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.

Aren't You Curious?

"We tend to dismiss curiosity as a childish, naïve trait, but it can actually give us profound advantages."—Curiosity: the Secret to Your Success, by Rosie Ifould

I choose to believe all people are innately curious, especially given the right circumstances. I understand there's diversity, and as individuals we are attracted to different subjects, but even so. Doesn't everyone want to learn as much as they can about as many subjects as they can? Take economics, for example. Not exactly the most interesting subject for non-economists, and yet 5.5 million people bought—and presumably read—Freakonomics, a book about economics (or, as the authors describe it, "a book about cheating teachers, bizarre baby names, self-dealing Realtors, and crack-selling mama’s boys"). And the Freakonomics Radio podcasts gets 5 million downloads a month. Isn't that incredible? All those people—and me among them—willing and perhaps even eager to follow Levitt and Dubner on an improbable journey that involves asking and answering bizarre questions about economics.

Now imagine if everyone were as curious about everything as Levitt and Dubner are about economics. Wouldn't that be amazing?

I get worked up about this idea—wanting curiosity to be a national pastime—and sometimes my kids feel the need to reign me in with a gentle reminder of the status quo.

"Not everyone cares about [x]," they'll say (where "x" could be anything, from abnormal psychology to zero sum games, depending on my passion du jour).

"Really?" I'll say, before I've had a chance to consider what experience has taught me about human nature. Then, after a moment of searching their eyes to see if they're serious,  I'll realize they're probably speaking the truth. Not everyone wants to know the defining traits of a sociopath, or why optimum and equitable might not be compatible goals, or even whether the information on their evening news show is accurate.

I get it. Being curious can be tiring. Answers aren't always simple or easy to find. Sources of information vary—not everyone can bring a topic to life the way an entertaining, award-winning journalist can. So, we give up and turn our attention to less intellectually demanding ways to occupy our time.

But choosing apathy over curiosity is a terrible waste of human potential, because curiosity isn't just a quaint personality trait. Being curious can help us learn and grow. It can lead us to better jobs. It can even improve our quality of life.

"One of the most reliable and overlooked keys to happiness is cultivating and exercising our innate sense of curiosity. That’s because curiosity—a state of active interest or genuinely wanting to know more about something—creates an openness to unfamiliar experiences, laying the groundwork for greater opportunities to experience discovery, joy and delight."—The Power of Curiosity, by Dr. Todd B. Kashdan

So, tell me, what are YOU curious about?

Looking at Student Work: Should Exposure Be Mandatory?

A few years ago, I participated in a Deeper Learning MOOC. The topic for Week 2 of the course was "looking at student work." Specifically, we were asked:

• What can teachers and students learn from samples of student work? 
• What methods have teachers used to evaluate project-based learning (PBL) or expeditionary (Outward Bound-style) learning? 
• Can we establish objective criteria for assessing deeper learning? 
• What happens when teachers encourage students to look at each other's work? Are they able to facilitate effective peer reviews? 

I wondered how these questions might apply to me as a home educator because I didn't think of myself as an evaluator. I was more like a coach or a mirror, reflecting back what I noticed, calling attention to what had been accomplished, pointing out to my kids (and other students) where they had grown strong and where they might still have room to grow. My goal was for them to learn how to evaluate their own progress, set their own high standards, and then do their best to live up to them. I didn't believe in testing or grading my kids (as I explain in The Testing Effect).

Over time, however, I began to understand why assessments based on objective criteria were important—certainly for schools, and perhaps even for home educators. Sure, my casual one-on-one assessments through conversations with my kids enabled me to get a sense of how they were doing overall,  but there were times when I also needed to evaluate their progress based on specific goals. Were her writing skills strong enough to permit enrollment in a college-level literature course? Had he mastered algebra well enough to go on to calculus? Formal assessments, or evaluations based on predetermined criteria, served a key purpose: they let me (and my kids) know exactly what had been mastered and what hadn't. They gave us feedback that said, "Hey, you might want to pay more attention to this!" or "These skills are solid. You can move on to something else now." Without that sort of feedback, it would have been hard for us to evaluate the effectiveness of our approach to learning a particular subject.

It's human nature for people to become complacent over time. If we think what we are doing is working pretty well, we tend not to change our practice. In a classroom, a teacher might be muddling along with one lesson plan after another without realizing that a few tweaks here and there could dramatically enhance student interest and retention. In a home, a parent might be going through each day's routine as always, unaware that her child hasn't really mastered geography as well as he (and she) thinks he has.

How can teachers and students get the feedback they need to do a better job? How can they determine to what extent their actions are helping or hindering progress?

The old-school method for evaluating progress was standardized testing. Granted, if the goal is to assess retention of facts (1+1=2), testing might be the answer. However, testing is limited and clearly fails to measure "deeper learning," those qualities of education that make it meaningful, relevant and lasting. That's why another form of assessment is necessary.

Which leads me to back to the topic of this post—peer reviews and "looking at student work."

What the Young and the Old Have in Common

Atul Gawande is the kind of person who makes the rest of us feel inadequate. It isn't enough for him to be a Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Medical school graduate, and surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital (arguably one of the finest teaching hospitals in the world). He's also a researcher, a journalist (having written articles for Slate and The New Yorker), the author of four popular books (Complications, Better, Checklist Manifesto, and the recently released Being Mortal), and—oh yes—a loving husband and father to three children. According to his Wikipedia entry, "He enjoys reading." How he finds the time is anyone's guess. In short: he's amazing.

I've always been fascinated by medicine, and there's nothing I enjoy more than curling up with a well-written nonfiction book. So, not surprisingly, I've loved everything Dr. Gawande has written. Being Mortal is his best so far. It is terrifying (because he makes us think about our own mortality), poignant, informative, tragic and brilliant. And, quite unexpectedly, it includes insights into why schools aren't necessarily the best places for our kids to be spending so many hours of their days, so many months of the year, for so many years of their young lives.

Did Dr. Gawande intend for his newest book to be a commentary on our educational system? I'm sure he didn't. In fact, he might not even agree with me. But as I was reading along, I kept coming across passages that I believe apply as much to education as they do to elder care. 

Transferable Skills: What I'm Learning from My Kids

After nearly two decades of being a home educator, and with the youngest of my three homeschooled children now living and studying at an out-of-state college, I've finally got the time to pursue my own career. This is both exciting and terrifying.

It's exciting, because I can put myself first, instead of second, third—or last. Make no mistake, I'm no martyr. No one compelled me to be self-sacrificing; I simply chose to make my kids and their learning community my highest priority. I always knew it was only a temporary arrangement (that is, if you can call 24 years "temporary"), and so with that in mind I gladly volunteered to confine all my plans, my hours and days, to fit the schedules of others. But now, at long last, my time is my own. I can try doing things I've never done before. I'm ready for a change.

And yet, this transition is also somewhat terrifying, because I've been an at-home mother and educator for so long that doing anything else feels really strange. Applying for jobs is intimidating, my resume looks unconventional and skimpy, my last paid employment was back in the '80s, and I expect the learning curve for any new job will be steep.

Luckily, I know three young adults who are wonderful sources of advice and encouragement.

When I turn to my kids and wonder how I'm going to make my way in the wider world of rapid change, independent contractors, and new technologies, I hear my own words coming back to me.

"You can do it, Mom!" they say. "You've got loads of experience: researching, teaching, organizing events, planning curriculum, keeping records, writing newsletters and reports." They remind me of all I've accomplished over the years, just as I used to remind them of their achievements when they were feeling unsure of themselves.

"Look at all you've done this year!" I'd say. "Remember how you couldn't do This or That back in September? But now you can!" Whether or not our school district required an annual written evaluation, I always prepared one for each of my children, so that they (and I) could see their progress. Now my kids are returning the favor, lifting me up in my time of self-doubt and helping to restore my confidence.

When I tell my oldest daughter I'm not sure what to do next, she tells me, "do what you love." (Now where have I heard that before?) I think about writing, tutoring, mentoring. She helps me consider the pros and cons of different jobs and opens my eyes to the possibilities. Never one to shy away from adventure or a new challenge, my eldest knows how to inspire me to try new things.

When I ask my youngest daughter—a college senior—for help with my resume, she says, "think about not only the things you've done, but also what you've learned in the process, the extent of the impact you've had." I think about the dozens of kids who have learned in my home, all the ways in which I've had to change and adapt, and the hundreds of homeschoolers who have contacted me over the years. I smile as I reminisce, all the while feeling so proud of the remarkable young woman who is giving me this advice.

I even confide in my son, who is home for mid-year break after his first semester. I tell him I'm feeling nervous about starting my first job, and he says, "You'll be fine! You've done much harder things than this. You've got this, Mom." I feel momentarily overwhelmed by his words of encouragement. Afraid I might embarrass him if I start to cry, I give him a hug instead, so he can't see my face. He towers over me by at least six inches, and when I step back to smile at him, I notice there's a dark shadow of stubble on his upper lip and jawline. Only a few months away from home and already he seems older, more self-assured.

Maybe it seems weird for me to turn to my kids for career advice and support, but oddly enough, they understand what I'm going through. Considering career options, updating resumes, applying for jobs: these are things they've either done recently or will be doing in the near future. Even if we didn't have that in common, though, the collaborative give and take of solving problems together has become so normal and habitual for us that we fall into the pattern naturally. I value their opinions as much as they value mine, and we trust each other to be honest, fair, encouraging and forthright.

It's now 2015, and my husband and kids have helped me transition from homeschooling to a new job. I suffered through a few months of dead ends and a couple rejections, but I've found part-time work that I love. I'm an editor for Author Accelerator, a startup company formed by Jennie Nash (editor, author and book coach) and Matt Richter-Sand, entrepreneur. My new "students" are writers who are serious about getting their books written and published, and I enjoy working with them. It's challenging to find the right balance between critique and encouragement, but Jennie is a wonderful mentor and I'm learning all the time. It seems like a perfect fit for me, and I'm happy to have found a use for many of the skills I cultivated as a home educator.

Can Happiness Be Taught?

What if it were possible to teach our children how to be happy? We already teach them how to read and write, and most modern curricula strive to include instruction in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). All of these subjects are considered fundamental to a good education, as they should be.

But what if at the end of all that learning, our kids fail to thrive? What if they are deeply unhappy? Then what?

I decided to homeschool my children because I felt it was important for them to have ample time to grow emotionally and spiritually as well as academically. Too many hours in a classroom would have precluded the activities we cherished: leisurely afternoons at the beach and peaceful walks through the woods, days of storytelling and hours of introspection, impromptu visits with friends and family. We "wasted" time on slow cooking, travel, conversations that digressed, and Calvin and Hobbes. When there was a conflict, we dropped everything and muddled through a process of reconciliation. Although I wasn't deliberately teaching my kids these "soft skills," which I have since learned are associated with a happier life, I followed my heart and liberally took time away from other subjects to work on improving communication and strengthening friendships.

What I didn't know then was that I was inadvertently helping my kids learn how to be happy. What pains me now is realizing I could have done a better job if I had known this little secret: there are specific skills and practices that have a measurable, positive impact on a person's level of happiness.

For most of my life, I assumed that a person's level of happiness was largely determined by good luck and good genes. If a person wasn't happy as an adult, it was probably due to a combination of neurochemistry and unhappy circumstances.  Turns out I was only partially correct. Nature and nurture establish a baseline, but the choices we make can increase (or decrease) our level of happiness by as much as 20%.

To be clear, I'm not saying researchers have discovered a cure for clinical depression (a condition that afflicts several people in my extended family and circle of friends). What I am saying is that we can learn to consciously act in ways that will increase our "happiness," specifically as the term is defined by positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky:

"Happiness is the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”

If we can learn how to be happier, then it follows that we can also teach these skills to our kids. That's the exciting news proclaimed by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.

The Science of Happiness

I'm currently taking an edX course called The Science of Happiness. (I've praised edX, a marvelous nonprofit online initiative created by founding partners Harvard and MIT in a previous post: "MIT Quality, edX Accessibility." To learn more about edX, go here.) This particular course was created by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and the emphasis is on "positive psychology." So far, I'm finding the course worthwhile and interesting.

In four weeks, we've explored the following major topics, one per week: Happiness (how we define, measure, and actively increase our experience of it); Social Connection (how our affiliations, affections and ability to form attachments impact our level of happiness); Kindness and Compassion (the happiness-altruism loop); and Cooperation and Reconciliation (why cooperation, reconciliation and forgiveness are good for happiness).

A course like this one could easily be all theory and no substance, but it isn't. Every week, there's a new experiment to try, an opportunity to evaluate for ourselves whether there's demonstrable truth in what we're being told. Thus, we are given things to do as well as food for thought.

The course includes asynchronous class discussions, which often illustrate—sometimes unintentionally—what the course is teaching as people freely share their stories of personal challenges and successes. For example, after an exercise in forgiveness, many reported on what worked well for them, what didn't, and why. Some posts were quite moving as people wrote about painful betrayals, regrets, and estrangements from family members. As I read many and responded to a few, I felt a kinship with the other participants. This was in spite of never having met them in person and even though there are perhaps thousands of people enrolled in this MOOC.

And did I mention that the course is free?

I'm not certain whether I will become a happier person now than I was before I took the course, but there's strong evidence (provided by the course) that I might. If I commit to practicing the skills taught in the course, the odds are definitely in my favor. Best of all, I feel empowered to make changes instead of leaving my mood up to chance. That alone makes the course worthwhile.

For More Information

I recommend the Science of Happiness course to anyone who has the time for it (at least six hours per week for nine weeks). If you don't have the time for the course, you can still find many of the videos and readings on the Greater Good Science Center website. In addition, the primary texts for the course are as follows:

1. Born to Be Good by Dacher Keltner 




2. The Compassionate Instinct, an anthology of readings co-edited by Dacher Keltner, Jason Marsh and Jeremy Adam Smith


3. The How of Happiness by Sonya Lyubomirsky

What Hard Evidence Is There for the Efficacy of Homeschooling?

Anyone reading this blog will quickly surmise that I am in favor of homeschooling as a viable educational alternative. While I wouldn't presume to advocate homeschooling for all—it's options I favor, not absolutes—I do believe it can be an excellent choice for those who seek an educational experience that is flexible, customizable, and highly individualistic. I'm encouraged by what I've seen work in practice: I've successfully homeschooled my own three children, and I've assisted and known many other homeschooling families who likewise have done quite well.

For the skeptics, there are also books filled with personal stories, such as Homeschooling for Excellence (already mentioned in a previous post), Homeschoolers' Success Stories by Linda Dobson, A Sense of Self by Susannah Sheffer, and Real Lives by Grace Llewelyn—to name just a few.

So, why should I bother asking whether there is "hard evidence" that homeschooling "works"? Isn't the answer self-evident? Well, no, not really.

The Difference Between Anecdotes and Evidence

In their book Think Like a Freak, Leavitt and Dubner state, "An anecdote is a snapshot, a one-dimensional shard of the big picture. It is lacking in scale, perspective, and data." A homeschooler talking about how her kids learned algebra is sharing an anecdote. She cannot tell you to what extent other homeschooled children mastered algebra as a direct result of using an identical approach, nor can she say whether an alternative approach might have worked better. While her anecdotes might be helpful to other homeschoolers who are looking for methods to try with their own kids, it can't be construed as proof that this particular method will work just as well for anyone else who tries it.

So, how do we determine whether homeschooling in general, or a specific homeschooling method in particular, is effective? Is it really true that children do well because they are homeschooled? How do we know the same people wouldn't have done equally well or even better in school? (Of course, a similar question can be asked about schooled children: how might those same people have done if they had been homeschooled?)

Everyone knows there are many successful people who were homeschooled as children, but correlation doesn't prove causation, as the following cartoon humorously points out:

An Impractical Research Proposal

What we need is a controlled study.

For example, let's start with a set of identical triplets (extremely rare) and treat them exactly the same in every way except for the type of schooling they receive (a level of consistency which, any parent can tell you, is practically impossible to achieve).

We might then be able to separate the impact of homeschooling from everything else.

As far as I know, this type of study has never been done—and it's unlikely it ever will be—for an obvious reason: parents don't like to gamble with their kids' futures. When parents choose one educational alternative over another, they generally have very good reasons for doing so, which is why it's hard to imagine how someone could be convinced to choose a different (theoretically less desirable) option for only one child out of two or three, especially when the children are genetically identical with very similar educational needs.

Faced with this predicament, how might a researcher assess the efficacy of homeschooling? Such an assessment would need to begin with a clear definition of "homeschooling." It would be necessary to identify and control for confounding variables, such as family dynamics, educational philosophy, methods of instruction, materials used, quality and quantity of parent-child interaction, and all the other details that define a homeschooling lifestyle. Perhaps some forms of homeschooling are highly effective while others are not.

Unfortunately, there's not yet enough information to come to any conclusions.

My Anecdotes Are Not Evidence

All I know for sure is this: my kids and I enjoyed homeschooling and learned a lot. Although I can't clearly identify exactly which aspects of homeschooling were effective, I can look at what they've been able to accomplish, both during and after our years of homeschooling, and honestly declare that they've done "well": they've earned high marks on nationally standardized achievement tests and, subsequently, at competitive colleges; they've formed healthy, longterm relationships with their peers; they've never been arrested or even accused of a crime; and (so far) they've been able to find and keep decent jobs. They've also received positive feedback and praise from their teachers, classmates, employers, and coworkers.

What's more, they seem to be happy about having been homeschooled.

I'm very grateful for my kids' success and relieved that the dire predictions of how I might be ruining their chances at a good life by homeschooling have not come true. I'm reluctant to draw broad conclusions from my experiences, though, because I realize things could have easily gone differently. What if my kids hadn't done well on tests, didn't choose to go on to college, or couldn't find jobs or mutually satisfying relationships? I already know homeschooling parents who are second-guessing themselves now because their grown kids are struggling in one way or another. Was it a mistake for them to homeschool? Should they have sent their kids to school instead?

To what extent did homeschooling determine the outcomes? Who knows?

A Call for More Research

Without a controlled study, it's anyone's guess as to why some students do well and others appear to flounder. Any attempt to claim that formal schooling would have produced better results than homeschooling is nothing more than conjecture. And, to be fair, any attempt to claim that homeschooling produces better results than schooling—without solid evidence of causation—is also conjecture.

When all we've got are collections of anecdotes as "evidence," how can we be sure it was the decision to homeschool that resulted in an individual's success (or hardship) and not something else? If we are to judge whether homeschooling is efficacious or disastrous or something in between, we need real data from research that takes into consideration all the confounding variables, including genetic predispositions, socioeconomic conditions, geographic location, family circumstances, and even plain old luck.

With all the advice freely given on whether and how to homeschool, it would be helpful if there were some way to distinguish the good advice from the bad. Research on homeschooling might also help address the questions schools have been asking for years: what type of teaching works best? What makes some schools seemingly more effective than others at graduating students who go on to become successful in college, work or life in general?

If we can identify the most effective practices, perhaps we can share them and improve the educational outcomes for children in all settings.