by Steven David Horwich
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Horwich’s new book, Not Alternative Education – Universal Private Education. This is part three of his article, Homeschooling in the 21st Century. It deals with how to define “success” as a homeschool teacher.
No one succeeds at educating a child alone. It does take a community, a “village” of sorts to raise a child and to meet his goals and potentials with the actual resources and enthusiasm he or she deserves.
Homeschoolers communicate to each other in so many ways today – many of them facilitated by the Internet. But to succeed at the education game, we must do a better job at not only locating workable resources, but sharing them with others who need them. Education is not all about available resources, of course. As Lincoln and so many others have proved, it’s also about creativity, tenacity and drive. But let’s face it, resources help. The more good and useful resources we have, the better.
Today, as the father of nonviolent resistance Henry David Thoreau once envisioned, the world can be a classroom. In fact, the coordinating of all the potential resources toward a cohesive and complete educational approach can be a full time job, as I can tell you from experience. I know that many parents out there have been doing exactly that job. It is a job.
Which modern ideas, which 21st century concepts should we employ to align all of the materials and information that are available? Well, though it often seems to be in short supply, I’d start with common sense. Base your decisions on what to include in a child’s education on your intended results. And use those tools which will help you provide the student what he needs to get those results. Avoid those “tools” that will hinder, complicate uselessly, or actually crush the student’s progress.
So how to prepare your student to succeed in the 21st century?
First off, we’ll need to define “success”. That’s a tough one. We each of us have our own idea of what “success” is.
Let’s take one further step back. Let’s remember that it’s the student’s success in life that we’re interested in. So the only definition that should matter where success is concerned would be connected to the student and his life.
What does the student want to do? Where would he like to go in life if he could? What would he like to accomplish? In the end, if he can survive and do the things he dreams of, that would have to be considered success. If he can do better than just survive and prosper in his chosen mode of living, if he can help others to do so as well, then it might be said that such a person was a great success indeed.
With the idea in mind that each student will have their own dream life and work, it should quickly become apparent in considering our approach that college is not for everyone.
I’ve already provided you a list of great people who did not do college. I’ll take it farther now and say that in my opinion, college is not the answer for most people. But for a while, it certainly seemed that those who went to college had the best chance of succeeding in certain professions. But that was never much more than an illusion. Today as always, expertise, real experience and understanding of an area, is a better guarantee of employment than a degree.
So, what to do? Well, if your student longs to serve in a profession for which one must have a degree, then you should certainly prep your student to go to college. Others should do other things such as intern in an area they love, start their own company, etc. They should get on with the business of their life, the one they have selected to excel in.
College has uses in the 21st century, but they aren’t the uses colleges were put to in the 20th century when colleges only had a modest success record anyway.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
The following is an excerpt from Mr. Horwich’s new book, Not Alternative Education – Universal Private Education. This is part three of his article, Homeschooling in the 21st Century. It deals with how to define “success” as a homeschool teacher.
No one succeeds at educating a child alone. It does take a community, a “village” of sorts to raise a child and to meet his goals and potentials with the actual resources and enthusiasm he or she deserves.
Homeschoolers communicate to each other in so many ways today – many of them facilitated by the Internet. But to succeed at the education game, we must do a better job at not only locating workable resources, but sharing them with others who need them. Education is not all about available resources, of course. As Lincoln and so many others have proved, it’s also about creativity, tenacity and drive. But let’s face it, resources help. The more good and useful resources we have, the better.
Today, as the father of nonviolent resistance Henry David Thoreau once envisioned, the world can be a classroom. In fact, the coordinating of all the potential resources toward a cohesive and complete educational approach can be a full time job, as I can tell you from experience. I know that many parents out there have been doing exactly that job. It is a job.
Which modern ideas, which 21st century concepts should we employ to align all of the materials and information that are available? Well, though it often seems to be in short supply, I’d start with common sense. Base your decisions on what to include in a child’s education on your intended results. And use those tools which will help you provide the student what he needs to get those results. Avoid those “tools” that will hinder, complicate uselessly, or actually crush the student’s progress.
So how to prepare your student to succeed in the 21st century?
First off, we’ll need to define “success”. That’s a tough one. We each of us have our own idea of what “success” is.
Let’s take one further step back. Let’s remember that it’s the student’s success in life that we’re interested in. So the only definition that should matter where success is concerned would be connected to the student and his life.
What does the student want to do? Where would he like to go in life if he could? What would he like to accomplish? In the end, if he can survive and do the things he dreams of, that would have to be considered success. If he can do better than just survive and prosper in his chosen mode of living, if he can help others to do so as well, then it might be said that such a person was a great success indeed.
With the idea in mind that each student will have their own dream life and work, it should quickly become apparent in considering our approach that college is not for everyone.
I’ve already provided you a list of great people who did not do college. I’ll take it farther now and say that in my opinion, college is not the answer for most people. But for a while, it certainly seemed that those who went to college had the best chance of succeeding in certain professions. But that was never much more than an illusion. Today as always, expertise, real experience and understanding of an area, is a better guarantee of employment than a degree.
So, what to do? Well, if your student longs to serve in a profession for which one must have a degree, then you should certainly prep your student to go to college. Others should do other things such as intern in an area they love, start their own company, etc. They should get on with the business of their life, the one they have selected to excel in.
College has uses in the 21st century, but they aren’t the uses colleges were put to in the 20th century when colleges only had a modest success record anyway.
Steven Horwich is an Emmy and Dramalogue award-winning writer/director, who has split his life between the arts and education. A teacher with over 35 years and over 20,000 hours of experience from elementary school through university-level teaching, he started homeschooling his own children in 2002. This led him to author over 300 courses since 2002, a complete curricula (excluding math) for ages 5-adult, called Connect The Thoughts. Over 20,000 people have used CTT since making it available via the Internet in 2007. His curricula is presented at www.connectthethoughts.com. There is over 5 hours of film explaining his courses and approach. He has authored a book about education today, Poor Cheated Little Johnny, and a teacher training program to go with it. He currently presents a free webinar about education and homeschooling every third Tuesday.
