Tag: parenting

Roadtrip Day One

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Earbuds. Are they evil? I don’t believe in evil, and I absolutely love the magic of earbuds, but damn if they don’t cause serious problems for me.

Traveling with my two teens—one is 15, the other 12. So I guess, technically a teen and a tween? Just the three of us; hubby is saving his time off for a vacay this fall. We three roadtripped from our home in Boise, ID to Southern California to spend some quality time with our good friends that my kids have always known.

Yes, it’s a ways, but not a new trip to us. Sometimes we do this trip several times a year, so the scenery, while beautiful, is not novel. I actually really love roadtrips because I am a huge consumer of auditory content and I currently have 4+ books I’m eager to get through. And I like the scenery, regardless of how many times I’ve driven the route.

The kids are not impressed with the scenery. They also like to plug into their own content on the road. So to an insect or an alien, it would look really quiet in the car for most of the trip. Three humans with little cords attached to buds shoved in their ears making occasional facial expressions, all in the same car, but each in her/his own world.

Usually, we stop, both directions, in Salt Lake City and spend the night with family I have there. This makes it an official road trip, right? I have two sisters and two brothers-in-law, and my kids have eight cousins just south of SLC; we stay well-connected because of their strategic placement on this oft traveled path of ours.

Sometimes this trip goes better than others. It definitely helps when I am proactive and arrange some limits on the solitary world approach—let’s figure out some things we can do in the car together, unplugged from our individual devices. I do try this time, but the kids are resisting. Even though I specifically chose some Audible books that I thought they could also enjoy, no one is playing along, and I don’t want to fight the battle.

This was a last minute trip, and I decided to use some hotel points to get us all the way to St. George on Day One, so we wouldn’t have to drive through the deep desert heat all day on our second day of driving. I recognize early on I should have fought the battle. I know the consequences, but I get lazy. And like I mentioned, I was excited about the opportunity to binge-listen. This is the real battle. Fighting my own desire to listen to what I want to listen to vs. finding something we can agree to consume together.

We were a wreck when we reached St. George after a 9-hour car ride of—hmm, what to call it—shared solitude? That sounds so lovely, but even as it was happening, I knew I’d pay for it later. I did thoroughly enjoy every moment I spent listening to a long segment of The Coddling of the American Mind and then the first 10 or so chapters of Where the Crawdads Sing.

The kids didn’t fight about who would sit where. In fact, my daughter stays up most the night before road trips so she can sleep in the car and she was perfectly happy with the back seat. The boy up front next to me—he and I do more roadtripping together and are pretty used to finding a rhythm with just the two of us. When his sister is in the car though, he’s less agreeable. I think he wants to impress her with his own rebelliousness, so on this trip, he shifts into his need to give me pointers on how to drive. He does this sometimes, and it’s not endearing.

Every time we had to emerge from our own worlds, there was tension. Why do they look for every reason to be mean to each other? I am lamely reminding them that assuming best intentions and treating others with kindness will help them be happier people, but who wants unsolicited advice?

I can feel myself becoming reactive and not having the will to shift into the kindness I want to model for them. I try a few times to get them to listen to the book with me; it’s not happening. I capitulate to the earbuds every time. I lack the energy to fight the battle, but even more, I lack interest in the content they’d be willing to share with me.

At the hotel, we are all beyond snippy with each other. We do all manage to agree on pizza, and I leave them in the room (for some real solitude?) to go pick it up. I don’t listen to my book on this short car trip, but instead strategize for how to shift the energy. When I get back to the hotel, I buy a rather large cookie at the food counter that I know they’ll both like. Upstairs, we eat pizza, and they express enthusiasm and appreciation for the cookie that we all split. We go over the receipts for the day to determine how we did with our trip budget then watch Episode 3 of Good Omens on my laptop—together. We laugh together, we pause and discuss scenes with each other. We enjoy the content together. We retire to bed in much better spirits than we arrived at the hotel.

Tomorrow’s another day. I remind myself of something I say often to my husband, “you’ll never regret the time you spend with your kids.” I resolve to fight the battle.

If only I could write like her…

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I’ve been pretty good about working ahead and scheduling for Sunday so I could remain unplugged one day of the week. Unfortunately, this week got away from me and here I am, Sunday morning, hooked up to the internet, breaking one promise to myself so as to keep another and publish something every day for sixty days.

So I’m going to share an essay from Carol Black. Oh, if I only could write like her! I reread this essay this morning trying to pull the most profound quote to share with you, so you’d be compelled to click the link and read the whole thing. I got caught up again in her beautiful prose that wrenches at my emotions.

Every essay she writes is heartbreaking and beautiful. Every paragraph is so elegantly persuasive; it feels impossible to choose just one passage to pull out and highlight, so know as you read this teaser know that the entire piece is equally compelling:

When we first take children from the world and put them in an institution, they cry.  It used to be on the first day of kindergarten, but now it’s at an ever earlier age, sometimes when they are only a few weeks old.  “Don’t worry,” the nice teacher says sweetly, “As soon as you’re gone she’ll be fine.  It won’t take more than a few days.  She’ll adjust.” And she does.  She adjusts to an indoor world of cinderblock and plastic, of fluorescent light and half-closed blinds (never mind that studies show that children don’t grow as well in fluorescent light as they do in sunlight; did we really need to be told that?)  Some children grieve longer than others, gazing through the slats of the blinds at the bright world outside; some resist longer than others, tuning out the nice teacher, thwarting her when they can, refusing to sit still when she tells them to (this resistance, we are told, is a “disorder.”)  But gradually, over the many years of confinement, they adjust.  The cinderblock world becomes their world.  They don’t know the names of the trees outside the classroom window. They don’t know the names of the birds in the trees.  They don’t know if the moon is waxing or waning, if that berry is edible or poisonous, if that song is for mating or warning.

Here’s the entire article: On the Wildness of Children.

Educating Freedom

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Some good friends of mine, a tight-knit family with parents in human support fields, both working with adults who are struggling to function (imagine that) were telling me how difficult it is to drop their 5-year-old daughter off at kindergarten. She screams and resists and they pretty much have to drag her into school.

Red flag? I think it should be. Yet, we’re brainwashed into believing there are no other options. This is what kids are supposed to do. They go to school where they’ll learn everything they need to know to function as human adults in our society, right? So what is it they need to know?

Historical facts and dates? They’ll forget those. How the world works? I learned everything I know about physics when I became a second grade teacher because I’d forgotten every little bit of science I learned in school. How to read? When I was a third grader, I sat silently terrified, surrounded by “big kids” in a sixth grade reading class because I had already discovered a way to escape my life in highly engaging chapter books and devoured them voraciously. That’s all I remember about “learning to read” in school—oh, and that I was “smarter” than my classmates because of how quickly I sped through the colors of the SRA reading program. Algebra and geometry? What I learned in my high school algebra class was that I hated math; in geometry, I developed my social skills by convincing the kid behind me to let me cheat off his work so I could avoid my creepy perv of a teacher’s hand on my waste when I went up to his desk to get help.  What do you remember learning in school?

I’ll bet you remember learning how to sit still and raise your hand when you wanted to speak. I’ll bet you remember paying careful attention to the bathroom policy so you’d know how long you’d have to hold it. Or maybe, you remember coming up with clever ways to convince your mom you were sick so you could stay home. I remember thinking if I took the thermometer out of my mouth when my mom was out of the room, the reading would be off enough that she’d have to keep me home—clearly all that science was paying off!

I remember getting antsy when someone else turned a test in ahead of me because it meant I’d lost the race and someone else might be “smarter” than me. I learned that there’s only one right answer and not to ask too many questions. In high school, I learned really well how to fly under the radar, how to be invisible, how to cram for tests the night before so I could get away with ignoring my homework. I learned exactly how little I could do to still graduate, so I guess I learned efficiency?

I also figured out the best time of day to leave campus and walk across town to my boyfriend’s house. (Though there was that one day my dad randomly drove by and I was busted!) I learned that my hair and make-up mattered and that my wardrobe was insufficient. In fact, once when a boy was picking me up for our first date after I had agonized for hours about what I could wear, he looked me up and down and asked if I could change. I learned that the best way to get through high school was to be in the popular crowd, yet I never seemed able to quite break into that. The next best way was to always have a boyfriend, whether I really liked the boy or not.

So what did I really learn? I learned that using my resources was cheating, my worth was determined by how well my teachers liked me, needing others was bad, my thoughts and feelings held no weight, attractive people did better in life than nice people, that my gut was not to be trusted. I learned to please the adults who were always right and that authority figures had total control over my life.

I learned that anything I studied could be forgotten after the test, mistakes were punished and there were no do-overs, failing was to be avoided at all costs. I learned to study my teachers so I knew exactly what they wanted and just how little I could do to keep their favor or at least not attract their contempt.

And I learned what freedom means. It means giving up control over the majority of your time so you can have the freedom to buy a house and toys. It means busting your ass to build someone else’s dream so one day when you are old, you can stop working and be free to finally figure out what your dream is. It means sacrificing your childhood and your sense of self so you can appreciate living in a free country where you get to watch other people live their lives on reality TV.

There’s a powerful reason that five year old girl screams when she’s dragged into that classroom. Children know what true freedom is…and what it isn’t. Alarm bells are ringing in her head and heart; she recognizes that environment has no real interest in who she is and its sole purpose is to suck away her one and only childhood and educate her how to be in this free world of ours.   

Imposter Syndrome: My Story, Part Two

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I was one of the original teachers at that shiny new International Baccalaureate charter. The school became a quick success despite the ongoing tension in the culture, and it grew much faster than originally planned. Year two, they added an additional class for each grade that only had one the first year, including second grade. My good friend, another OG, became my second grade teaching partner and we worked exceptionally well together, designing a really fun Programme of Inquiry for our 7-8 year old students. She was a gifted educator and I was so lucky to get to work with and learn from her.

Despite getting to collaborate with one of my best friends, being in philosophical alignment with the school model (at the time and on the surface anyway,) being recognized by many of my families and students as their “favorite” teacher, being well-liked by my immediate administrator (the ED was a nightmare. I could have a whole separate blog about the abuse the faculty endured under his leadership,) and being chosen to be on the team that researched, developed, and delivered professional development for the faculty, I managed to find intermittent enthusiasm but mostly I was a miserable wreck who was neglecting her family.

I was always depleted at the end of my 10-11 hour days of “performing” for children who, for the most part, had already lost interest in “learning.” This was also the 5th job in a row that I was certain I was underqualified for. Remember, I didn’t have a teaching degree, just that stupid test that said I knew what I was doing. I had chronic imposter syndrome.

Rather than recognizing that I must present as capable and intelligent to pull off these longshot hires, I would beat myself up for not being a “legitimate” expert in my field since I hadn’t completed the required education for any position in this string of employment: wilderness therapy instructor (a clue- and degree-less city girl,) field medic (remember the EMT test? I did the rushed version—two weeks instead of a full semester—of that training also) speech language pathologist (ha! I was SO underqualified for this one, it was considered unethical,) then two elementary teaching positions (just those stupid tests for the latter.)

In each of these positions I’d received recognition for excelling, but I still blamed my lack of qualifications for my chronic stress. Cortisol was my constant companion. I was always seeking to better “educate” myself and worked stupid long hours so I could feel like I was worthy of the meager paychecks these jobs paid. I still have to laugh ironically about how I left a cushy credit union job with excellent benefits because I was seeking “more meaningful work,” only to take on far too much student loan debt (that continues to haunt me) for an exhausting career that paid less than what I was making at the financial institution.  

Midway through year four, as the level of stress crescendoed at the charter school along with my sense of impotence to improve my working conditions, my mother asked a pivotal question on the phone one day in response to my chronic complaints, “What would you do if you were to leave teaching?” I spent that night into the wee morning hours researching this very question. Joel Hammon, in his TED talk on liberating teachers, jokes about his own online search for “What kinds of jobs are there for teachers who hate teaching?”

My search turned up life/executive coaching among other things. I signed up for an online certification course that I couldn’t afford (and would be another “alternate route” to expertise—seems I never learn!,) decided I was starting my own coaching business, and let the school know I wouldn’t be renewing my contract for the fall. What I couldn’t have articulated at the time was the real reasons I had to leave the teaching profession. I claimed too much self-respect to tolerate a persistent toxic environment as my reason, and while I’m certain and extremely grateful that expedited my departure, it was really that square box that would never accommodate my not-square nature that I was running from.

I have so much more to say about that box—if you’ve been following my blog, you probably know I’m just getting started. Oh, the reprogramming, self-worth stealing box that we call school…   

Accidental Teacher: My Story, Part One

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I was an accidental teacher. I don’t have an education degree. In the state of Idaho, one does not need a teaching certificate to have a classroom in a private school. My family was in a rough patch financially since my husband had been laid off and needed to retrain to enter the workforce. My degree was in Speech Language Pathology and I had just started the masters program (required along with a 36 month clinical fellowship to practice) when we received the news that my husband’s employer was eliminating his position.

Our second child was 2 months old when this happened. After dropping out of grad school and a brutal year of me drowning at a Title One school as an interim SLP, I took a job teaching second grade at a conservative elementary school. I suspected there would be a philosophical mismatch but my family needed me to bring in an income, and this position had the added benefit of free preschool tuition for our oldest child who was 4 at the time.

It was soon painfully clear that the values of this establishment were not representative of my own values, and I was expected to teach these values to the children in my class. I felt certain that if anyone discovered my political views, my job would be threatened. So this seemed like a very valid reason why I wouldn’t just be in love with my new teaching career. Well, that and the fact that I wasn’t trained to be teacher and felt in over my head. (Even though my classes were very small. I never had more than 8 students in my classes at this school.) I certainly enjoyed working with the children in my care, I just needed to be in an environment that aligned with my values and have the proper training, right?

Halfway through my second year at the school, one dark winter morning on my way to work, I heard an advertisement on the radio about a new International Baccalaureate charter school inviting families to enter their children into the lottery.  I jumped on it. I reached out to the director and asked if they were allowed to hire non-certified teachers, and he responded that they could not, but if I would promise to complete the testing for the alternate route to certification before school started in the fall, he would consider an interview.

He ended up offering me the job based on my assurance I would get the testing under my belt before school started. I researched the process and obtained the materials to study for the exams. It wasn’t long before I realized the necessary content was, well, everything. It felt like I needed to know every detail about every subject taught in school, and it was an insurmountable mountain of knowledge. There was no way I would be able to cram that much content in such a short amount of time. Even studying for the GRE was easier than this!

I decided to just schedule the tests. If I failed them, I would have just enough time to squeeze in another attempt after the required delay and I’d have to pay the testing fee again, but at least I’d have a better idea of where to focus my attention—or so I thought. Come testing day, I was pretty nervous, but I’d always been a good test taker. The adrenaline rush that would come at the beginning of a high stakes test had always served me well, unlike the devastating opposite effect it has on so many.

While I was completing the multiple choice tests, I had no idea how I was doing. I took this as a bad sign. The one other time in my life where I couldn’t tell whether I was doing well (on an EMT test that was also high stakes for me at the time) I’d barely passed. Frankly, while I’m not a fan of using testing as a way to determine competency at anything, I believe this is the sign of a really poor test. Any test taker who’s not just swimming in adrenaline and cortisol because of test anxiety should have some idea of how they’re doing.

I was sweating and I felt a little sick as I left the secure testing room to obtain my results. I was shocked at how I did. Distinguished. Are you f-ing kidding me?! That was supposed to prepare me for what I faced in the classroom? What a joke!

To be continued…

Restoring Justis

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Restoring Justis

Yeah. The title is meant to be ironic. It’s ironic that my last name is Justis. I’m certainly not justice-oriented. The world has never been fair and it never will be. By trying to make it fair, we just cripple everyone.

No, I’m not trying to restore justice. I’m trying to restore curiosity. I’m trying to restore creativity. I’m trying to restore human nature. It is not our nature to be caged. It is not our nature to follow orders and deny our bodies movement, or to hold our waste until the bell rings. It is not our nature to only learn what we’re forced to learn, to do as little as we can get away with, to only look out for ourselves, to be apathetic.

We’ve been reprogrammed. Humans are social creatures, wired to contribute to a community. Our bodies reward us with feel-good hormones when we behave in a way that supports the greater good. It should feel good to parent. It should feel good to learn. It should feel good to contribute. It does when we haven’t been reprogrammed with external drivers, rewards and punishments, prestige and shame.

I don’t believe in good and evil, I only believe that we are social creatures by nature. When someone is acting in a way that is not socially acceptable, it’s because they have a need that is not being met. What do we do in our culture when that happens? Typically, we punish the behavior. What would happen if we attempted to find out what was going on for that person and tried to meet their needs rather than impose consequences? Can you imagine what a different world that would be?

But instead, we’ve become a culture of control. We lack the skills to effectively communicate, so we forcefully impose our will on others. And children get the worst of it. They have less freedom during the school day than prisoners. Many of our schools even resemble prisons with guards and weapon detectors. It’s no wonder we’re suspicious of children when we treat them like criminals.

Then we expect them to suddenly be able to direct their own lives at 18?! Is this logical? It seems so obvious to me that childhood these days does not support self-directed, functioning adults that know how to create satisfying and meaningful lives. Satisfying and meaningful lives. Is that really too much to hope for? What a different world it would be if more of us were living satisfying and meaningful lives.

This is what we need to restore. And I think it’s human nature to create satisfying and meaningful lives, if only we allow our children to develop as they naturally would. Unfortunately, it may be too much to hope for. The adults that would be modeling such lives are few and far between. Most adults think they’re supposed to control kids. Make them “get in line.” Teach them to sit still and raise their hands when they want to contribute. Teach them to tolerate tedium. Teach them mistakes are bad.

If you want to change a culture, you take the kids. It’s what they did with our modern day school system. We like to call it “education” but really it’s “schooling.” We’ve been schooled into believing we’re providing our children with the knowledge they need to be “successful” but really we’re just programming them to be mindless consumers.

But maybe if we stopped schooling our kids and were just there as supportive adults, resources and models of stewardship, we could restore human nature. Maybe if we let them learn instead of coerce them to cram content, we’d restore their natural tendencies to explore, discover, create, and contribute.

Who knows? Maybe those kids could even save the world.

Forcing the Read

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During my years of teaching second grade, I had many parents who were extremely stressed by their child’s reading progress (or lack of.) While our school had a no homework policy, many of the teachers ignored this policy and sent home reading practice. If you haven’t read my post, The Making of Mediocrity, I’d encourage you to read that before continuing  as it gives background to the information I share in this post. If you have read it, you’ll have some idea of what this reading practice might look like at home:

For the precocious readers, there was certainly no need for assigned reading practice, since these children were already fluent readers. In fact, getting their noses out of books and outside moving their bodies was probably much more of a challenge for these families. Any assigned reading practice for these kids would just be a hoop to jump through. The rule-followers would do it to check the box, the pleasers would do it to keep their teacher’s affection, the kids whose identities relied on being one of the “smart ones” would do it for the evidence that they were superior to their classmates, and those that had other interests would recognize it as the busy work it was and insist on doing their own thing.

For the kids resisting reading and who spent the day struggling to control their bodies in the classroom, forcing reading practice at home, in my opinion, was just plain cruel. Unless you’re a super savvy and creative parent with the excess energy to somehow make decodables fun, this situation is likely to set you up for an ongoing battle with your child. We’ll talk more about this when we look at why homework has strong potential to damage familial relationships. And in the end, what exactly is your child learning by being forced to practice reading? They may make small gains in their reading fluency, but what they’re likely learning is that they hate reading and their desires don’t matter.

For the invested kids who have sophisticated thinking skills but their brains aren’t ready to learn reading, consider how painful this practice must be. Maybe they suffer through the practice then spend time ruminating on how inadequate they are. Or they start finding reasons to opt out of any activity that involves reading so they don’t have to feel stupid. They start to hide emotionally to avoid feeling vulnerable to judgment. I’m sure you can already start to imagine dangerous outcomes to this path.

In all of these situations, the requisite reading practice reinforces emerging and damaging identities. What seems like a fairly benign practice that is intended to strengthen reading skills takes on an insidious undercurrent of psychological shaping. Rarely do the educational “experts” consider the delicate egos that are taking such blows when they recommend that parents force their kids to read for a certain amount of time each evening after school.

The one situation where assigned reading practice may not be harmful is those invested emerging readers whose time has come to learn to read. Yet, even still, boring decodables are not going to foster a love of reading. These children should be choosing materials that inspire them to persevere through challenging passages and reading at home for pleasure, not for the gold star or to check the box.  By offering recognition and rewards, we risk obliterating the child’s internal locus of control.  So I take it back, I don’t believe there is any assigned reading practice that is not potentially harmful to the child.

For those parents who came to me stressed about their child’s reading progress, I encouraged them NOT to force it. Your stress causes your child to stress and be fearful, and there’s no need. Your child will learn to read when his brain is ready for it. If you need some reassurance that it’s okay to relax and let reading happen when it’s meant to for your unique child, please read this article.

Forget about his test scores and the school’s rating. Forget about the teacher’s evaluation. Foster your child’s love of literature and your relationship with your child by reading TO him stories that he finds riveting. Stories that are rich in content that you can use to teach about life and how to be human in a way that fosters stewardship of his health, his relationships, his communities, etc., but mostly help him discover things that light him up and encourage him to engage in life—even if it means not reading. He can suffer reading instruction in the classroom; keep your home a judgment-free place where he can leave all that behind and just be himself.   

The Making of Mediocrity

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This started out as the next homework post, but I realized that I needed to explain another concept before diving into Homework Part Three. If you’re new to my site, you may want to read Part One and Part Two. We’re going to take a quick look at reading instruction in schools.

There’s an urgency for educators to ensure that all children be fluent readers by third grade. The reason for this is because at this point, the classroom changes from a place where children are learning to read to now reading to learn. Students may fall seriously “behind” and be unable to do the independent work typically required from 3rd grade on if they’re not fluent readers. You can imagine how difficult and stressful this is for teachers who have a full class of kiddos they need to keep “on track.”

When it comes to learning to read, just like with any skill or knowledge acquisition, there’s a very wide spectrum among children when it comes to ability and readiness. Educators are made to believe that all children should be reading fluently by the age of seven, and if we just find the right approach and spend enough time on the skill, then we can get them all there—unless there’s some learning disability. Let’s examine this educational philosophy through the lens of a 2nd grade classroom.

Now, the 2nd grade classroom teacher is likely to have a small number of very fluent readers who picked reading up easily and as early as 3 or 4 years of age, with little if any instruction. These same kids also tend to be the ones who love to read. They’re independently reading chapter books with engaging stories or using their skill to learn about topics they love by reading non-fiction, informative materials. Imagine these precocious children in a classroom during reading instruction.

This is also an age where we have lots of emerging readers. It’s a relatively new skill for these kiddos and fluency is not yet mastered. In a typical classroom, not taking socio-economic status of the school population into account, this will be the majority of the class. And, of course, within this group, there will still be a wide range of ability and investment in developing the skill.

The invested child is enjoying how reading is opening up her world and giving her access to this new form of information. She’s likely unable to even turn it off, reading every street sign while in the car with her parents and trying to sound out words on product labels.

Is this because her teachers have done a good job of educating her on this new skill? I would argue against that and say, it’s just her time. She was READY to pick up this skill and would have, if not now then very soon, with or without formal instruction. Is she feeling successful right now in school? What about her teacher? There’s a large enough number of children who resemble this girl that we can pat ourselves on the back and say reading instruction works.

Now, let’s take a look at another emerging reader. He’s not so invested. Sounding out words is effortful, and the decodables (which focus on repeated sound patterns) he’s made to read in class are storyless and uninspiring.  He’s bored as a result and likely consuming a good amount of his teacher’s limited energy to keep him from distracting his nearby classmates.

What’s his teacher to do? This kid is at serious risk of being recommended for ADHD medication, and I would argue, the main reason being that he was not inspired to learn to read. This kid is more driven to physical activity right now but was forced through instruction that went totally against his learning instinct. Plus, of course, the fact that his child body is screaming at him to keep moving and this option is not available to him.

Now let’s look at another type of child. I can bring many faces to mind of 2nd grade learners who were highly engaged in classroom style learning and could thoughtfully converse on sophisticated topics, who struggled to “learn” to read. These kids were actually very invested, but their brains just would not cooperate. These kids were NOT READY to be forced through reading instruction and would likely pick up the skill very efficiently when their brains were ready for it.

Unfortunatley, these children were often pulled from those subjects considered less valuable such as art and music where they excelled, to practice those boring decodables. They had high-level thinking skills and used these to contrast themselves with the other “smart” kids in class. What do you think was the typical conclusion? And so begins the systematic dismantling of authentic self-esteem.

I encourage all educators and parents to read this article about how wrong and damaging it is for us to create educational models and pacing guides around the concept of “average.” Here’s an excerpt:

Up until 2002, Rose reports that brain scientists believed that in brain imaging—the use of various techniques to directly or indirectly image brain structure—there was such a thing as an “average brain.”

But Michael Miller, a UC Santa Barbara professor, began to study how the human brain retrieves memory and realized there was no single brain that looked like this mythical average. “We each have unique ways that our brains retrieve information and create memory,” Rose reported.

This has not just played out in neuroscience, but in every advancement and every field, he adds. In education, this is particularly harmful to students because it affects pacing guides, textbooks and how states measure who achieves—and who fails.

You can draw your own conclusions about how damaging it is to the individual to be forced into a one-size-fits-all box. How for teachers this leads to a focus on classroom management rather than relationship with each unique student. I know most educators have the best intentions and are just trying to level the playing field , but by doing so, we’re harming the delicate psyche of so many of our children.

Though it’s already been proven that “average” doesn’t exist, it seems we’re determined to create it. Is this really what we want? Is this really how we create a better world? Through the mediocrity of average? By trying to make sure everyone learns the same thing at the same time instead of appreciating and nurturing the endless nuances of the human population and the beautiful diversity of contributions we have the potential for?

We’re social creatures that rely on each other for survival. I believe we each come wired for a unique contribution to reinforce this interdependence. Is there a way to offer education so that it enhances and encourages individuality? Yes. And it’s far more efficient both in creating effective learning outcomes and use of resources.

Unfortunately, we’d be toppling a bureaucratic beast and cornerstone of our current economy to make the switch. Not to mention demanding a complete cultural shift, which is usually slow and cumbersome. Doesn’t mean you can’t choose a better way for your family. Visit the Alliance for Self-Directed Education if you’re ready to explore approaches that will actually honor your unique child’s strengths and help them develop authentic confidence in their real world skills.

Learning Your Limits: Homework Part Two

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Part Two of Four

Homework. It’s evil, I say.

What’s wrong with homework? You say. Doesn’t it teach a strong work ethic? Doesn’t it communicate the importance of learning? Doesn’t it reinforce the learning that happened that day in class? Doesn’t it give the parents a window into the child’s day and therefore strengthen the family bonds?

The importance of learning.

Does homework communicate the importance of learning? This one is a bit complex. Let’s start with that word, “learning.” Just what is learning?

Humans are wired for learning. It’s our adaptable brain that has kept our species on this planet for so long. We’re born learners. It’s crucial for our survival. Am I being redundant? I just really want to drive this home. Humans learn. It’s what we do. Unfortunately, sometimes what we learn is that it’s unwise, even painful to follow our own learning instinct.

I’ll say it again. Children learn through play. Does homework feel like play? Maybe to some. For those kids who love homework, more power to you! There’s a good chance you possess the type of intelligence our culture values and your school experience will be less painful than most. But you may also want to pay attention to whether you really love the work itself or whether you’re into it to win your teacher’s favor or to demonstrate your academic superiority?

Before getting to the root of homework evil #2, I’ve got to veer down a rabbit hole a moment to explain some deterrents of play:

Unfortunately, we no longer trust our children to their own devices when it comes to play. We’ve become suspicious of children in general and think that if allowed to direct their own time, they’ll be naughty. That somehow it’s the nature of children to create trouble, so we must fill every moment with an adult directed activity. And it’s true that children will break things (rarely to purposely annoy the adults in their lives,) hurt themselves, make messes, etc. but is there learning to be gleaned from such instances?

Or our kids just seem incapable of directing their own play. Is it any wonder? Most have never really had the opportunity to just allow their imagination to guide their activities. With their days filled with school during which their level of compliance determines their worth, daydreaming and creativity are at best not valued, and even have the potential to be punished, is it any wonder that most shut down that imaginative capacity? Throw in the never-ending digital content at their fingertips and our children have little incentive to tap into their inner resources for entertainment. Maybe I’ll do another post on the power of boredom—a lost inspiration.

Another detractor from play is the very real lack of safety and playmates. No longer do our children have the freedom to free range (this is even illegal in many states) through the neighborhood in packs. We don’t have the tight knit communities we used to have where we knew and cared about our neighbors and everyone was looking out for the local kids. This “village” if you will, where kids could walk out their front door and quickly find other kids to play with and there was less fear of predators because there was safety in numbers and more familiar adults to approach in case of trouble.

So I don’t want to appear naïve of these obstacles to free play, but in the best case scenario, kids would have the freedom to direct their own learning after school. They’d build and tear down forts, use magnifying glasses to start fires, poke at insects, and play in the mud, discovering how the world works and developing problem-solving skills. They’d climb trees and sometimes fall out of them, learning what hurts and developing a better sense of their bodies. They’d play make believe and practice different social roles, developing their communication skills, empathy, and boundaries. They’d fall down often, both literally and figuratively, and learn how to pick themselves back up, developing risk tolerance and resilience. Is this learning? Is it important learning?

Homework displaces playtime. So does it communicate the importance of learning? Oh, it most certainly does.  Children learn that moving their bodies is less important than reading storyless decodables. They learn that spending time developing relationships is less important than practicing math facts. They learn that their self-chosen projects are less important than school projects. They learn that school’s values trump their own. They learn that hard work is more important than self-care. They learn that their own judgment is not to be trusted. They learn they’re incapable of making sound decisions.  They learn to suppress their intuition.

Oh, the importance of learning!

Schooling Work Ethic: Homework Part One

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Part One of Four

Homework. It’s evil, I say.

What’s wrong with homework? You say. Doesn’t it teach a strong work ethic? Doesn’t it communicate the importance of learning? Doesn’t it reinforce the learning that happened that day in class? Doesn’t it give the parents a window into the child’s day and therefore strengthen the family bonds?

Let’s take it from the top:

Strong work ethic.

Our children basically have a full time job. Most children are going to school for at least 7 hours a day with shorter and shorter breaks throughout that day. These are children. What would you do if your boss insisted that you do at least 30 minutes (and as children rise in grades, this amount rises to potentially hours) each evening also? Would that encourage a healthy lifestyle? A healthy relationship with your work? Your boss?

Children need to play. All humans need to play but someone else can tackle why adults need it. I’m going to focus on our children. Their brains and bodies need play. It’s how they develop proprioception and risk tolerance, and discover who they are in the world. And we have robbed them of nearly all unstructured play. And we wonder why they seem to lack the imagination of generations past. If they’re going to be locked up in classrooms all day, shouldn’t they at least get their evenings and weekends to develop some self-awareness through play?!

And we’re teaching them that it’s not only normal to take your work home, it’s imperative. There’s no time in the day that’s your own. You must be directed every waking moment. And forget any notion of harmony in your life. Your life revolves around your work whether you like it or not. Again, by ensuring there’s no time of their own, we rob them of the precious few moments they might have to discover themselves through self-chosen and self-directed activities. Is this really the work ethic we want to teach?!

What does this “strong work ethic” teach our children about the world they live in? Is it a world where they’re encouraged to find joy? To experience gratitude for the beauty and bounty of this planet they inhabit? Does it teach them that their desires have any weight? Or does it teach them to suppress their own longings in favor of mandated and fleeting “learning” prescribed by the all-knowing “educators”? And that life is dismal and revolves around our work?

Many anxious and depressed adults are suffering from this “strong work ethic.” I’ve been searching recently for a counselor, and nearly every marketing description for the plethora of counselors out there (most with full caseloads and waitlists) is targeting people who need help to create “work/life balance”.

We’ve got skyrocketing suicide rates among teens who are feeling the pressure of this “strong work ethic.” These are children! When my daughter was in the 8th grade (she homeschools now,) I had a conversation with the school counselor. I asked her how many of the middle and high school students at this highly-rated charter school would identify as anxious and depressed. She told me if they were to do a poll of the students, her prediction would be 90%. Ninety percent of teenagers would say they have anxiety and/or depression?! Does this seem right? Does it seem okay? What the hell?!

If you Google “work ethic” you get:

work eth·ic

/wərk ˈeTHik/

noun: work ethic

the principle that hard work is intrinsically virtuous or worthy of reward.

Is it intrinsically virtuous? Anxiety and depression don’t sound like rewards to me.

I can’t solely blame homework for our anxious and depressed population, but homework is just one aspect of school that is contributing to this dismal state we find ourselves in. Maybe it’s time to reconsider this “strong work ethic” we’re teaching our children.

More on the evils of homework tomorrow…