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.

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."

Can Formal and Informal Learning Peacefully Coexist?

Recently, I read Joi Ito's blog post on "Formal vs. Informal Learning,"and I have been thinking about a question he asked in his post:

"Is there a way to support and acknowledge the importance of informal learning and allow those of us who work better in interest[-based] and self-motivated learning to do so without the social stigma and lack of support that is currently associated with dropping out of formal education?" 

For many years now, I have been wanting to get away from the either-or conversation about school. Either you go to school and accept the highly structured, teacher-led style of learning—complete with frequent tests and grading—or you don't. The homeschooling community includes many who opted out of schools because their kids, like Joi Ito, were much happier and more motivated when they weren't confined to a classroom under the constant direction of a teacher. Although it wasn't easy to drop out of the mainstream, it was worth the sacrifice to gain greater flexibility and freedom.