Schools are not necessarily the most conducive environments to create “productive and good human beings.” They are often coercive, at odds with much of what we know about early child development, and for a lot of kids, they seem to sap curiosity and passion.
If people could use schools as they do libraries and grocery stores and museums (i.e. as resources that they can use from time to time and not be bound to) then schools could certainly play a positive role in human development. But, as it is, with their compulsory nature, teaching to the tests, and other stresses, they have a difficult time succeeding in this goal. At an early age what kids seem to need is plenty of time for free play and exploration and a supportive family to guide learning without imposing too much structure. For many families, these can best be achieved with unschooling or some other form of homeschooling. As kids grow and develop they can look to more structured resources for learning but the learning should be genuine and of interest, not simply teacher-directed and oriented towards passing exams. Many people fear that left to their devices kids will not learn what they need to know without coercion. But, if there is something important to the child they will learn it. This holds for reading, math, science, or any other subject that someone has an intrinsic motivation to learn. If some genuine motivation doesn’t exist beyond “You have to learn this to pass an exam” then of course there won’t be much interest in learning it. But, then again, there also won’t be much real reason to learn it either. Schools could play a much more productive role in learning and development but much still needs to change for this to occur. We need to change our mindset about what schools are for and how they can best be used to help everyone develop in the best way possible. As others have indicated, tell them calmly after you’ve done your homework why you wish to be homeschooled.
One of the characteristics of homeschooled kids is that they are self-starters and motivated to learn. So, demonstrate this by learning what you can about homeschooling and how it can work within the context of your family situation. Be ready to answer some basic questions your parents may have such as: How could we be sure you will learn what you need to know? Do you just want to get out of homework? Are you just going to spend your days playing computer games? How can we afford to homeschool you? These questions might sound a little defensive or skeptical but if you get asked questions like them you need to show that you’ve thought through the issue, understand why they are concerned and have an answer. Homeschooling is a wonderful approach to learning and there are many benefits to it. If you approach it from the standpoint of the benefits and practicalities you should be able to present a good case. You might find my answer to this question helpful: Kevin Browne's answer to Why is unschooling considered the next wave of home-based education? You might also find this website helpful: Radical Unschooling | Joyfully Rejoycing It focuses on radical unschooling which may not be the direction you are thinking of going but knowing about it might provide some useful insights and there are extensive FAQs that might help you prepare for your conversation with your parents. Don’t worry about teaching them, they are learning. Focus on spending time with them, loving them, talking to them, reading to them, playing with them. Learning will happen. But, don’t try to teach them things they are not developmentally ready to learn.
It seems like there is a lot of pressure now to get kids to learn more, faster, sooner. But, much of this pressure is counterproductive. It leads to stressed out kids, burned out kids, disengaged kids. It kills off their joy, their curiosity, and their passion for anything. None of that happens right away, but parents seem to be starting earlier and earlier hoping their kids will reap some advantage by learning to read, and spell, and count sooner than other kids. Most of those advantages, even if they are realized, will evaporate in later years. So, enjoy your 4 month old as they are. Their little brains are working hard to learn what they need to without much formal direction from you. Just interact with them as I mentioned above. Perhaps you might find these books insightful as well: How Children Learn by John Holt Simplicity Parenting by Kim Payne Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting by Carol Honore There are many ways you can expose kids to art. Many art museums have areas where kids can explore various media and aspects of art. If you are located close to one of those check out their resources.
At home, there are also many ways to expose kids to art. Painting: Buy some inexpensive acrylic paints and brushes and a few canvases and let them go to it. Acrylic paints are good because they're easier to clean up than oil-based paints. Also, show them various artworks either online or in books. There are lots of inexpensive kids' books that provide lots of pictures for kids to look at from great artists. Literature: Read to them from an early age. Read poetry, short stories, excerpts from great works of literature. Like paintings, there are a lot of good kids' books that tell these stories with pictures and shortened length. Music: Listen to a lot of music. Classical, jazz, bluegrass, popular music, world music. My daughter and I play a game where we spin the globe and she puts her finger on a location and then we listen to some music from that country. Photography: If you have a digital camera or even an old film one, let the child experiment with it and take pictures. Again, like painting, you can get books that show photographs to look at or you can browse online. There are several websites with collections of photos and paintings available online. Exposure to art is an important part of a child’s development and it can be an enriching and enjoyable part of their learning so it is great that you are looking for ways to expose them to it at an early age. I have known quite a few people who have been homeschooled. In some cases I have known them as college students in my classroom. In other cases I have known them as friends of the family. In both cases I have found them to be engaging young people, inquisitive, articulate, well-rounded, socialized, and interested in the world around them.
For me the contrast is particularly heightened when you see students in the classroom. There is literally no comparison between the engaged homeschool students and the conventionally educated students. There is something missing in many of the conventionally educated students. No light in the eye. No interest in things. No curiosity for learning. In my opinion, conventional schooling does a very good job of draining these qualities from many students. Homeschooling, on the other hand, does a good job of preserving them and encouraging them. While there are exceptions, with some homeschooled kids not being curious and engaged and some conventionally schooled kids having these traits, in my experience there is a strong correlation between homeschooling and these traits. In the last few years of my college teaching experience I have come to think that a good assessment of student learning is to simply see if you can engage a student in conversation on a wide array of topics. Talk to them about world events, politics, science, religion, history, art, movies, fiction, new books. If you can do that and they are actively engaged in the conversation they’ve clearly learned something. If you can’t they have not. Homeschooled kids, in my experience, are streets ahead of other students in their ability to engage in such conversations. Given how important history is and how easy it is to integrate into the learning of anything else I would say that this is a bad thing.
I understand that many unschoolers are against the idea that there are any subjects that ought to be taught or that are necessary for students to learn. The point of unschooling then is to simply follow the student’s lead. If they never develop an interest in history then it should not be forced on them as a subject they need to learn. My approach to unschooling, which is a part of how we homeschool our family, is a little different. I do think there is a benefit to being well-rounded in your learning and so people need to have a broad general knowledge which includes science, the arts, and history. But, these subjects can be introduced and taught without a formal curriculum or textbooks. History is a good example simply because it literally connects with everything. Pick up any item in your house and it will have a history. Pick up any two items and if you look hard enough you will find that their histories connect in some way. So, there are innumerable ways to introduce history that way. Any other subject you have an interest in, whether it’s art, geology, gardening, cooking, gaming, sewing, or playing music will have its own history. So, there’s another way to introduce a little history into the conversation. Our approach to unschooling is quite conversational in this way. As we walk along in the woods my daughter will ask me to tell her stories. So, in doing so I will incorporate some science, art, history, or whatever else is relevant and interesting to the story. Any conversation involving current events is an opportunity to deepen the discussion by adding some history. I don’t mean that history has to be integrated into every waking moment and conversation but it is so easy to integrate that missing out on history entirely makes for a poorly educated person. I have been unschooling my daughter for several years now. We have yet to read a textbook or work through a curriculum. We live life. We talk, go places, read books together. But, as a result of all of that she has already developed some sense of history. That is just to say that it can be done in an unschooling environment and I would say that a child is better for having the exposure to history. This is a very good question. There has always been an anti-intellectual current of thought and it still seems strong at least in the United States. I think there are several reasons for the disinterest in learning:
Learning is difficult: It takes time and effort to learn a subject in any depth. You need to read, think, and perhaps consult experts or teachers of the subject. So, it is work. Learning can challenge your beliefs: This is probably a major reason. Learning more about a topic can call in to question things you already think you know or believe. This can be very discomforting. Learning may appear unnecessary: People who don’t know about a topic often don’t know that they don’t know. As confusing as that sounds, it seems to be true (Incompetent People Too Ignorant to Know It). If you don’t know that there are things you don’t know then you don’t see any need to learn. For many people beliefs are much more important than knowledge. Feeling that you are right about something is more important than verifying that you do. After all, taking the trouble to verify your beliefs means risking the discovery that they are wrong. As an objective enterprise, learning and knowledge means there are those who know more than you do. There will always be people who know more than you do no matter how much you learn. Trying to learn more means coming face to face with that and so, in the face of that, better to not try at all. Better still is to disparage the entire enterprise of learning and knowledge. Support him in his questioning and begin to look for ways that allow him to figure these things out on his own. In other words, don’t always be the one providing answers but the one who helps figure out how to answer the questions.
At 7 years old, I would say you don’t need to worry about using “his curiosity in a way that benefits him” because merely having curiosity is a huge benefit. In my experience teaching college students, I saw so many students who completely lacked that curiosity. I’m sure most of them had it at your son's age and it was slowly discouraged out of them. Whatever you do, allow the curiosity to flourish and support it. Depending on his interest, there are several good books available that might be helpful. There’s an entire series titled “I Wonder Why…” For example, one is titled I Wonder Why Pyramids Were Built and Other Questions About Ancient Egypt. There’s another book titled Big Questions From Little People: And Simple Answers From Great Minds that he might like. For questions like how 911 works, why not take him to a fire station or police station? Many of them welcome young kids and are happy to show them around. Depending on where you’re located, there are also good museums (we have an excellent hands-on science center nearby) that you can take him to. For kids that age the more hands-on the experience the better. You might see if his questioning leads to some interest in philosophical questions. There are good resources here as well (which I am familiar with as a philosophy professor) such as David White’s books Philosophy for Kids and The Examined Life. Several activity books focus on experiments that he might be interested in. If you have a good library nearby use that as a resource for those kinds of books and other kinds as well. On the subject of books, be sure you continue reading to him (if he would like that). Many studies show that parents stop reading to their kids too soon; usually, once they can read on their own. But, many kids would love to have reading continue. Make your investigations of his questions a team effort. Take an interest in the questions he is asking, suggest possible ways to approach answering them, suggest new directions for the questioning to go, and discover the answers together. There are also a few websites he might like including: The Kid Should See This | Smart videos for curious minds of all ages: Science, art, nature, animals, space, technology, DIY, food, music, animation, and more Open Culture - The Best Free Cultural and Educational Media on the Web. Are there any lessons to be learned from Star Wars? To paraphrase Yoda, "Much you can learn." The Jedi Mind contains a number of short chapters each of which discuses a lesson you can learn from one of the characters in Star Wars as well as a practice which goes with that lesson. Some example lessons include Listen illustrated by Lyra Erso. The practice is to listen mindfully to a piece of music you have never heard before. Another lesson from Yoda is to accept failure.
Qui-Gon Jin teaches us to focus, Obi-Wan Kenobi teaches us to open our minds, Mal Kanata helps us learn to "look inward," and Ahsoka Tano helps us cultivate gratitude. Like all great stories, Star Wars can offer many life lessons if you know how to look for them. This little book shows just how much power the Force can have in the ordinary world. On this May the Fourth, "May the Force be with you!" A2A on Quora:
I think an important, and sometimes overlooked, reason for lifelong learning is the reason that Richard Feynman gave: “the pleasure of finding things out.” As long as you’re here you might as well have some enjoyable, fulfilling experiences. Learning is one of those. Or it can be if you approach it in the right way. Of course, lifelong learning will also have immense practical value as well. Pretty much any career you go into is going to require you to keep up with the knowledge in your field. That will require lifelong learning. The more you learn the more you will be able to connect your knowledge in unique and innovative ways. This will set you apart from many of your peers who only view learning as something to be done in the classroom and then get on with living. Learn things that will benefit you that others will not take the time and effort to learn. That will also distinguish you. You’re here for a limited amount of time. While you’re here take the time to be helpful to others in any way you can. One way to increase your helpfulness is to continue learning. It will make you more helpful, unique, more enjoyable to talk with, and perhaps even more attractive to a prospective partner. All good reasons to keep learning. |