A good question about practice
Anon (actually for this entry we will call Anon “Hubert”) Hubert asked, “but how are you making sure that Noah comes out with the stuff you were missing? How will you make sure that he knows about theses and gets practice in math and French (where practice matters, and practice is not always exciting)?”
We’ve found that with Noah he is more than happy to do practice if we make practice interesting (there are lots of math games — traditional and on the computer — ditto for language) and if he can see the big picture result. Also, you need to remember that he’s not practicing everything. For example, he does madlibs to learn the parts of speech. He does not have to do a worksheet where he circles the verbs, crosses out the nouns, and underlines the adjectives. And you know it’s not practice that sucks necessarily; it’s practicing something you already know. The first time you’re handed a worksheet where you’re circling verbs and crossing out nouns and underlining adjectives it might be fun but that wears thin. The second, third or fourth time you do it, it’s excruciating.
Listen, in fifth grade I was diagramming sentences because I thought it was fun. Only my fifth grade teacher made me stop diagramming sentences so I could listen to the class reading out loud (and I’m sure you all remember how painful it is to listen to a slow reader being forced to stumble while the teacher warns the rest of you not to read ahead and if you were the slow reader, I imagine the pain was that much worse). By the time we got to seventh grade when diagramming sentences was on the curriculum, I no longer wanted to do it. It wasn’t fun anymore. Trust me, Noah will learn about writing a thesis statement because at some point he’ll want to communicate his thinking and we’ll be there to say, “Hey, your argument would be much more persuasive if you organized it and this is how that works.”
I think that people have this idea that children are only motivated to learn if there are external rewards. But I think we better serve children when we begin with the assumption that they generally learn because they want to.
Numerous studies have demonstrated how interest drives achievement—ongoing interest in a general topic more than transient interest in a specific activity, and excited interest more than the casual, mild kind. Regardless of age, race, or aptitude, students are more likely to remember and really understand what they’ve read if they find it intriguing. The interest level of the text, in fact, is a much better predictor of what students will get out of it than its difficulty level. (Incidentally, the same general connection between affect and achievement shows up with adults, too. After all, how do we expect to attract and retain good teachers when neither they nor those whom they teach have much occasion to smile?)
from Feel Bad Education by Alfie Kohn (who, by the way, is not necessarily pro-homeschooling but is pro-school reform)
Alfie Kohn is worth reading because he backs up everything he says with a study. This is useful if you’re arguing with someone who needs “proof” before they’ll consider something.
We destroy the disinterested (I do not mean uninterested) love of learning in small children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards - gold stars or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or A’s on report cards or honor rolls or Dean’s lists or Phi Beta Kappa keys - in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else. We encourage them to feel that the end and aim of all we do in school is nothing more than to get a good mark on a test, or to impress someone with what they seem to know. We kill, not only their curiosity but their feeling that it is a good and admirable thing to be curious, so that at the age of ten most of them will not ask questions and will show a good deal of scorn for those who do.
a quote by John Holt in Homeschooling and John Holt’s vision
Dawn,
My experience at school was considerably different than yours (I was more or less encouraged to read ahead, for example, so I rarely felt bored) and I could and should write a lot more about that. But mostly what I want to write here is that I notice you pair a whole lot of terrible awful learning experiences with grades and As. I’ve noticed before that you’ve written, “if I beleived in tests or grades, then maybe I wouldn’t have such a problem with the public schools,” as if all parents who embrace public schools also embrace those grades and tests. Now, I’m paraphrasing, and I’m reading fast because I’m behind in my blogs. But I have to say, as someone who loved public school, and someone whose kids strike me as the types to love public school, I think standardized tests and grades are both more or less stupid. That doesn’t, for me, negate the benefits and value of a good group school education. There are no grades until fifth grade in this district, anyway.
I am actually convinced by quite a lot of the homeschooling argument (we’ll do public schools in spite of that) but I just wanted to chime in here to say that “belief in grades” or “working for gold stars” has NOTHING to do with it, and especially with having three kids in the same grade, but probably not achieving the same “rewards,” we’ll talk long and eloquently about what the true purposes of learning are. Gold stars, high percentiles, and top grades are NOT THE POINT.
Glad to see you back in gung-ho homeschooling mode again, and hoping that the book proposal straightens out.
Cheers,
Jody
I am currently contemplating…
what the bloody hell is so wrong about wanting to be better than everyone else? When did wanting to be the absolute best, not just the best YOU can be but better than anyone else, become such a sin? And why?
Mother to a very, extremely, highly competitive daughter here. As in she plays hockey with boys 3 yrs older than her and dives and cheats and damn well knows it because she enjoys beating them.
Loved your post. don’t think I can add a lot to it. We are at the point now where we see both our kids (12 and 15) asking for what they need and pushing for what they want and are interested in. There is no standing in their way.
wkh-What is wrong with being competitive? Nothing if it works for you and your family. It just might not always work that way for every person. It may also make it harder to have relationships if someone must always be in the position of being the loser. Especially if it doesn’t matter what it takes (cheating) to be the winner.
I have such two different children (both male) and know one would better thrive OUTSIDE of the parochial or public school. The other needs/thrives on what he receives through his schooling - outside the home. Ugh - it’s such a heavy thing for me, as I despised so much of what you experienced. I too HATED/despised the games, cliques, bullsh**. BUT in part I think I spent to much time dwelling how f’d up the system was - then in being a part of it and actually learning more than I did. Though I am not sure I would/could do anything differently if I had to do it over again. I to debated and wrangled with many an adult - it did not put me off that they were older, in the least. But like you, I had MAJOR difficulty asking for help in the work I did have trouble(s) in. At home - my parents were completely uninvolved with our learning
I struggle with the teachers wanting my *out-there* son to fit in their box, and the lads who are boring and little-go-alongs giving him such a hard time.
It is hard for me not to want to FIX things for him because I don’t want him to be forced to be someone he isn’t but then also I sometimes wish he would FIT in the box (not out loud do I say this) so school would not be so hard for him.
Awesome post
Hang in there with your book idea! I’m pulling for you - in a non-competitive way of course 
great posts. got me thinking back to my own education, and the issues i am currently having with my children’s education.
elementary school was fine for me, but HS was horrible. I did badly on tests, and took that as a measure of my intelligence and self-worth. when I did well with the two teachers who everybody feared in the school, i started to realize that maybe it was the way i was being taught and tested. writing essays was a breeze - those tough ‘thinking questions’ that everybody else hated were fun. the memorization and rote learning was a drag.
i think this also gets back to the questioning assumptions and definitions that you mentioned in an earlier post. it gets you thinking about what education is, what it should be about, and how to get to that.
I think that the Holt quote sums it up for me and my fear of what traditional schooling will do to my daughter. she loves learning, and for now, school. but i feel that the way it is being done right now may impact her curiousity and creativity.
Just as not all public school educations are created equal, not all homeschool educations are equal. Your kids are blessed to have a well-educated mom who has given lots of thought to what’s important for them to know and how they might go about learning it (in either traditional or non-traditional ways).
I know several homeschooling families who are worse about skill-and-drill than regular schools. They don’t put their own thought into what is important to learn and why — they just buy the pre-packaged curriculum off the shelf and go through the workbook. Yeah, you don’t have to wait on the rest of the class to catch up, but it is ALL about “sure, go on to the next page now.”
In the worst-case scenarios, the parents and kids are so enmeshed that the parent is virtually doing the work for the kid, and they end up learning less than they would have in a regular classroom.
Again, I know this isn’t what’s happening in your homeschool, but I’ve seen homeschools where it is, and I feel really bad for those kids.