Parenting Archives | Brighter Schooling

How the Pandemic Forced Us to Re-define What Education is

July 20, 2021/in Homeschooling, Parenting, Schooling, Self-Directed Education, Unschooling /by Shelby

Whatever your opinion on if, when, or the exact manner in which schools should have closed down, there is no denying that education in the U.S. is changed forever. One major way it has changed, is by bringing in the old to deal with the new. Unschooling seems like a new trend the “uber-liberal and passive millennial parents” are doing. But it actually started in the 70’s when a certain John Holt got disillusioned with the traditional school system and started championing the rights of children to dictate their own learning. It has been rather niche, until a certain pandemic made it seem more practical than counter-cultural.

You probably have seen Facebook and LinkedIn posts about compromises and hacks of parents trying to survive the pandemic. This a particularly well-known and extreme one:

We just wrote a hard email. I told our son’s (lovely, kind, caring) teacher that, no, we will not be participating in her “virtual classroom”, and that he was done with the 1st grade. We cannot cope with this insanity. Survival and protecting his well being come first.

— Dr. Sarah Parcak (@indyfromspace) April 8, 2020

Or is it? Isn’t it a parent’s ultimate goal to do what is best for their child? The fear of losing their job and contracting Covid can easily overshadow the fear of shame from others. It is not important anymore that your kid can’t pay attention to several zoom lectures in a row (I mean, neither can many adults, nor should they). What if one could have their cake and eat it too? What if you didn’t have to chase after your kid for every “class” and pay for tons of equipment that they may use for only one year? All this, and be able to focus more on your job?

The whole premise of unschooling and self-directed learning (SDE) is that kids are naturally motivated to learn, and will at their own pace. This has long been the anti-thesis of the current school system, which is based off the premise that kids cannot learn on their own and must be scheduled all day for five days a week to become productive members of society. For the most part, the latter argument won out as it seemed to make more sense. I think it only made sense because schooling was abstracted away, with the main result parents seeing (andtold that mattered at all) being grades and college admission results. What was behind the curtain got revealed when most of the students got sent home for virtual learning. They listened to teacher’s bark at students based on what they saw on a screen, saw the arbitrary and ridiculous schoolwork, and watched their kids’ existential crises implode along with their own.

The reality of it is, the pandemic forced us to re-think many aspects of day-to-day life. As far as here is concerned, we need to ask “What is school?”. To answer that, we then need to ask “What matters?” Well, we can start with the obvious. The safety of our children, and their well-being. That is why they were pulled out of in-class school in the first place, when we weren’t sure about the true nature of the spread of Covid-19. Then there is their preparation for adult life. This is a contentious problem that so far we have seeming to to be trying to solve by doing the same broken solutions more (see Common Core, No Child Left Behind). Essentially, we think that the more tests a student can pass, the better citizen in a functioning society they can be. You say it that way, it sounds insane, doesn’t it? I feel like I have met more people than not who share this opinion. I have definitely met ex-teachers who have left because of all the increased testing. Schools have become essentially testing centers at the expense of the well-being and development of the students. We expect them to stress out for tests that only tell us how well they might do in college (which is only one of many paths).

Now parents’ well-being matters too. After all, the kids can’t be alright if the parents are not alright long enough (see above tweet). This is the more complicated part as school is (and was made) to provide parents respite. They could keep trying to force their kids to a certain schedule as they are barely able to keep to their own. I think this is why SDE and unschooling are appealing to more families. Detractors might say that this lack of standardized ways to educate your kids just puts more work on the parents. I argue that the standardized traditional schooling is the way that adds more stress. What is the best educational plan will vary from student to student, family to family. The lack of standardization is the whole point of SDE. Some parents lay out a schedule for their kids at the beginning of the day for when to do their work. Others let their kids decide for themselves. Maybe you have older kids that can teach the younger ones. Doesn’t this all sound better than forcing your kids to a schedule other people decided, who don’t know your kids? Moreover, also don’t know your responsibilities outside your kids you have to keep your kids housed and fed?

So we answered what education shouldn’t be. But what should it be? To understand the conclusion many families came to, you will have to open your mind, rather than change it. As a child is growing up, what isn’t considered learning? Well, to start, many parents would be quick to say the mass amounts of time on Fortnite or Minecraft isn’t learning. The data suggests otherwise: Minecraft has inspired as high as 85 million to learn to code. I myself have met more than a handful of people who got started coding by creating mods for Minecraft. Well, what about the massive multi-player games? Also don’t have to be a waste of time. Kids can learn valuable interpersonal skills and how to communicate effectively virtually (as a remote freelancer, I can personally attest to the need). Now that kids are home from school, they can spend more time cooking. That presents many opportunities to learn basic chemistry, fractions, cooperative skills, etc. The limits are only within your mind. Older kids can help with taxes and the family budget more, or even shadow you at your job.

As for actual resources outside of the textbooks and workbooks, the sky is the limit as well (or however high the internet exists). I recommend going on TikTok and exploring for a second. Yes, there is a lot of “cringey” and low value content (as anywhere), but many people have taken to sharing tidbits about their culture, lifestyle, identities, and favorite subject. The hours your middle-schooler spends on TikTok might be more educational than the day of schoolwork ahead. I know for a fact I learned more on YouTube than the low-effort charter school my parents paid way too much for me to go to. If you want to know what I am talking about, look up CrashCourse, ElectroBoom, Ask a Mortician, and Butterfly Spanish on YouTube. You will immediately see what I am talking about, and probably start watching some videos yourself.

While many parents will be glad to just send their kids back to school and return to the way it was, many will not. There will be special-needs kids who were found to do better at home. Parents who got proof that no, Tommy isn’t just over-sensitive, his teacher is actually a sociopath. Teenagers who promise to learn to self-teach so they do not have to return to school as to evade cliques and bullying. We probably did not need a pandemic to tell us that the traditional schooling system isn’t working for many bright young minds, but perhaps we did need one to compel us to change.

Sources:

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2020/7/17/21328316/covid-19-coronavirus-unschooling-homeschooling

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/09/homschooling-boom-pandemic/616303/

https://www.mother.ly/child/unschooling-kids-during-coronavirus

How Crucial are Mothers to the Early Development of Their Children?

November 2, 2017/in Parenting /by Kerry McDonald

What used to be a biological imperative is now a point of contention. Mothers staying close to their babies, nurturing and nourishing them in their early years, was how our species survived and thrived for millennia.

Now, an author and psychoanalyst who dares to suggest that mothers should be their child’s primary caregiver, at least for the first three years of life, is under fire for fueling the “mommy wars.” Erica Komisar’s book, Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, details the scientific evidence that mothers are the best early caregivers of their children and that substitutes—daycares, nannies, relatives, even dads—are not comparable to the care that only mothers can provide.

Komisar’s book is scathing in its honesty. She says there is no such thing as a good daycare. She says that the guilt many working mothers feel over not staying home with their children is good. “Guilt is a signal feeling,” she says. It’s a sign that should not be ignored but listened to. She writes in her book: “Too often, mothers are putting their work and their own needs ahead of their children’s.”

Needless to say her ideas are not well received by many. The Wall Street Journal reported on the book last week, writing about Komisar’s recent publicity experiences:

“Christian radio stations ‘interviewed me and loved me,’ she says. She went on ‘Fox & Friends,’ and ‘the host was like, your book is the best thing since the invention of the refrigerator.’ But ‘I couldn’t get on NPR,’ and ‘I was rejected wholesale—particularly in New York—by the liberal press.’ She did appear on ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ but seconds before the camera went live, she says, the interviewer told her: ‘I don’t believe in the premise of your book at all. I don’t like your book.’”

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Komisar, a New Yorker who considers herself to be politically liberal, discovered in her private clinical practice what she felt was an unmistakable link between rising rates of childhood mental health issues and absent mothers. She told the Journal:

“What I was seeing was an increase in children being diagnosed with ADHD and an increase in aggression in children, particularly in little boys, and an increase in depression in little girls.” She realized that “the absence of mothers in children’s lives on a daily basis was what I saw to be one of the triggers for these mental disorders.”

So as not to be a hypocrite, Komisar, 53, waited to write her book until her children were older and didn’t rely as much on her emotional and physical closeness. She writes in her book: “The truth is, we can do everything in life, but not at the same time.”

While Komisar advocates for a more “child-centric society” that can appeal to liberals and conservatives alike, her left-leaning political views support policies such as a year-long paid maternity leave for new mothers. By arguing that mothers matter—and that they matter more than we may think—Komisar hopes to make the case for government policies that prioritize motherhood.

Conservatives, who are often embracing of stay-at-home-motherhood but eschew coercive state policies, gravitate strongly toward Komisar’s child-centric ideas. On the other hand, according to The Wall Street Journal article, “most liberals won’t even acknowledge the problem.”

The data presented in Komisar’s book are compelling and hard to ignore. She finds that “infants and toddlers who have the constant and consistent presence of an attentive and sensitive mother are more likely to be emotionally and psychologically healthy children and adolescents.”

A mother as a child’s primary caregiver in the early years is incomparable and non-substitutable. Mothers provide the nurturing, emotional connection, and security that babies need in order to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted children and adults. The problem is obvious and the science is clear: mothers matter.

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This post Psychoanalyst Author: Mothers Are the Best Early Caregivers of Their Children was originally published on Intellectual Takeout by Kerry McDonald.

Does Forcing Obedience In Children Result In Them Having A Better Work Ethic?

May 10, 2017/in Parenting /by David Martin

This is in response to an article titled “PARENTING: Lessons in obedience today result in a better work ethic tomorrow” by Jenni Stahlmann and Jody Hagaman.

I disagree with the premise that children need “lessons in obedience” in order to develop a “better” work ethic. I’ll list the three aspects of obedience the authors present in the article, followed by my rebuttal.

1.“Teaching our kids to respond to us immediately helps fight a sense of entitlement.”

No. Ironically, when you expect immediate obedience from children just because you say so, you are teaching them what entitlement looks like. Expecting children to immediately drop whatever they are doing in order to blindly comply, is teaching them that your agenda is ALWAYS more important than theirs. It doesn’t teach them that you both have agendas and to be mindful of that. It doesn’t teach them cooperation, negotiation, understanding, fairness, justice, empathy or respect for others. It teaches them that the “person is charge” must always be immediately obeyed. When it comes to work ethic, I wouldn’t want to hire someone that is going to be mindlessly compliant. I want someone that is going to thoughtfully disagree with me, point out something they feel isn’t fair, and present ideas that contradict mine. Take a look at the true innovators, entrepreneurs and change-makers in our society. Are these “reflective rebels” or “obedient rule-followers”?

2. “Kids should learn to obey mom and dad with a “happy heart” or “cheerfully”.

No. This is teaching children to mask their true feelings and act “cheerful” even if they aren’t. Children should be allowed to express their feelings without fear of judgment or punishment. If the child is unhappy about certain responsibilities, they should have the right to express their unhappiness and have those feelings validated. This doesn’t mean they should relinquish those responsibilities, but instead they can receive understanding and empathy for their situation. If children aren’t allowed to express and have validated their true feelings by parents, they will seek out others who will. Regarding work ethic, I would find it very unfortunate to have an employee hide their true feelings from me and instead resign because of their unhappiness. If they would have felt comfortable with communicated their true feelings, perhaps some negotiation could have taken place and we would have both been satisfied with the outcome. I want to work with others that can communicate their true feelings, not hide them behind a fake “cheerful” mask.

3. “Obeying mom and dad thoroughly means taking full responsibility for their work and pressing on until the job is 100 percent done.”

No. Taking “full responsibility” for something is more meaningful when it is done without coercion. Forcing obedience and compliance 100% of the time sounds like an authoritarian nightmare. Is it fair to expect perfection from children, when we are all imperfect—including the parents? I would prefer employees that want to complete a project and do their best, because they enjoy the project and want to deliver a great result for the client, not because they want to simply obey me out of fear.

“Instant obedience and mindless compliance are poor goals indeed, when raising children. A thoughtfully questioning, passionately curious and humorously resourceful child, who wants to know why, who delights in inventing ‘compromises’ and who endlessly pushes the boundaries, tends to become a thoughtful, passionate, resourceful adult who will change the world rather than being changed by the world.” [L.R. Knost]