by Laurie White
In my last article for HERD, I discussed factor #1 of a Smithsonian study from the 1960’s on “The Childhood Pattern of Genius.” Here again is the three-part list of common elements found in the lives of the 20 geniuses who were studied:
1. They were given a maximum amount of free time to spend exploring, and very few places or things in the house were off limits (from banging on the piano to hammers and nails).
2. They had highly responsive parents who spent time answering any questions they had or helping them find the answers.
3. They spent a minimum amount of time with people their own age.
Genius Factor #2: The Responsive Parents
So let’s look at factor #2--having those highly responsive parents. Obviously, a homeschooled child will probably get this one in abundance. Perhaps, at times, in overabundance. I remember when it hit me that in my enthusiasm for science and history I was turning everything into a “learning experience.” I realized my kids needed to be able to catch fireflies on a summer night without having to collect them and study their little bug parts, but it took effort to rein in this aspect of myself. Depending on the personality of the mother, it is easy to go too far in either direction--missing those ripe opportunities to dive more deeply into a subject or event, or not allowing some things to just be experienced, no overt lesson added. After all, there is much more to life than just the cognitive. I have a tendency to over-analyze, and I had to buffer that for the sake of my kids’ mental health! So “know thyself” as the Greeks would say.
A Fundamentally Different Approach to Learning
Notice too that our genius’s parents are not simply answering questions but “helping them find the answers.” I’m not sure when this fully dawned on me, but somewhere in the first few years of homeschooling I began to realize that it was actually a really good thing when I didn’t know the answers. Homeschooling is definitely not “school at home.” It is a fundamentally different approach to learning. The parent is not a professor dishing out the answers but rather a facilitator encouraging the student to dig for answers, and often the parent becomes a fellow student learning along with the child. That’s why a mom with barely a high school education can successfully homeschool her kids. A much more important prerequisite to homeschooling than having superior knowledge is for the parents to be curious and enthusiastic learners themselves.
I still remember doing a science experiment with my young children in which we set a candle down in the middle of a dinner plate and filled the plate with water. We lit the candle and then placed a glass jar over it. The flame burned up the oxygen inside the jar, and as it did, it created a vacuum and began sucking the water from the dish up inside the jar in order to fill the empty space. It was like magic! I was every bit as enthralled as my kids. They knew I wasn’t pretending either, because I kept redoing the experiment to see it again. Revisiting elementary science as an adult was much more mind expanding than I would have ever predicted. My own first experiences in any kind of science lab had been in high school, and by then the subject matter is too often overshadowed by worry over grades and memorizing terms. Now with homeschooling--for myself and my children--there was nothing to dampen the enjoyment of pure discovery. For me this was exhilarating. Add that together with the enthusiasm of my kids and we had definite synergy going on.
One of the basic premises of homeschooling is to escape the spoon-fed model of learning (watch the video or read the book, learn it, test it). Of course, some of what we need to know is most easily acquired by that method. My kids definitely did their share of that. But homeschooling allows a huge amount of opportunity and time to explore, to go after answers on your own, to dig into topics you find fascinating. By delving deeply into a topic of interest (as with a unit study), the child not only learns how to look at a subject from more than one angle, he learns the immense satisfaction of finding answers to questions he himself has thought up. His curiosity gets re-charged again and again. He learns to dig for the answers on his own, and most importantly of all, to enjoy the pursuit. This process stands in sharp contrast to the typical school where answers are more generally served up by the teacher to be memorized and then quickly forgotten after the test.
Besides the prevention of turning learning into drudgery, another huge benefit of homeschooling is that the child gains an overall confidence that “if it’s in a book, I can learn it.” Teachers might be very helpful at times for sure, but they are not necessarily indispensable. This is especially true today with our ability to google our questions on absolutely any topic. When my son was at Georgia Tech, he was taking a math class that was particularly boring with lectures that were straight from the book. His teacher did not give penalties for absences, so he decided to just skip class, study the book on his own (homeschooling 101, right?), and come in only to take tests. He made an A to the surprise of his teacher. For my homeschooled son this method had seemed like a perfectly natural way to take a class.
Lighting the Fire
There’s a famous quote by William Butler Yeats stating that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” With the exception of math and grammar (which are incrementally built), a child is not so much in need of accumulating facts as he is in need of learning to love to explore, pursue answers, and process a whole world that is new to him. This is especially true of the elementary grades. But even as emphasis shifts in the later grades to a more rigorous accumulation of knowledge, the essence of education is still rooted in the broadening of the students’ minds and hearts and in gaining a deeper understanding of the world around them.
A good example of “lighting the fire” is my daughter Rebecca’s study of ancient Egypt in the fourth grade. Although by college she had forgotten many of the finer details of her extended unit study, what she retained was a passion for Egypt and for exploring different cultures. Her knowledge of Egypt was more intimate than just facts. She had experienced Egypt through multiple media, from making salt-dough maps to learning how to play the ancient game of Senet. The land of the Nile had left an indelible impression. So years later she worked hard to save her money and managed to finance a student “mini-mester” in Egypt her junior year of college. From studying ancient Egypt in the fourth grade to visiting the pyramids of Giza and cruising down the Nile--which she made happen--that’s what lighting the fire is all about. This kind of robust education is homeschooling’s strong suit.
The bottom line is this: Don’t become “the teacher!” You don’t have to have all the answers. Stay true to your calling of being the responsive parent. If you’re new to homeschooling, you won’t believe what happens when a school system is not there to squash your child’s natural curiosity and desire to learn. Your kids will amaze you. Teach them and guide them, sure! Do lots of that! But also be curious and relish the opportunity of learning alongside them. Infuse them with confidence in their own ability to ferret out the answers, and it won’t be long before they are teaching you many things of their own.
Laurie White is an author, teacher, and mom to three kids who were homeschooled k-12. She writes books and other supplemental materials for homeschoolers including her popular and award-winning King Alfred’s English which combines history and English in a highly entertaining format for grades 7 and above. For more info and access to Laurie's free downloads go to www.TheShorterWord.com
In my last article for HERD, I discussed factor #1 of a Smithsonian study from the 1960’s on “The Childhood Pattern of Genius.” Here again is the three-part list of common elements found in the lives of the 20 geniuses who were studied:
1. They were given a maximum amount of free time to spend exploring, and very few places or things in the house were off limits (from banging on the piano to hammers and nails).
2. They had highly responsive parents who spent time answering any questions they had or helping them find the answers.
3. They spent a minimum amount of time with people their own age.
Genius Factor #2: The Responsive Parents
So let’s look at factor #2--having those highly responsive parents. Obviously, a homeschooled child will probably get this one in abundance. Perhaps, at times, in overabundance. I remember when it hit me that in my enthusiasm for science and history I was turning everything into a “learning experience.” I realized my kids needed to be able to catch fireflies on a summer night without having to collect them and study their little bug parts, but it took effort to rein in this aspect of myself. Depending on the personality of the mother, it is easy to go too far in either direction--missing those ripe opportunities to dive more deeply into a subject or event, or not allowing some things to just be experienced, no overt lesson added. After all, there is much more to life than just the cognitive. I have a tendency to over-analyze, and I had to buffer that for the sake of my kids’ mental health! So “know thyself” as the Greeks would say.
A Fundamentally Different Approach to Learning
Notice too that our genius’s parents are not simply answering questions but “helping them find the answers.” I’m not sure when this fully dawned on me, but somewhere in the first few years of homeschooling I began to realize that it was actually a really good thing when I didn’t know the answers. Homeschooling is definitely not “school at home.” It is a fundamentally different approach to learning. The parent is not a professor dishing out the answers but rather a facilitator encouraging the student to dig for answers, and often the parent becomes a fellow student learning along with the child. That’s why a mom with barely a high school education can successfully homeschool her kids. A much more important prerequisite to homeschooling than having superior knowledge is for the parents to be curious and enthusiastic learners themselves.
I still remember doing a science experiment with my young children in which we set a candle down in the middle of a dinner plate and filled the plate with water. We lit the candle and then placed a glass jar over it. The flame burned up the oxygen inside the jar, and as it did, it created a vacuum and began sucking the water from the dish up inside the jar in order to fill the empty space. It was like magic! I was every bit as enthralled as my kids. They knew I wasn’t pretending either, because I kept redoing the experiment to see it again. Revisiting elementary science as an adult was much more mind expanding than I would have ever predicted. My own first experiences in any kind of science lab had been in high school, and by then the subject matter is too often overshadowed by worry over grades and memorizing terms. Now with homeschooling--for myself and my children--there was nothing to dampen the enjoyment of pure discovery. For me this was exhilarating. Add that together with the enthusiasm of my kids and we had definite synergy going on.
One of the basic premises of homeschooling is to escape the spoon-fed model of learning (watch the video or read the book, learn it, test it). Of course, some of what we need to know is most easily acquired by that method. My kids definitely did their share of that. But homeschooling allows a huge amount of opportunity and time to explore, to go after answers on your own, to dig into topics you find fascinating. By delving deeply into a topic of interest (as with a unit study), the child not only learns how to look at a subject from more than one angle, he learns the immense satisfaction of finding answers to questions he himself has thought up. His curiosity gets re-charged again and again. He learns to dig for the answers on his own, and most importantly of all, to enjoy the pursuit. This process stands in sharp contrast to the typical school where answers are more generally served up by the teacher to be memorized and then quickly forgotten after the test.
Besides the prevention of turning learning into drudgery, another huge benefit of homeschooling is that the child gains an overall confidence that “if it’s in a book, I can learn it.” Teachers might be very helpful at times for sure, but they are not necessarily indispensable. This is especially true today with our ability to google our questions on absolutely any topic. When my son was at Georgia Tech, he was taking a math class that was particularly boring with lectures that were straight from the book. His teacher did not give penalties for absences, so he decided to just skip class, study the book on his own (homeschooling 101, right?), and come in only to take tests. He made an A to the surprise of his teacher. For my homeschooled son this method had seemed like a perfectly natural way to take a class.
Lighting the Fire
There’s a famous quote by William Butler Yeats stating that “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” With the exception of math and grammar (which are incrementally built), a child is not so much in need of accumulating facts as he is in need of learning to love to explore, pursue answers, and process a whole world that is new to him. This is especially true of the elementary grades. But even as emphasis shifts in the later grades to a more rigorous accumulation of knowledge, the essence of education is still rooted in the broadening of the students’ minds and hearts and in gaining a deeper understanding of the world around them.
A good example of “lighting the fire” is my daughter Rebecca’s study of ancient Egypt in the fourth grade. Although by college she had forgotten many of the finer details of her extended unit study, what she retained was a passion for Egypt and for exploring different cultures. Her knowledge of Egypt was more intimate than just facts. She had experienced Egypt through multiple media, from making salt-dough maps to learning how to play the ancient game of Senet. The land of the Nile had left an indelible impression. So years later she worked hard to save her money and managed to finance a student “mini-mester” in Egypt her junior year of college. From studying ancient Egypt in the fourth grade to visiting the pyramids of Giza and cruising down the Nile--which she made happen--that’s what lighting the fire is all about. This kind of robust education is homeschooling’s strong suit.
The bottom line is this: Don’t become “the teacher!” You don’t have to have all the answers. Stay true to your calling of being the responsive parent. If you’re new to homeschooling, you won’t believe what happens when a school system is not there to squash your child’s natural curiosity and desire to learn. Your kids will amaze you. Teach them and guide them, sure! Do lots of that! But also be curious and relish the opportunity of learning alongside them. Infuse them with confidence in their own ability to ferret out the answers, and it won’t be long before they are teaching you many things of their own.
Laurie White is an author, teacher, and mom to three kids who were homeschooled k-12. She writes books and other supplemental materials for homeschoolers including her popular and award-winning King Alfred’s English which combines history and English in a highly entertaining format for grades 7 and above. For more info and access to Laurie's free downloads go to www.TheShorterWord.com
