Teach Your Own

Teach Your Own

Parenting
"To repeat once again the idea with which I began this book, it
is a most serious mistake to think that learning is an activity
separate from the rest of life, that people do best when they are not
doing anything else and best of all in places where nothing else is
done. It is an equally serious mistake to think that teaching, the
assisting of learning and the sharing of knowledge and skill, is
something that can be done only by a few specialists. When we lock
learning and teaching in the school box, as we do, we do not more
effective teaching and learning in society, but much less."
I have seen home schooling grow in numbers and respectability
exponentially. In the past it was thought parents who carried out
this practice fell into one of two camps. There were qualified home
schoolers--those well off parents who had educational backgrounds
similar to teachers. Then there were all the rest, often stereotyped
as fundamentalists putting their kids at enormous disadvantages to
protect them from evolution or sex ed or anything that interfered with
a literal interpretation of the Bible. Now we know of a wide range of
families that homeschool and a plethora of resources for them.
Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Home Schooling by John
Holt and Pat Farenga, source of the quote with which I began this
review, is a wonderful resource for parents considering this course of
action. It is not, however, a guide on how to turn your home into a
miniature public school complete with worksheets and curriculum. The
non school world is incredibly rich and full of opportunities for
parent and child to learn.
Learn, rather than teach, is the key word here. Children are
born with an innate drive to learn. Given access to meaningful and
rewarding activities and caring and supportive adults, they will put
enormous amounts of time and energy into understanding how things work
and developing their interests. Sequestering them with a narrow age
range of peers and bribing and threatening them to consume a
standardized amount of knowledge and prove they have ingested it on
tests can have just the opposite effect. Teach Your Own is a great
guide toward enabling, rather than forcing or bribing, your kids to do
what they are wired to do: gain mastery of the world in which we live.
Teach Your Own is also a good book for the rest of us. It
raises really important philosophical questions. Can schools ever
provide more than standardized top down curriculum? Are university
teaching methods the best ways to empower people to educate younger
generations? Is a highly age and profession segregated society where
children spend increasing amounts of time preparing for life and only
a minority will achieve "good" outcomes the best we have to offer?
For example, in a world of environment destroying factory farms, would
a change to small, sustainable agriculture where children could learn
through meaningful involvement at least part time be a good option for
hands on learners?
These are questions we would do well to ponder. Teach Your Own
could help to kick start these important conversations.
On a personal note, I did a hybrid experience with my kids. I did
have them go to public school. But I advocated when I thought their
needs were not being met. And on my time I gave them a rich range of
experiences from infancy on.
A great big shout out goes out to parents taking ownership of their
children's education.
Julia Emily Hathaway



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