Holding Children Accountable
Dateline: 9/29/05
By Tammy Takahashi
Although I understand the perspective of children being accountable
for their own learning, I don't agree that it's a child's responsibility
to show to other people that they are learning.
What does it matter whether a child learns things through
a book or from projects or by just thinking about them? Especially
when they are young. And, why is it important that someone take
record that this child has actually "learned" this
information? What purpose does this serve?
Children, heck, humans in general, have a natural desire to
constantly learn more. They are born with this. By making learning
into something that they are required to do, rather than allowing
them to naturally learn at their own pace and with their own
personal flair, we take their natural inborn love of life and
try to control it for our own liking.
I understand that we want to our children to grow up into
responsible adults and thrive in our world. But, expecting them
to prove their learning and to be accountable doesn't do that.
They learn to be responsible and to continue to be curious about
their world by example and practice, not by being made to do
arbitrary things for no reason other than to check something
off a list. This is why many children balk at schoolwork and
some children struggle in homeschooling with their parent as
"teacher". So much of "being accountable"
involves doing a lot of uninteresting, impertinent work, instigated
by a teacher.
In our family, we have had very minimal struggle over this.
I don't see kids as little robots that I can mold and bend to
my will by manipulating their life in such a way that they have
no choice but to perform for my expectations. There are enough
things in life that we all have to do just in order to function
in our world and survive. Why take learning, which is one of
the most wonderful things that humans can do, and compartmentalize
it so that kids it loses all its intrigue and splendor?
Indeed some kids do LOVE workbooks and doing school. I'm not
saying that school work is in and of itself a bad thing. Heck,
we have a whole bookshelf *stuffed* with workbooks. It's how
we present school work that brings kids down and makes them struggle.
There are a million and one ways to learn everything, yet schoolwork,
workbooks and textbooks are the preferred regardless of whether
or not it takes the joy out of a child's love to learn. Why does
it have to be, that if a child can't learn through a book (regardless
if they do indeed know the material by some other means), then
he is not being accountable and not living up to his potential?
Children don't need to be accountable for their learning;
they need to be given opportunities to learn and have someone
around who will explore with them. They need someone to ask questions
to, to help them do research on things they want to know more
about, and to point out interesting things in the world.
Kids don't shut down to learning for no reason. Unless a child
has brain damage or some other physical thing that prevents him
from wanting to learn more, he has a natural drive to always
seek more information. When he stops seeking that information,
it's not because he is bad, or lazy, it's because the curiosity
of learning has been sucked out of him, and he no longer cares
anymore. "Why bother? If I can't learn the things I want
to, and do the things I like, what's the point of learning stuff
at all? And what's the point of doing all this learning for someone
else? It doesn't get me anywhere. I'm not happy."
Find the things a child loves and the style of learning that
he loves, and know him well, and his curiosity for learning and
life will be there. It may not be in the form of doing worksheets
and taking tests, but it will still be there, perhaps in the
form of sorting toys a certain way, or calculating the cost of
his video games, or figuring out which monsters will defeat each
other depending on their numerical values, or reading his favorite
stories and talking about them.
By being around our children all the time, if we pay attention,
and engage in conversation with them, and explore the world with
them, they won't need to be accountable, because it is so incredibly
obvious that they are learning all the time.
Now that I see how much my kids learn and I can appreciate
the many facets of their learning, thinking of having them do
a worksheet, or take a test, or answer questions I already know
the answer to in order to show me that they know stuff, just
seems completely absurd.
So, that's my take on the whole accountability thing on an
individual basis, especially in homeschooling. I understand that
in a school setting, the reason for accountability changes and
that a school can't function without it. That's a different discussion.
This is about working one on one with a child everyday - a child
that we have known since birth (well, for most of us), and with
whom we have endless time and opportunity to allow their strengths
and interests manifest themselves. We're in no rush when we're
homeschooling. We're lucky we can just live our lives and be
happy. Isn't that the whole goal of life (and therefore homeschooling)
- to be happy?
Bio: Tammy Takahashi
shares the joy of life with her three children (7, 4, and 2)
and supportive husband. She is editor for the Homeschooling
Association of California, an activist for homeschooling
rights in California (as well as anywhere else she can be of
help) and a contributor to several homeschooling publications.
She can be reached at .
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