by Steven Horwich
Education can be tough work.
One can immediately see that an educator should have certain qualities if they're to succeed, and indeed, survive being an educator. Here is a brief idea of some of the requisite qualities, a few of which may surprise you:
- Awareness.
As the student will be reacting to his studies and the world around him, clearly, the student will be changing from day to day. We all do. The educator must be sufficiently aware of the student to have some idea of what’s happening to the student, so that the educator can figure out what to do for the student.
An example: A student who loves history all of a sudden is doing poorly at it, or is resistant to studying it. As an educator, one would hope that you would be sufficiently aware of your student to see this change, one requiring action on your part. There may be numerous reasons that such a change might occur and we will discuss those later, as well as many potential solutions. But the first thing that must happen for you to assist the student is that you, the educator, must be able to see clearly how your student is doing. This requires awareness.
- Flexibility.
As mentioned, your relationship with a student is going to be a dynamic one. The student
will have good and bad days, and so will you. You, however, have a specific job to do, and so does your student. The student’s job is to actively learn as much as possible about the world, and about specific subjects (they are hopefully interested in), in preparation for their playing a role in life that they will find pleasing and which will be of use to the world at large.
Your job is to do whatever is needed to help them do their job. Your job is not, contrary to current methods and “ideals”, one of “leadership”, or of “role model”, or of “lecturer and chief testing and administration of punishments officer”.
Your job is one of facilitator to the student’s education. The needs of that education will change daily sometimes, as will the student’s general attitude, and perhaps even his physical well-being. A good educator will bend in the prevailing wind, but not break.
- Knowledge of the Tools and Methods available to the educator.
We have been educating our children for thousands of years. The methods and tools of
education, indeed, the entire approach, has changed many times over the centuries. So
have the goals of education.
Today, there is a culture-wide failure in our ability to successfully educate. We are doing
a poorer job at this than many generations passed. Education has a very long history.
That history teaches us that there are significantly more ways to approach education
than are currently in use, and given that the current tools are now used systemically and
have led modern education to a very dark place indeed, we’d best be looking at other
approaches.
-An understanding of the goals of education.
Goals determine process. Function can determine form. The specific goal or goals that
we establish in education (the function of education for our student) should largely
determine the methods (processes) we use, the subjects that we teach, and even the way
we measure progress. Indeed, the definition of “progress” needs to be defined by our
goals. Progress is “toward the goal we've established”, whatever that goal is.
Today, the goals established by teachers often have little or nothing to do with the individual student. They are either based in national standards derived from some very big and faceless numbers, or they are motivated by likely employment opportunities.
The goals that are rarely considered in education are those of the end user of that education – the student. This chapter will help you develop methods to determine your student’s goals, and then ways and means of assisting the student in investigating and pursuing those goals through education. But to accomplish this, one pretty much needs the freedom that non-institutional education provides.
In simple terms – to provide a student-centered education, you'll need to homeschool.
- An understanding of each individual student, their needs and goals.
Your student’s each have their own unique needs. They have interests that may or may
not align with anyone else’s educational goals for them.
And please note that I said interests, and not aptitudes. We have all kinds of poorly designed tests issued to school children (and have had them for decades) that supposedly measure aptitude in various areas. No test can properly assess aptitude. No test can truly evaluate what creativity is, or “how much” of it a person has. No test will tell you what a child driven by interest
rather than by grades, report cards and punishment might accomplish, despite a “lack of
aptitude”. Aptitude cannot be tested for successfully.
Your student is not “the national average”.
His goals are his own. So are his needs. It is unlikely that any two students share exactly the same needs so far as their education is concerned. This is one of the facts about educating children that makes it difficult to do.
In spite of our desire to have some sort of base and easily executed guideline, it is a myth
that you can place children together and have them all study the same materials in the same way, and secure anything resembling an acceptable or universal result.
In discovering each student as the individual that he or she is, we immediately improve the chance for success in education. In allowing the student to advise us as to his interests, we allow ourselves to stop guessing about which subjects they are attracted to and willing to work hard on. We know because the student told us. And yes, it is true that their interests are very liable to change as they grow and experience more of life.
Hence, the need to remain aware and flexible as teachers. A life is a fluid and oft-changing force. We want to unleash each student, as a force, at their greatest power upon the world. To do so, a teacher can’t work against the tide of disinterest in the student. That route – the route taken by public and private education the vast, vast majority of the time – is the long, hard road to ruined lives and the systemic failure of education.
-Organizational skills.
In recent years, we have separated out the function of administrator from teacher.
This bad idea removed the administrative functions of education one step from the student. This guaranteed that the administrator, living in his ivory tower or Principal’s office, would have little or no exposure to the students (unless they were in trouble, giving the poor Principal a view of the worst only), to education as a process, or to teacher’s and their travails. This was done ostensibly to accommodate the large numbers of students and staff required by public schooling.
In the old Little Red School House, there was a teacher and…well, no one. This meant that the teacher, to succeed, had to be an able administrator of time, materials, and people. The teacher was the administrator.
If you are homeschooling, you are also your own administrator. As an adult, doubtless you have some experience running your own life, your business or your household. These require a reasonable amount of administrative skills. What you’ve learned through life, along with a few good ideas, should serve any teacher well in administrating for their students – so long as the teacher agrees to take on administrative responsibilities, and understands that they belong to the teacher.
If you missed Part I- read it here
Steven Horwich has been a professional educator for over 40 years, and a homeschool advocate and author of curriculum for 15. His K-12 secular curriculum, STEPS (www.stepsed.com) has been used by over 20,000 students worldwide, and includes world history, science, civics, creative writing, study basics, current events, and lots of arts.
Education can be tough work.
One can immediately see that an educator should have certain qualities if they're to succeed, and indeed, survive being an educator. Here is a brief idea of some of the requisite qualities, a few of which may surprise you:
- Awareness.
As the student will be reacting to his studies and the world around him, clearly, the student will be changing from day to day. We all do. The educator must be sufficiently aware of the student to have some idea of what’s happening to the student, so that the educator can figure out what to do for the student.
An example: A student who loves history all of a sudden is doing poorly at it, or is resistant to studying it. As an educator, one would hope that you would be sufficiently aware of your student to see this change, one requiring action on your part. There may be numerous reasons that such a change might occur and we will discuss those later, as well as many potential solutions. But the first thing that must happen for you to assist the student is that you, the educator, must be able to see clearly how your student is doing. This requires awareness.
- Flexibility.
As mentioned, your relationship with a student is going to be a dynamic one. The student
will have good and bad days, and so will you. You, however, have a specific job to do, and so does your student. The student’s job is to actively learn as much as possible about the world, and about specific subjects (they are hopefully interested in), in preparation for their playing a role in life that they will find pleasing and which will be of use to the world at large.
Your job is to do whatever is needed to help them do their job. Your job is not, contrary to current methods and “ideals”, one of “leadership”, or of “role model”, or of “lecturer and chief testing and administration of punishments officer”.
Your job is one of facilitator to the student’s education. The needs of that education will change daily sometimes, as will the student’s general attitude, and perhaps even his physical well-being. A good educator will bend in the prevailing wind, but not break.
- Knowledge of the Tools and Methods available to the educator.
We have been educating our children for thousands of years. The methods and tools of
education, indeed, the entire approach, has changed many times over the centuries. So
have the goals of education.
Today, there is a culture-wide failure in our ability to successfully educate. We are doing
a poorer job at this than many generations passed. Education has a very long history.
That history teaches us that there are significantly more ways to approach education
than are currently in use, and given that the current tools are now used systemically and
have led modern education to a very dark place indeed, we’d best be looking at other
approaches.
-An understanding of the goals of education.
Goals determine process. Function can determine form. The specific goal or goals that
we establish in education (the function of education for our student) should largely
determine the methods (processes) we use, the subjects that we teach, and even the way
we measure progress. Indeed, the definition of “progress” needs to be defined by our
goals. Progress is “toward the goal we've established”, whatever that goal is.
Today, the goals established by teachers often have little or nothing to do with the individual student. They are either based in national standards derived from some very big and faceless numbers, or they are motivated by likely employment opportunities.
The goals that are rarely considered in education are those of the end user of that education – the student. This chapter will help you develop methods to determine your student’s goals, and then ways and means of assisting the student in investigating and pursuing those goals through education. But to accomplish this, one pretty much needs the freedom that non-institutional education provides.
In simple terms – to provide a student-centered education, you'll need to homeschool.
- An understanding of each individual student, their needs and goals.
Your student’s each have their own unique needs. They have interests that may or may
not align with anyone else’s educational goals for them.
And please note that I said interests, and not aptitudes. We have all kinds of poorly designed tests issued to school children (and have had them for decades) that supposedly measure aptitude in various areas. No test can properly assess aptitude. No test can truly evaluate what creativity is, or “how much” of it a person has. No test will tell you what a child driven by interest
rather than by grades, report cards and punishment might accomplish, despite a “lack of
aptitude”. Aptitude cannot be tested for successfully.
Your student is not “the national average”.
His goals are his own. So are his needs. It is unlikely that any two students share exactly the same needs so far as their education is concerned. This is one of the facts about educating children that makes it difficult to do.
In spite of our desire to have some sort of base and easily executed guideline, it is a myth
that you can place children together and have them all study the same materials in the same way, and secure anything resembling an acceptable or universal result.
In discovering each student as the individual that he or she is, we immediately improve the chance for success in education. In allowing the student to advise us as to his interests, we allow ourselves to stop guessing about which subjects they are attracted to and willing to work hard on. We know because the student told us. And yes, it is true that their interests are very liable to change as they grow and experience more of life.
Hence, the need to remain aware and flexible as teachers. A life is a fluid and oft-changing force. We want to unleash each student, as a force, at their greatest power upon the world. To do so, a teacher can’t work against the tide of disinterest in the student. That route – the route taken by public and private education the vast, vast majority of the time – is the long, hard road to ruined lives and the systemic failure of education.
-Organizational skills.
In recent years, we have separated out the function of administrator from teacher.
This bad idea removed the administrative functions of education one step from the student. This guaranteed that the administrator, living in his ivory tower or Principal’s office, would have little or no exposure to the students (unless they were in trouble, giving the poor Principal a view of the worst only), to education as a process, or to teacher’s and their travails. This was done ostensibly to accommodate the large numbers of students and staff required by public schooling.
In the old Little Red School House, there was a teacher and…well, no one. This meant that the teacher, to succeed, had to be an able administrator of time, materials, and people. The teacher was the administrator.
If you are homeschooling, you are also your own administrator. As an adult, doubtless you have some experience running your own life, your business or your household. These require a reasonable amount of administrative skills. What you’ve learned through life, along with a few good ideas, should serve any teacher well in administrating for their students – so long as the teacher agrees to take on administrative responsibilities, and understands that they belong to the teacher.
If you missed Part I- read it here
Steven Horwich has been a professional educator for over 40 years, and a homeschool advocate and author of curriculum for 15. His K-12 secular curriculum, STEPS (www.stepsed.com) has been used by over 20,000 students worldwide, and includes world history, science, civics, creative writing, study basics, current events, and lots of arts.
