Are You Schooling for the Masses or are You Schooling for Your Divinely Created, Uniquely Gifted Child?

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about my approach to high school.  I have 6 children with my first 3 being boys, one already graduated and my second having his graduation party in August. 

Zachary (my second son) changed all my thinking about high school when he began several years ago.  You see, he wasn’t like my first son, Seth.  Seth was very faithful and diligent in his bookwork – following conscientiously his mothers high school plan for him, graduating and then going on to enter college for almost a year and doing very well on his entrance exam as well as his classes.  In short, he was a model student.

Zachary, on the other hand, did not enjoy sitting at his desk for hours on end. (I do know I was an overzealous homeschool mom and assigned way too much work for Seth and consequently Zachary.)  Zachary would have been labeled in the public school system.  No doubt about it.  He would sometimes sit at his desk with his legs going back and forth, back and forth.  He would look up at me and have the most weary and exhausted expression on his face. 

I knew that he coudn’t handle the same work load that Seth had kept, so I lightened up his schedule but it was still too much.  It just wasn’t working for him. 

Letting Him Be

I finally caved in – not knowing what else to do and started letting him direct his own schooling.  He had a schedule that I typed up of books and courses he was to be studying (if he followed my outline) but then I let him be.  I let him be, not because I thought this was the right way to go, but because I didn’t know what else to do.  I was discouraged, feeling like I had failed. 

I read books (Dreamers, Discoverers & Dynamos:  How to help the child who is bright, bored and having problems in school)  went to classes at our homeschool convention and learned about right brain learners from Dianne Craft (read here and here).  I would be encouraged and KNOW that I had a unique child on my hands but still feel bound by what our culture said was the “right” way to learn. 

I knew I had an intelligent young man and it showed in various ways.  He could converse with adults or children on many topics, he could fix things, he was a deep thinker and he loved life and experiencing life.  But how does one measure these things and give a grade? 

To educational authorities these types of things mean nothing.  They have to have a one- size-fits-all test.  Therefore, the masses are all given the same exam questions so that the children can be properly placed and it can be determined if they are “learning”. 

But my children are not in a setting where they need to be pigeon holed into certain classes, so why do I think they need to learn in the exact same way as the masses?

Why do I let the “experts” dictate to me and who appointed them to be an expert over my child?  I know my child better than a stranger.  My children are unique one from another, each one of my children will have their own abilities, skills and talents.  Who is to say that they all need the very same course of study?

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” ~ Albert Einstein

Are We Wanting Unique, Creative Kids?

Dr. Raymond Moore, one of the pioneers of the modern homeschooling movement said this…

“Why must we extrude children in school grinders with the identical academic ingredients to be same-size salamis, clones of workbook authors? We prefer unique, creative kids with high moral principles and actions.” —Dr. Raymond Moore

and Sir. Winston Churchill speaking on schools…

“Schools have not necessarily much to do with education…
they are mainly institutions of control,
where basic habits must be inculcated in the young.
Education is quite different and has little place in school.”   —Sir. Winston Churchill

So, I let Zachary be and it has not been until now that I have seen the results, the fruits of backing away and letting him do the work of learning.  Letting him go with his interests.

Let me clarify that I have always encouraged my children’s interests.  I have never subscribed to the idea of children filling in workbooks (too much of Dr. Raymond Moore’s influence – I so appreciate Dr. and Mrs. Moore!) and have chosen books and literature for them to learn by instead of dry textbooks and workbooks.

Zachary has always enjoyed the books assigned; it wasn’t a question of boring books.  He has always enjoyed learning but it was the rigid schedule, the lack of freedom to move with his interests, the “having” to do subjects that he didn’t think necessary that was bogging him down.  For example, he loves nature and would rather be outdoors than reading a science book – even if it is Apologia science!  There are times when he wanted to read from a book on science but there were many times he just wanted to try things for himself.  

What was the Problem?

The problem, as I see it, is he wasn’t allowed to explore fully his interests because his day was filled with the things I wanted him to learn. It took so much energy for him to spell, write and complete his math lesson that he was drained at the end of the day.  (Reading is not a problem for him.) Of course, those are the “important subjects” and MUST be done every day. Right? 🙂  

 How did things change when I let him direct his day?

Things changed when I let Zachary direct his day because he was now able to delve more deeply into the subjects that were of interest to him.  He’s a great teacher and enjoys sharing what he has learned on any given topic.  He would read about something and then he would share with me or have a complete discussion with his younger brother on the topic.  Debates are also a personal favorite of his.  He learned by doing.  Some of his “science” included animal husbandry, organic gardening, survival skills in the woods and his latest interest, beekeeping. 

On his own, he has challenged himself to better writing, a higher vocabulary and improved spelling.  Although his spelling is improving all the time, it is still a weak point, so he does his writing on computer. 

I’m not saying all this to show you what an amazing son I have but to share with you what I’ve learned and am learning in our homeschooling high school journey.  I’m wanting you to see that it is possible to be “nontraditional” and yet be successful.  We have to change our thinking about what really measures learning.

Podcasts That Will Cause You to T-H-I-N-K!

I have also been listening to podcasts of John Taylor Gatto who was voted New York State teacher of the year in 1991 and worked for a total of 29+ years as a New York City school teacher before quitting.  You can download various podcasts from itunes.  In his podcasts he talks about the history of American education and traces it back to the Prussian model, showing that the modern way of schooling is meant to kill any creativity a child has and to create good factory workers.  He believes the public schools are doing what they were meant to do when they were put into practice.  His podcasts will cause you to think and you will probably find yourself diagreeing with him but I think he makes a lot of excellent points. 

Hear is Mr. John Gatto in his own words. (the entire article can be found here)

“Behind the mask of school necessity, valuable lessons of service and responsibility have been denied the young. Children are crippled by missing the lessons volunteer service, apprenticeships and work/study have always taught. Lessons of self- significance, personal power, quiet competence and genuine self-respect. By the time we release the schooled cohort at 18, most of it has been drained of vitality and the will to find joy in service to others.

Our cultural dilemma in the United States has nothing to do with children who don’t read very well; instead it lies in the difficulty of finding a way to restore meaning and purpose to modern life in the shadow of the institutions which are smothering us. We have progressively stripped children of the primary experience base they need to grow up sound and whole by pricing orderly, structured confinement as a higher value.

The dynamics of the destructive process are hardly visible. In the first place, the natural sequence of learning is destroyed without experience, a sequence in which hands-on experience (“primary data” to give it an academic label) must always predominate. Only after a long apprenticeship in rich contact with the living world can the thin gas of abstraction mean much to most people. Only a few of us are fashioned in such a peculiar — and hardly superior — way that we can thrive on an exclusive diet of regulations, workbooks, blackboards and talk. When we fail to take into account how children really learn — by involvement, by doing, by self-initiated undertakings, by shouldering a fair load of community responsibility, by mingling intimately in the real world of adults and when we instead set up a laboratory universe in which all are confined with anonymous strangers — then we have created in advance, a world of failing families… “

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This has taken me two days to write – that is why you haven’t heard from me this week. :)I have found it to be an excellent way for me to define what I’m thinking.