2020 6 6
I recently listened to a Sam Harris podcast where he interviewed Daniel Markovitz about his book The Meritocracy Trap. Apparently Markovitz’s book includes suggested changes to our educational system where higher education expands and educates many more students at a cheaper rate per child.
My research, and any dependent expertise, is not about high education as much as younger learners. And, first point, education and learning are not always closely aligned. Just think of the vast amount of learning that occurs in a child’s life before they even enter school, and many people observe that school is often the great crusher of children’s curiosity and innate desire to learn.
Sam historically has made fundamental arguments about how we do not have free will because we are so much a result of our environment. Our choices are pretty much dictated by the life we have lived, the circumstances we have experienced, and if we could be given similar situations or choices a second time, we would most likely make the same choices. Therefore, I find it interesting that he posits the question to Daniel, “What if teachers were really valued, and there was great competition for the highly valued job of teaching and teachers would be paid really well? Then he guesses that education would be vastly improved. He suggests the highly paid job be a second-grade teacher, not just college professors.” But a child’s environment is so much more than the school they attend. Even with schools vastly increasing required attendance time, children still spend more time out of school than in, and this has to have a huge impact on their success in school or put in other terms, their ability to learn. The very affluent families Daniel refers to provide their children with a very different life outside of school than the much less affluent families. I don’t imply less love or good intention alongside less affluence, but less of a life that would lead to success in college or possibly a more affluent life-style than the one they are currently in. So does more money improve a child’s chances or are their future choices dictated more by their environment than their school.
Another point, one thing some parents have learned during this time of COVID-19 Pandemic schooling, is that it only takes a very short time to complete the amount of daily academic work a child is required to do each day in school. The rest of school time is spent on arrival, settling in, transition, social life, lecture or instruction they don’t need (assuming some they do), recess, lunch, and all the specials. (This is not a plea to take the arts out of school; if children are going to be required to spend the bulk of their day there, then the arts are very important.) School has become the babysitter and food provider that many families need and have come to rely on. Maybe schools should exist for this very reason. But for families who could provide a different environment, they should think about it.
I think the problem with our education system is rooted in our ideas of how children learn.
At one point in the podcast Daniel says, “We really haven’t figured out how to deliver understanding except through close intellectual engagement like we are having now (Daniel and Sam)…one conversation at a time…that’s the model and that’s what limits our ability to scale up education 100 times.”
I think he’s correct, we haven’t really figured out how to deliver understanding, especially in a classroom with many children. Some children are reached, but so many others aren’t, and criticisms abound as to why. In almost all elementary school classrooms you don’t have the opportunity for close intellectual engagement or ‘one conversation’ at a time.
Homeschooling, in the traditional sense, and not the COVID-19 sense, provides an environment much more conducive to one conversation at a time and closer intellectual engagement if only because there are far fewer learners, and a much better ratio of adult to child.
I want to argue too that parents should not fall back on “I’m not educated enough to homeschool my children.” A parent in my study told the following story of her coop having a book sale where they also held open meetings for families thinking about homeschooling or new homeschooling parents.
We had these chat rooms with a panel of five or six more experienced homeschooling moms. There were five or six moms standing all around the room, some holding babies. Each of the experienced moms introduce themselves, and then they ask if anyone has any questions about the different curriculums we use and our different circumstances. And so, one of the moms said well you all seem so well educated. And we all looked at each other and just laughed. Because some of us knew each other. I mean I have some college, but I don’t have any teaching degrees, or I don’t have any degrees. All of our education has come from homeschooling. I took the last twenty years explaining history and archeology and learning along with our kids, and as long as we’re one day ahead, we’re still one day ahead. And then when we don’t know and we can’t catch up and they go right past us, we find somebody else to teach them.
When I homeshooled my children is when I learned grammar. Look at it as an opportunity to learn alongside of your youngster.
Off the Beaten Track 