of what I'm learning from the students. 

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.

Starting with Why

"All leaders must have two things: they must have a vision of the world that does not exist and they must have the ability to communicate it." —S. Sinek

I've recently finished reading Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek. His TED Talk ("How Great Leaders Inspire Action") interested me for several reasons.

1. As a home educator, I have worked to inspire not only my own children but also others who have questions about home education, such as: What do I need to know to teach my own children? Where do I find curriculum? How can I start my own support group? 
2. As someone who would like to see better alternatives to traditional education, I am curious about why some teachers in schools are able to inspire students while others are not. By studying what makes teachers effective leaders, perhaps I can become a more inspiring teacher myself.
3. As a mentor, I wanted to explore Sinek's ideas about leadership so that I could share those ideas with young adult students who are interested in becoming leaders themselves.

Leadership isn't just for CEOs and Presidents. As Sinek describes it:

"Just about every person or organization needs to motivate others to act for some reason or another. Some want to motivate a purchase decision. Others are looking for support or a vote. Still others are keen to motivate the people around them to work harder or smarter or just follow the rules." 

When Should You Pay for Learning?

"When should you pay for learning?" is a question most of us ask at some point in our lives. Home educators, who generally strive to keep expenses low, constantly perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether a particular resource or class will be worth the money. Parents, whether they homeschool or not, wonder if their kids would benefit from a private school or extra tutoring. High school seniors, planning for the future, wisely ask whether it is worth the high cost of tuition to attend college full time. Similarly, older adults weigh the expense of extra courses or special training against the opportunities for pursuing a new career or enhancing their weekly paychecks. 

Lately, the proliferation of free, online courses has encouraged people to think harder about what they are paying for when they pay for learning. Personally, my own experiences with online courses (both free and fee-per-credit ones) have been mixed. When I evaluate online courses, there are five factors I consider:

1. Content: How informative and engaging is the actual course material? Does it include only text and images (similar to a textbook) or are there also embedded videos and interactive experiences?
2. Expertise: Will I have access to a subject matter expert?
3. Social learning: Are there opportunities to learn with others who share my interest in a subject? What type of forums are in place for online discussions?
4. Motivation: Do I have enough self-discipline and interest to work on my own, or do I need a coach to push me?
5. Credentials: Am I studying this subject to improve my understanding or to improve my chances of being accepted into a program (or job) that requires a specific set of credentials? 

Course providers still seem to be in the learning phase, trying to design courses to meet a variety of needs. I believe online courses will continue to improve over time, and many are already quite good. Still, few succeed in doing everything well. That's why it's important to consider exactly what a course offers before spending any money.

www.AcademicEarth.org

Academic Earth, MIT OpenCourseWare, the Open Learning Initiative (from Carnegie Mellon University), iTunes University (with courses from  Stanford, Berkeley, and many other colleges and universities)—all these provide access to content in the same way that libraries give us access to books, but without the due dates or patron ID requirements. I can "take what I like and leave the rest," picking and choosing the lectures or subtopics I need from as many courses as I want. I can then remix the content to suit my own learning goals. If my main interest is in educational content, these free repositories serve my needs well. 

Free courses offered by providers like Coursera and EdX are similarly open to all, but they follow a predetermined schedule so the pacing is less flexible. While it is possible for students to participate as much (or as little) as they want to get what they need from the courses, the experience is less like accessing a library and more like attending a class—which can be a good thing, depending on what you want.

Fee-based online college courses (such as those offered by the Community College System of New Hampshire) package content in an inflexible way that limits access: I have to pay for an entire course, even if I'm interested in only a few topics within that course. "By the module" or "by the hour" options are not available, at least not yet. That's why, when I consider whether it is worth paying for a course, I consider how much of the course content will be of use to me (or my teenage son, who has also taken online courses). I'm also aware that my grade—and any credit I may be hoping to earn—depends upon how well I complete all of the assignments, even the ones that may not be of use to me (for example, if they cover material I have already mastered or have no interest in learning). 

When it comes to accessing expertise and social learning, neither MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses) nor formal college courses have a monopoly. Quality in either case varies from course to course, just as it does on any college campus. As a consumer, I'm going to seek out the best experiences I can find, wherever they might be. The professors and students who participate in an online program at an accredited college might be uniquely engaged and knowledgeable, and thus worth the expense. However, since I have had some positive experiences with free online courses, I would also consider them as reasonable options for learning. I wouldn't assume a free online course is inferior just because it isn't expensive or accredited.  

If I'm looking primarily for extra motivation, I'm going to need an instructor or peer group that keeps me engaged. For example, when I wanted to be sure I would set aside time every day to write, I enrolled in a formal writing program. Likewise, my son enrolled in a formal Latin course with teacher support when he was required to study a second language because he knew he'd never do it on his own. The course helped him to stay on track. In contrast, when he was looking for a course in programming, a subject he was highly motivated to learn on his own, he chose to enroll in a free online course (MIT 6.00x: Introduction to Computer Science and Programming). The free course lacked formal teacher support but offered forums for asking questions and participating in peer-to-peer interactions. 

Depending on your goals, perhaps credentials are the most important consideration. We've all suffered through at least one boring, ineffective course just to get the grade or degree we wanted. Still, I doubt I'm the only one who believes it would be best if students could choose from the most engaging, educational courses available—regardless of where the courses were offered or how little they cost. But in practice students are inclined, or perhaps required, to choose the expensive course for credit over the free one for no credit. (Not long ago, I saw this truth in action when I audited an undergraduate course at a small liberal arts college in my area. There was no fee for auditing: I simply asked the professor if I could, and he said yes. The subject was interesting, the teacher was good, and overall it was a great learning experience. "So, why don't more people audit classes?" I wondered. I still don't know the answer, but the reaction to my decision to audit a class was revealing as astonished students asked me, "Why are you taking this class if you aren't going to get credit for it?")

So, why do we pay for learning? There was a time when we paid for access to high-quality content and expert instruction. Now, with vast repositories of online information available to us 24/7, we question whether it's worth paying $100 for a single textbook. While we're still willing to pay for expert assistance, we'd like to receive it on our own terms, as occasional tutoring or the educational equivalent of a technical support hotline (especially if those options cost less than hiring a full-time professor for a semester). We'll also pay for coaching to help us stay motivated. And, until other options for demonstrating mastery become more widely acceptable, we're still willing to pay to get official credit for taking classes, even if we wouldn't be willing to take those classes (for free!) without the credit. 

Why Do We Learn?

I am often asked by parents who are new to homeschooling, "How do you get your kids to learn?" Usually the question is directed at a specific type of learning, as in, "How do you get your kids to do their math?" Or, "How can I motivate my daughter to do her writing assignments?" The assumption seems to be that kids would study what their parents think they should if only they could find a more exciting curriculum or special motivational strategy to entice them.

Contrary to what advertisers might like us to believe, there is no magical curriculum so uniquely inspiring, adaptable and fun that kids will clamor for it day after day, especially if the kids have no prior interest in the subject the curriculum is designed to teach. I tried a wide range of materials when I was trying to "inspire" my own kids over the years, and even when I found something that seemed to satisfy one child's preferences and learning style, my other kids would often prefer something entirely different. Certainly, some instructional aids are better designed and therefore more effective than others, and some books are especially interesting to read, but if I'm asked to name a single resource that I would confidently recommend as "the one to use," I can't do it. My answer has to be, "It depends."

Treating Students as Equal Partners

What does it take to get a group of teenagers interested in history? 

(And is that even the right question to ask?) 

Steven Kreis, author of The History Guide, begins with this observation:

"Let's face it, our first experience with History is that it is a course that we have to take in order to graduate. As a junior and senior high school student we are confronted with American history, state history and perhaps even a general course in western civilization or world history. We didn't have a choice. And the fact that we are forced to take history puts us on the offensive. We begin to build that grandiose brick wall that will prevent us from getting anything important out of history." (Section 1.2, "Why Study History?")

As a student, I never liked teachers who talked down to me, as if my youth and inexperience somehow made me stupid or insignificant. It often seemed as if they had no idea what was going on in my head. Assumptions were made about what I "needed" to know and what the teacher would teach, regardless of what I already knew or wanted to learn more about. So little was within my control when I was in school—to do the homework or not, to raise my hand in class or not. Not surprisingly, even the most erudite lectures lost their appeal when I was compelled to attend, forced to endure long-winded orations that seemed irrelevant to my own life. Aside from my desire to receive high marks in the class, what reason did I have to pay attention? 

Maintaining a Portfolio for Days, Months, Years

I'm unsure how long I will be able to maintain an electronic portfolio. I've never been able to keep a journal for very long—I have a collection of half-empty ones—and, in a way, the process for keeping an ePortfolio up-to-date reminds me of keeping a journal. Easy to do when I have lots to say, but hard to do as a well-disciplined habit. However, unlike an ordinary journal, a portfolio is a multimedia endeavor, which makes it intrinsically more interesting. I like being able to add pictures, video, and hyperlinks. If I create content in some other forum or for some other purpose, without necessarily having a portfolio in mind at the time, I can easily connect to the content later. I can also access my portfolio from any mobile device, so I can work on it when the mood hits me.

Maybe instead of thinking of the portfolio as a piece of work to be maintained, it is better to think of it as a repository, a bottomless briefcase to which things can be added over time. As a writer, inevitably, I will be creating written artifacts as I progress through my life and career. It will be up to me to decide whether I want to annotate them as I toss them into my digital repository, or if I'd prefer to go back later to reflect on them, as I am doing for my Master of Arts in Professional Writing. Most likely, I will alternate between the two, sometimes keeping records consistently and other times doing so episodically.