Category Archives: tutor

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The key to Learning is Freedom

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TYOC LOGO“The key to Learning is Freedom”, but what does that really mean? It means, having the freedom to learn WHAT we want to learn and HOW we want to learn it, for each of us, which includes our children. The WHAT and HOW is controlled in classrooms, which it has to be to a certain extent as there’s lots of people, little time and stretched resources, however, the same need not be true for learning outside of school.

WHAT does your child want to learn about that doesn’t get addressed at their school? HOW does your child learn best?

If your child can’t tell you then you’ll need to find out through observation. We can find out a lot about our children when we watch and listen.

Having the freedom to learn helps your child become a lifelong learner, which will assist their life long term… as nothing in life is guaranteed and we all have times of reassessing what we do and how we’ll do it and we certainly don’t enjoy other people making those choices for our lives. Being a tutor is about assisting someone else’s learning by supporting, demonstrating and eventually becoming redundant. To tutor means to help a learner learn how to tutor themselves… even to teach themselves. We want our children to become independent of us… to live their own life, make their own way, do their own washing!

The freedom to learn in a class is not and can not be present; learning is compulsory or the student is punished. Learn and you are rewarded, which is also about not being free to learn, as students learn to work for an external goal, rather than focussing on the learning alone; learning for learning’s sake.

Students wait for the teacher to teach and they are trained NOT to teach themselves. Tutoring is giving back power, and the desire, to learn, for themselves by themselves. How many times do you hear the excuse “but the teacher didn’t tell us to ….” when you know your child should have proceeded without having to be told? Or “but the teacher told us to do it this way” when you yourself were taught another, better, easier, faster way? Does it feel like a battle between you and their teacher? Do you feel they have more control over your child’s learning than your child has over their own learning? Or even YOU over your child?

Did you know that YOU are legally responsible for your child’s education, not the school? Did you know that school isn’t even compulsory, only receiving an education is compulsory. You are using the school, you’re not suppose to ‘feel used.’

Did you know that the vast majority of teachers are in love with learning and dearly love children who want to learn, but the system and procedures of a classroom prevent them from teaching according to the very best standards? Standards and methods that have been well researched and documented, such as individual learning plans, multiple intelligences, real world experiential learning, self-correcting hands on manipulatives etc. Your child’s teacher/s should be your partner/s. They are with your child for a significant portion of their waking life for 13 years. Yes they are busy, yes you may still ‘fear teachers’ yourself, but if they didn’t like children they wouldn’t do the job. They don’t want to be feared,  they want the children to learn. If you need their feedback then approach them and get it. It will help your child AND the teacher long term.

Assist, support, encourage, praise enough to keep them wanting to learn, however, the ultimate aim is to become redundant as your student, your child, rediscovers the ‘freedom to learn’ they had prior to attending school. As they do, they may view schools a little differently. You may too. Schools are NOT the only place where learning occurs, sometimes they even make it harder to learn, but here is a trick for you, if you encourage your child to learn ANYTHING outside of school (sport, art, music etc) and it’s something they  love it will increase their desire to learn, their grades in school improve, as they transfer those ‘how to learn’ skills into their schooling.

Conversely if  you force your child to learn something they don’t want to learn, thereby further limiting their freedom, their desire to learn reduces and their performance at school also goes down.

“Learning is the key to freedom” because if you can learn anything, you have no restrictions to what you can experience and that’s a liberating thought.

First day of School?

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first day of school 1980As THOUSANDS of children head off to school today, it’s a great time to remember what that institution is… it’s ONE of the venues your child attends where they learn. Your home, the world, their friend’s house, the shops… the park, the beach, the *insert here* is another. LEARNING happens regardless, no matter where they are.

However, schools deliberately try to make children learn, and this doesn’t always work… which would be fine except schools ALSO test your child’s learning. That brings stress into learning. Tutoring YOUR own child can help to reduce that stress. It can improve test results, make learning easier and school more enjoyable. Tutoring is ‘assisting a student to understand what HAS been taught’, not teaching from scratch.

As you kiss them goodbye and then wait until you see them again, see if you can remember what it’s like to be excited to go school…. remember that first flush of new pencils and new school bag…. those new books!!!! The anticipation was INTENSE, hey!!!!

Then came the stress and then the boredom…. between the stress and boredom IS WHERE YOU FIT IN!!!! Catch them at the first sign of stress and help them to cope… that’s what tutoring REALLY does.

Happy to answer any questions you have, your questions may help others. Hope today is AWESOME for everyone!

Notes for the parent tutor

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Do you remember the video for Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick in the Wall’? ( here’s a link for the video cliphttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U) Watch this with your Schooled child and discuss with open communication your experiences as a Schooled child. Consider reclaiming your role as their FIRST teacher. Tutoring your own child is about helping them understand not just what’s taught in class but how to understand the world. What I’d love for you to know, Parents, is that in ‘their eyes’ we brought them into the world, they are only here because we decided to create them. They look to US for help on that sometimes frightening job of learning about the world but then they get put into a School and are away from us, isolated from the ‘real world’ as we call it. Then we expect them to learn in isolation from the ‘real world’ how to live in the ‘real world’. It’s not just a school thing, it’s for any family that restricts what their children can and can’t learn about, but it is also a ‘School thing’ as at no other time in our lives do we get segregated into ‘same age groups’ and forced to learn at a teacher’s pace, day in day out.

We used to have children knowing it was a lifelong commitment to another person, the way we used to view marriage. It’s part of becoming an adult to leave your own childhood behind and become ‘responsible’ for another human. Now we have a baby and go back to work, somewhere between 6 weeks and 6 years later. Women are punished socially for not returning to work in some circles, in others returning to work is the crime. Mummy Wars are the new competition that are added to the war on image that’s been playing out for decades.

Clearing up the realities for a minute, just forget about what other’s think about how you’re living your life, the reality is that no one else will do the job of ‘raising our children’ for you. Sure they’ll ‘babysit’ and they’ll ‘educate’ but as far as ‘being there for them’, well that’s our job. Delegating is a choice and the consequences can be life changing. Our children still look at us to be the one’s ultimately responsible for them until they too are grown and ready to be responsible for someone else.

How much damage does it take before you can’t reconnect with your child? Don’t let the opportunity to turn things around vanish without your full consideration. Wishing you all the very best with your journeys.

Here is the full length movie of ‘The Wall’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQE3vcwU97g

What we do…. and then some

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In the wee small hours…before crashing into bed (probably literally at this stage) I’m reminded that I need to share more of what we actually do with home education if this blog and my website link are to be in anyway useful.

Well their dad was a blacksmith when she was born!
 
Oh wow… that foil covered shield looks shiney!
Battle time… the only time they fight!

 

  • Monday Morning Meetings… we gather and go over what each of my munchkins want to do with their week academically, socially, inside, outside… what ever really. Then I raise the topics of what I feel would be good to cover and we discuss all of what we’ve raised. From this we write up a plan of things I need to do, they need to do, places we need to go, things we need to buy etc. Usually we come up with other things during the week but I have a written record of the conversation so I can monitor what is going on during the week, make comments, suggestions, give reminders etc. This process works best for us and stops us falling into the common unschooling trap of everyone going off to do their own thing, nothing gets done, gaps in sequential learning develop and well… we genuinely miss each other! It may seem strange, but when we’re off doing our own thing we may not see each other all day! Now that both of my children are capable of independent research they get heavily invested into what they are doing. Another aspect is Continue reading →

Listen to our children, observe and understand them

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In the last post we covered observing children as they go about learning. In this post we will extend that observation into all areas of our children’s lives. You may think that you don’t have time to watch your child but once you start you’ll find that less and less time is needed. Let’s use an example.
Do you remember when you first met your child? There was a time when they took up your whole day. motherhood in 2001Because you had to you got to know when they were hungry, soiled, bored, tired and their patterns of temper, attention and hopefully sleep! Their patterns may have changed over the years but they are still there if you take the time to observe. You probably already know that your teen is a night owl or that you can’t expect your young child to stay awake too long at night. Even as adults we can get irritable when we are hungry, it’s just human nature.
Now let’s have a look at your child’s usual week, as there is generally a recurring pattern due to their timetable of commitments. Sleep, eating,  regulation of time with daily duties such as school or extra curricular activities, or even engrained habits of checking emails, switching on iPods or regular texting times play their part in ‘regulating’ your child. It’s their way of forming habits. Once you know your child’s habits you’ll know when they are the most alert, when they are generally the most tired/hungry and therefore moody and also when they are choosing to do a task or when they are being forced to do a task. This is a key point. If you know when your child is doing something because they want to, but at times it seems as though they don’t it could be because they just don’t feel like doing it at that time of the day or week but they have already programmed themselves with the habit of doing it. They may not have lost total interest in a subject, it’s just that their enthusiasm for it is not in line with their energy.
There are not many of us who really enjoy the repetitive job of cleaning, attending boring classes or

cleaning time

doing homework. Our children show their emotions more freely than us and although it may entice us to feel frustrated with them, or at them, they are only saying what we would probably feel if we were in their shoes. Yes, I don’t want to clean this messy room either, but I will because… well why? Why do you clean? Why are you the responsible one? It’s because it’s expected and you are used to it. Also you know that no one else will do it for you.
Now we’re getting right into the low motivation end of childhood. For all their get up and go we also have times when our children just won’t get up and go and do anything! If you put in the time and effort to observe them as learners, observe their routines, become more accustomed to ‘their perspective’ in life and truly try to walk in their shoes, you can be in the prime position to help your child. It’s certainly not an easy task and will require you to leave your ego at the door! This time of observation is not the time to think of what you would do in their shoes. It’s only through building up the genuine love you have of them and accepting them for who they are, just as they are that you can see them clearly. No judgement and no advice, just observation.
At the end of the day they will keep growing and one day go. When they do what will they do? Who will they be? Will they be living their life to please other people and repress themselves only to feel always a little less than truly happy? This doesn’t have to be their future. The first key point mentioned above is to ‘know’ your child through observation. The next key point is to get to know them from their own observation. Discussion, communication, time together will make any situation change. You are by far the most important person in their world. We are still very much creatures of habit and as we like our structure, stability, regular food and shelter we also like to know we are wanted, loved and that those people who chose to have us still want us, like us and are very much interested in our lives.  Your child could be struggling with a foreign language course that you have no idea how to help them with but by being interested, open, observant and making it about ‘them’ and not you, they will naturally try that bit harder and with their lessons in Swahili, course book and tape you don’t actually need to speak the language it’s self. Here is an example:
Child sits down at the dining table ready to do Swahili language homework. Looks at book, flicks though without actually reading, makes a ‘humpf’ sound and closes the book looking around the room.
You could say “Get on with it” “Have a go” or many other well meaning motivating statements but the child is clearly saying “I’m really not interested in this and I can’t do it easily and I really don’t want to do it” So why not just ask the question “Are you finding it hard to get started?” Even if your child answers back in a short ‘yeah’ noise you could ask “Why?” Now you can sit back and listen. Avoid giving advice and just wait until they slowly come up with ideas themselves. Just as with a shoe that needs tying a bow what needs to be done will come to the child eventually, even if it’s a phone call to a friend from their Swahili class for advice. You should always try to avoid doing things for your child that they can do for themselves. If you do butt in and take over the message they receive is that you don’t have the confidence in their ability to do it themselves.
Confidence in ourselves as parents and our children’s confidence in themselves, without unnecessary boasting can leave us all to feel free and comfortable in helping others. Home Education Week celebrates not only people’s choice to educate their own children but the amazing communities that help each other all over the world. Home educated children are well known to be generally confident, social and able to make friend’s easily. This is due largely to them not having peer pressure to deal with, having multi aged friends to learn from (older children have been there, done that and they can be good role model’s in turn for their younger friends). The other reason home educated children tend to be so well adjusted socially is because they have dialogue with their parents daily about things that matter to them. In short they tend to feel ‘listened to’ on a daily basis.
 Making ‘listening to our children’ a part of our daily routine can bring back the enthusiasm for wanting more in life, more from ourselves and more learning that can so easily slip away in over scheduled lives. One day off work and school, just staying home may seem incredibly drastic, but if it is doable take a chance! Stopping the machine just for one day so everyone can catch up with themselves and each other could make a huge difference.  The key is listening, not talking, fixing, directing or ‘teaching’. Tutoring your child is like being their aid, always there if they need you but more than often they want to drive their own life and their own learning experience. You just help out when they feel they can’t do something by observing whether or not they really can’t do it, helping with the minimal of fuss or reminding them, lovingly, that they can do it themselves.

Swahili language book image courtesy of worldnextdoor.org