By Stuart Elliott
“For all our talk of virtue we are powerless to create it. We cannot MAKE our children good.”- Cyndi Rollins
Let’s be honest with ourselves, much of what characterizes education today, whether in a traditional school or at home, is fear and anxiety. It seems we are in a constant state of worry about a whole host of things regarding our children’s education. Is she testing well? How does she compare to other kids her age? Is she developing socially? I am giving her all she needs? And the list goes on. As homeschooling parents we add on top of all that worry our own fears about our inadequacy to be our children’s primary educator. Part of the reason for this is because we are trying to give our children an education that we did not receive. How can I give her something I never got? Am I really adequate to be in charge of my child’s entire education while she is under my roof? Shouldn’t I just let the experts do it, those who are more specialized, the professionals?
To the question of your adequacy to be your child’s teacher the answer of course is, “Yes, you are inadequate.” And here is why realizing this is the best thing you can do for your child and her education.
There is a quote typically attributed to Socrates, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” Now I am not going to any extreme here and saying that knowledge is not attainable or worse that it is merely subjective. What I want to say is that there is no amount of knowledge a teacher may have that makes him adequate to teach a student. Why? Because the task of the teacher is not to take his knowledge and transfer it to his student. It is not the case that the teacher has all the answers and his job in education is to ensure that the student can find them or write them in a blank on a worksheet. At the end if that schooling the student will have piles of papers with answers but no education. True education isn’t mere data transfer from teacher to student, but I fear that is how it is mostly approached in our modern education system (demonstrated by its enormous over emphasis on using standardized test to evaluate a child’s education and learning, and its insistence on homogenizing learning in the form of common core standards for every school). This approach bleeds into how we understand our task as home-educators because its the educational assumption we were taught under. So we spend lots of money on whole curriculums and stress over how behind we are in them year to year, and get pits in our stomach when the curriculum we chose turns out to be different than new ‘researched based’ one that just came out. This is not as it should be.
Today it seems clear that we think our students need teachers with specialized degrees in order to ensure they learn. The fact is a student doesn’t need a teacher at all in order to learn. Children learn naturally on their own. It’s an inherent characteristic of being human at every stage of development. What is a saplings natural tendency? To grow of course. You don’t have to teach it to do that. But what does it need in order to grow strong, sturdy and healthy? That’s where the gardener steps in and cultivates the soil, provides nourishment and helps battle the weeds. The gardener might decide instead to tell the sapling it is composed of roots, stems, leaves, flowers and fruit. That his skin is really tiny cells with a nucleus and cytoplasm and chloroplast. The gardener might even have a little quiz to see how much the sapling has ‘learned’ about these things. But none of this provides actual nourishment for our growing plant.
I have been intrigued lately by a certain parable that appears in Mark 4:26-29. Though the parable theologically is meant to tell the reader something about the Kingdom of God I think its imagery can be helpfully applied to education.
And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” (emphasis mine)
Now, by modern standards this is the worst gardener in the world. Clearly he is not adequate to ensure a healthy crop. He has no clue how the seeds are growing. It just seems to happen as he goes about his business. I want to suggest that going about your business, allowing the earth to produce by itself, is the very best approach you can take to being the most adequate teacher for your imagineers.
We do not make our children learn. The teacher with the most specialized degree and a wealth of knowledge cannot make our children learn. They can make them memorize lists, do worksheets and take tests, but none of this makes them educated, not as we understand it and frankly not as we want it for our children.
Caution! This is not an excuse to do nothing, to be lazy or thoughtless about the educational environment you are providing for your children. It is however an invitation to step into a new world, one that is hopefully more restful and allows you to ease your anxieties over your own inadequacies.
In part 2 of this post I hope to build up an attainable and rich vision of just what you are adequate to do as your child’s teacher.
Dani | Desolatehomestead
I agree. It is so much more about the environment we provide for our kids, than our own knowledge. We can not file transfer our knowledge to them, and that isn’t what they need anyway!
Shannon
Stuart,
Thank you for sharing this!
I remember when we were first starting out – we knew we had to homeschool but I felt completely inadequate to the task. And that’s not because I don’t have a college degree – I do – but I don’t think that is what makes a parent the most adequate teacher for their children. Knowing them and giving of your time to them is a game changer is really what it boils down to.
Now, five babies down the line and three in full on school, all of my feelings of inadequacy are mostly gone. And it’s not because I’m less busy – we live off-grid now and have five ten and under. Nor is it because I’ve gotten into a groove or learned how to be a teacher along the way.
The real reason is because I know it’s possible for them to learn to read if we simply sit down with them every day and go at their pace. Diligence, patience, and so much prayer are the only real prerequisites to educating a child. When the apprehension hits again, as it does from time to time, my husband (named Stewart, btw) is great at anchoring me.
“Are you at least teaching them to read?” he asks in such a calm and simple manner. “Well, yes..” I reply. “Then they’ll be able to read the word of the Lord so what else are you worried about?”. Of course math and spelling and vocabulary and history and all of the real life grow your own food skills are in the day-to-day. But what are we first and foremost accountable for in stewarding these babes? Their souls.
So we start there, seeking the Lord every step of the way because He is the only one who can give us grace for that monumental task.
Tonya
Love this! Excellent insight!
Dana
Can’t wait to read part 2! Enjoying these homeschooling posts, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Karla
Love this, thanks for the words of wisdom.
I’ve been homeschooling my kids for a few years but each year I re-evaluate to see what my kids need. It’s challenging… because I love the “unschooling” approach but am afraid it will seem too hands-off… so I balance with a bit of structure.
I just found out our state might pass legislation to crack down on homeschoolers, used standardized tests and evaluations throughout the year… so I’m nervous about that. *sigh*
How can we meet the needs of our kids/family AND follow the “rules”?
Jenni
Love it! Looking forward to part two! This article led me to your lovely blog and I am now following!
David Foster
My wife and I home schooled our 3 boys (now 34,34 and 33). We knew nothing of home schooling when we started other than we could not do worse that what the government school was providing (youngest could not read at age 6).
We concentrated on the 4 R’s Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic and Research. When the boys asked questions we did not know the answers to we showed them how we found the answer (encyclopedia, dictionary, newspapers, magazines, journals etc no internet back then). We knew it was working when we spotted the boys doing there own research without asking us the questions.
It seems to have worked out fine, the elder 2 were at university at 15 (1 degree in Mathematics Grad Dip teaching (LOL), the other PhD Computing), the youngest is a Mr Fixit (thinks outside the box to provide solutions to most problems)
If you provide the children with the tools, support, opportunities and encouragement they can do anything
Allison
Stuart, I think you have a fresh and wonderful approach to homeschooling, and your opinions seem particularly poignant to me because you have been a professional educator and can speak from experience on both sides of the fence, as it were. I think you would enjoy listening to an essay by Dorothy Sayers called The Tools of Learning. It’s one that I think about often, and even makes me feel better about my own, very poor public school education (meaning, I recognize that even though the information provided to me was very poor, and even more poorly taught, somehow I still learned how to learn…which is, as Dorothy says in her essay, the point of education).
Joy
Thanks, Stuart, very wise indeed!. . . You just summed up what has taken me 19 years of homeschooling to glean! Children are not receptacles for us to fill with facts, but persons, who think and feel and interact with ideas. Learning is an act of the child himself, not something that can be done to or for them! . . . keep it up
CarolSue
Wonderful post and just what I needed to hear. I look forward to part 2!
Sandi
Thank you for this post! What a refreshing perspective on the role of an educator. I am a public school teacher and I hate the way I am forced to teach. My students struggle to learn because of the homogeneous common core garbage. I don’t want my children to be subjected to this in the traditional school system. Praying that God will make a way for me to homeschool and homestead full time in the near future!