The purpose of childhood

From a very important article: The most important competencies in young children can’t be tested—we all know this. Naming letters and numbers is superficial and almost irrelevant in relation to the capacities we want to help children develop: self-regulation, problem solving ability, social and emotional competence, imagination, initiative, curiosity, original thinking — these capacities make or break success in school and life and they can’t be reduced to numbers.

"It's about the process"

Just found this gem in my Artistic Pursuits book The Way They See It by Brenda Ellis (the wife of the art guy with the ponytail who comes to our LDSHE conference).

Children become quite focused when creating.  For the child, it's about the PROCESS not the RESULTS.  This is old news in children's art education, but not many art teachers or parents grasp the importance of allowing children to experiment and enjoy the process of working with the materials.  I hope you begin to ponder the idea now.  Watch your children.  Think about what they may be learning through the process of what they are doing when they create.  You can see that their minds are fully engaged, thinking, pondering, creating! You don't have to identify the benefits or explain the results of their time to others.  Just know that by allowing them to create you are giving them time to practice something good that they will be able so use for a lifetime. (my emphasis)

I really love this, and it applies equally well to the building and exploring that children do--which in essence is also creation--even if it's creating a new understanding of what's inside a flower (for example) in their own minds.

So how do we facilitate this?  In my mind there are several ingredients:

1 - Remove mindless or non-creative distractions (limit TV and video games, don't force a child to do academic work that he's not interested in/not ready for).

2 - Enrich the environment with the raw materials of art, building, and all forms of creation from cooking to playing in nature.

3 - Have a supportive attitude toward the child's inclinations to get things out and make messes... within reasonable limits.

4 - As in all areas of life, set an example.  Pursue forms of creation that are interesting to you, and share your enthusiasm with your children.

Here we go!

Mentoring vs. Teaching

We live in a society in which we've been raised on teaching: in schools, in churches, at home. My mother was a school teacher for a few years until she was able to become a SAHM, and I fully recognize that many teachers seriously deserve their halos--they do a lot of good in the world.  Jesus Christ was the ultimate example of a perfect teacher, and we can learn a lot from how he went about it.

But there's a really important point that is so often missed: teaching and learning are very different things which we too often equate.  I hear people talking about having high state standards of learning, and I just shake my head; that’s nice, but learning is out of your control.  You can teach and teach, but how much the children learn is up to them.

And it’s not just up to them voluntarily to decide to learn, and then they can.  Learning is a process in which brain cells make new connections, and there’s no way that can be forced—by the teacher or by the individual.  Learning happens when the neural groundwork has been laid—when the brain is sufficiently developed--AND when a desire has been created to own a new piece of information or skill.   Both have to be present for learning to be achieved.  If the learner is not ready or not interested, the teacher will be like the voice of the adults on the Peanuts comics: “Wah wah, wah wah, wahwah” (although it seems like Charlie Brown understands his parents….  ;-)

What is the job of a teacher?  To present some new information which the learners will then learn.  Typical lesson plans involve a “hook” to spike interest, some leading questions, some new information, a class discussion, and wrapping up with a challenge: a very good system for classroom teaching.  But you’re still painting with a very wide brush—you have no way of telling if the participants’ brains are ready, of assuring that they remember the background information needed for context, and you can only attempt to generate a sufficient interest level.  Having the Spirit present in your Primary class can and does certainly help with this.

How is mentoring different than teaching?

Mentoring happens when a learner seeks out help to learn something that he has felt a desire to learn.  The learning is thus unique, not mass-produced, and leads to permanence.  The learner’s interest is already there; it doesn’t have to be created.  It may have been created through something he overheard a peer or family member talking about, something he saw or read about.  He is coveting, but not breaking the 8^th commandment:  “Someone can do (or knows) this awesome thing and I can’t (don't), but I’m ready to try.”

In mentoring, the learner often does more talking than the mentor, as he explores his way through a topic and makes connections between things he already knows.  The mentor will answer questions with more questions, and make sure that the hard work of thinking is happening inside the learner's brain.   After all, it’s not the answers that are important, but the process that is going on inside the brain.

Mentors “lead, guide, walk-beside,” but don’t just tell.  As Hugh Nibley once said, “My only job as a teacher is to save my students time.”  In other words, by being a resource for them, he can save them from running down all the rabbit trails before they find the answers they seek—running a few empty trails is good exercise, but they don’t need to run them all and get discouraged.  That’s why it’s crucial for effective mentoring that the mentor have a decent grasp of the learner’s character: How will he respond to this?  What is his frustration level right now?   Should I step in or let him fail?

Mentors facilitate exploration, creation, and invention, encouraging the learner to challenge himself and helping the process along.  Much of this involves finding resources and providing the raw materials of learning, which, depending on age and interest, can be anything from brightly-colored stacking cups to a Greek dictionary and a copy of Homer.

So what does this look like in a real home?  It looks gentle, it looks earnest, it looks enjoyable.  You search the children’s faces, words, and actions for “interest sparks” and try to assure the sparks don’t get extinguished before they can be fanned to a flame.  You may find that giving occasional nudges can guide him to the outcome he's going for.  You ask for permission to give a suggestion.  You encourage a child to keep going on a process that he's chosen which is difficult.  You set an example of doing difficult things that expand your capacities, working through frustrations, and rejoicing in successes.

In the big picture, you trust that he has talents and gifts and help him develop them.  You enrich the environment, both inside and outside the home, so that he comes into contact with the best of the human and the natural worlds.  You respect his choices of how to use his time (within the parameters of a few commonsense requirements): HE owns his future, you do not.  Persuasion, not coercion.

Note: these are not my ideas--I've gleaned them from many smart people, mostly at LDSHE conferences over the years.  I do not implement them perfectly, but I've found them to be effective to raise children with their love-of-learning and, importantly, with our relationship intact, while having the smarts to deal with the world of adults.

Why is Nature Study ideal for early childhood learning?

Learning requires several skills that are well taught through studies of nature.  The first is observation, which comes naturally to a child, since he has already learned a language this way.  If a child is moved too quickly into direct instruction (teachers telling you stuff, which then you parrot back to them) as the primary learning modality, the child may begin to doubt his ability to figure things out by himself.  He'll believe the fallacy that things must be taught by an "expert" and in a specific order; otherwise there may be "learning gaps" (horrors!).  Well, it's mostly the parents who buy into that nonsense, but attitudes are contagious, and though he couldn't elucidate why he has become a passive rather than an active learner, there's a good chance it's because he's been "taught at."

Observation is central to nature study, and it's beautiful because each person may discover something different.  Children are encouraged to draw and write about what they see; if they're too young for that, telling about what they see is also valuable.  And quite often they will have noticed something about the object that the adult hasn't seen yet.  Natural objects have an "infinite complexity" aspect which means that there is always more to discover.

This leads to the second valuable learning skill, and that is patience--lengthening the attention span.  Many things in nature move quite slowly: plants growing, flowers blooming, caterpillars creeping.  Then there are those that move very quickly, so you have to develop the skill of patiently watching to get a glimpse: birds, falling stars, etc.

A third beautiful thing about nature study is that it is a short-cut to so many other fields of learning.  It provides mental "hooks" to hang other pieces of information on--information about history and math and human society, along with the more formal study of chemistry, physics, anatomy and physiology, etc.

Last, nature is a great thing to become passionate about--after all, it is how we see the hand of God around us.  At our house we're all big nature geeks, and we get excited by interesting rock formations or a strange bump on a tree or an unfamiliar insect.  My second son taught himself to read and learned the number system all by himself at an early age because he developed a passion for birds.  We have several bird field guides, and he would carry them around and look at the photographs in the front, try to read the name, look out the window trying to see that bird, then look at the page number by the picture and search the book until he found that page so that he could look at the map and see whether that bird lived in our area.  Simple.  Beautiful.  No work on my part ;-)

So how does a "playschool" operate?

I'm hoping to gather a few like-minded families to form a cooperative group this fall for ages 4 to 6 (did you know Kindergarten is not mandatory in Virginia?).  I am thinking of Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 1.  I would be happy to host the entire thing at my home, or we could rotate homes and teachers.  Depending on how many kids participate (I'm hoping for around 8), I'd like to have a teacher mom and an assistant each day.  Moms would be welcome to stay the whole time, or to drop off their kids.

The cost would be maybe $15 per month (to cover supplies and food for lunch) for all moms willing and able to take turns teaching.  If a family wants to do drop-off only, we would charge an extra fee, which would be split between the teaching families--just to make it fair. (This remains to be seen, but it would still be very inexpensive compared to commercial preschools).

The themes for the weeks and months would come from the world around them, along with a value we could focus on each month. I would like to include a field trip each month related to the theme.

The monthly themes will be:
September - Animals
National Zoo or Leesburg Animal Park

October - Birds and Trees
Huntley Meadow- Fairfax County park

November - Marine Life
National Aquarium - Baltimore (the big one) or DC (the little one)

December - Human Anatomy and Physiology

January - Physics: Heat, Light, Gravity, Magnetism, Electricity, Motion (this may spill over into February--so many fun things to do with these!)
Maryland Science Museum - $5 in January, Baltimore

February - Earth Science: Rocks, Volcanoes (may spill over into March)

March - Reptiles, Dinosaurs, Amphibians
Natural History Museum

April -  Astronomy, Weather
Maybe the Science Museum of Virginia–2 hours away so it would be an all-day affair (I'd like to do a Planetarium)

May - Bugs and Plants
State Arboretum of Virginia - 45 min away

The values will be things like honesty, respecting others, being kind, and these will be tied into the nature themes by a central book that we'll read several times during the month.  For example, we could do Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey when we do birds, and the value could be obedience--or something along those lines.  I've got several book lists that go along with these topics, so I'll have to go through them.  I'd also love suggestions.

A day at this playschool would look something like this:

Gathering time with either a game or group activity

Activity centers - children choose between puzzles, building toys (Tinkertoys, Duplos, K'Nex,  etc.) imaginative toys (kitchen, costumes), and logic games (Thinkfun, pattern blocks, attribute blocks, Mighty Mind, Cuisenaire rods, Memory).

Outdoor play (whenever possible) - running games, playset, riding toys, looking at nature and the changes that are happening through the year in our five acres of woods and stream.  When the weather isn't cooperating we can go in the basement and do some active games (races, throwing and catching, etc.)

Focus time - learn about the theme of the month from pictures, books, short science videos, and hands-on activities of all sorts (having taught science co-ops to homeschoolers for 15 years at least, I've got a million ideas  AND my home is full of interesting rocks and crystals, dinosaur bones, insect collections, math manipulatives, big posters on every topic under the sun, etc.)

Table time - art projects, sensory play, whatever we think is fun, which goes along with the unit--or not (this is a Waldorf thing).

Story time - several read-alouds on the unit topic (or not) with children taking an active part through narrating back sections of the story, guessing what happens next, etc. (this is a Charlotte Mason thing).

Lunch time - the children take turns preparing lunch and serving their peers (this is a Montessori thing).

Clean-up time, then a "clean" activity like music or a group game

Throughout the whole time there will be activities going on, but no child will be pressured to join in if he doesn't want to.  To as great an extent as possible, the adults will be in the background, letting the children be in charge. We may let an extrovert child lead the games after they learn them,  We will encourage the kids to share what they see in nature to the extent they are able (each will have a nature journal).  We will establish a few rules, but the pressure will be off.  Which may mean for some that there will be few art projects sent home.  Having had two foster kids in day care part of last year, I'm quite aware that many of the things that the child supposedly created were really no more than "Here, put your hand in this paint and then press it on the page and then run and play again."  Really a gift from the teacher to the parent--there will be very little of that dynamic.

Yes, we will work in some math, writing and reading, but it will not be readily apparent to the casual observer.  The math will focus mainly on logic, discovering the attributes of numbers, and making patterns (believe me, this is far more important to long-term math success than memorizing that 3+4=7).  Reading will be encouraged as we sound out words together in the stories we read.  If you'd like to work on academics at home to stay up with what the schools are doing, I'll point you to some things I've liked using in past years (like the Explode the Code series).  But I'd recommend that you read some of the articles I've linked in the side bar while considering what else you'd like to add to your child's days.

So if you want your young kids to have some new learning opportunities without being pressured by academic expectations (and quite possibly setting the stage for later academic excellence), this is the group for you.

How Children Play: Discover (continued from below)

Children are naturally curious, and it's very sad to see a child who is so burnt-out on forced education that when presented with something inherently fascinating (like a butterfly on a flower) he won't even bother to look--just remains deep inside his own world.  Schools are limited in their ability to allow a child to discover, so education becomes "canned"--predigested and predetermined, not allowing space for the child to find anything out on his own.  It sometimes becomes just a guessing game to find out what the teacher has in her mind.  We pretend we're doing experiments when really we are just doing demonstrations.

Self-determination theory holds that intrinsic motivation is much more powerful than extrinsic; in other words, doing something that is meaningful to you will have more lasting effects on your life than doing something to satisfy an external pressure put upon you (see "The school that puts kids in charge of their own education" in the side bar).  Discovery is central to intrinsically-motivated learning.  I think we are too quick to classify activities as "too easy for you" or "too hard for you" -- too easy or too hard for what?  What if he wasn't trying to put that puzzle together the way most people would, but had a completely different end in mind?  We need to get away from giving the impression that the world has already been completely explored, and now "you can just sit down and learn everything that has already been figured out for you."  That is a dead-end--no wonder kids are bored.

If discovery though play is the prime learning modality for your child from early-on, he will maintain a love of learning even when things get difficult.  Below are two pictures of my guys a couple years ago; one is discovering how markers can draw (yes, on the wall too) and the other is thinking about the patterns that are made by circles of dots when you draw lines between the dots in different configurations.  He crafted a chart from these, and went on to larger numbers of dots before he discovered the rule behind the patterns.  All on his own.  Not because he's smart, but because he's curious.

How Children Play: Challenge (continued from below)

We all (not just children) play by challenging ourselves.  "Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest?"  "Because it's there," said George Mallory.  And we all do the same thing, though usually on a smaller scale: running a marathon, learning a computer language, fixing a car, building a deck, sewing a prom dress.

In the life of a young child, challenge is everything--it's how they are able to do new things each day.  Some kids are maniacs for it, and will keep trying something difficult until they succeed or get hurt (or both).  Others are more laid back, but still enjoy a quiet challenge; puzzles, games, and the like.  A friend of mine likes to take a stopwatch to a playground and have his kids do something--"go climb over that and run back to me"--and then they see if they can do it faster the next time.  He says that it doesn't take more than a few minutes for the other kids on the playground to notice what is going on and then they ALL want in on it--who is the fastest, strongest, most agile, etc.  The man with the stopwatch is the most popular guy on the playground.

Which means that a parent who recognizes that challenges are vital to growth, and provides many opportunities for kids to stretch, is giving them what they need.  Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky formulated a theory of the Zone of Proximal Development, which has influenced my homeschool-mothering.  He stated that each person grows and develops at different rates, but has distinct "tasks" that he is capable of mastering if he puts forth effort.  For example, after I have taken my first ski lesson I'm not ready for the crazy-daring mountainside.  The bunny hill is now in my Zone of Proximal Development though.

Each person has a ZPD for math, for language, for reading, driving, sewing, woodworking, computers, etc.  Whether or not you proceed to learn that next step depends on your interest and/or need of the skill.  So how do you know where your child's ZPDs are?  A preschooler may be able to put on shoes that fasten with velcro, but is not yet able to tie his shoes. If he eagerly watches you tie shoes and attempts it on his own, you can be pretty sure he's ready for some lessons and encouragement.  Just because he can already do velcro shoes, and lace-up shoes are next, doesn't mean he's ready to move on--it may not be in his ZPD yet, considering the manual dexterity and memory skills necessary.

So the goal can be really big, but if he is able to break it down into small steps that fit within his ZPD, the child will want to embrace the challenge as a form of play.

How Children Play: Create (continued from below)

So how do children play?  There are three main focuses of play: creating, challenging, and discovering.
Children are constantly creating little dramas with their toys and acting them out.  They create art (on walls sometimes), create music as they pull the pans out of cupboards and beat on them, and create patterns as they arrange the pans on the floor from largest to smallest.
Creating is the main thing that goes on at our house.  The kids do world-building on paper, with Legos, clay, K'Nex, or in their heads.  Sometimes the creation leads to movie-making with paper dolls they have drawn. Sometimes it leads to writing dramas or poetry (we've never had a book produced yet; Luke wrote up 20 pages of notes a book...before he moved on to another book...which also has never seen the light, but still good for his brain).  When I was little I loved to create through sewing.  I'd lay my Barbie on some fabric and draw around her, cut out two pieces and sew them together, then wonder why it wouldn't go on her; helped me learn about the difference between circumference and diameter.
People are built to create - it is hard-wired in.  There is a way to kill this desire though, or at least diminish it and that is to do everything for them.  To give them only finished products to play with--pre-scripted toy sets that steer you into playing with them a certain way.  To fail to provide the raw materials of play, at a level kids feel comfortable with.
When we were new parents we were poor so we would both bring home stacks of paper from our jobs for our kids to play with (mine were covered with EKG print-outs and my husband's with energy policy proposals).  One side was blank, and so our kids would cover these papers with sketches until the floor was literally covered with artwork.  Our kids (so far) have all become good artists, and when we had more money we'd buy nice sketch notebooks for them.  But it was funny how those sketch books didn't usually fill up as fast as the scratch paper laying around--they were a bit intimidating.
So not having lots of money isn't necessarily a drawback, but impoverishing your child's environment IS.  Some parents don't want to have to step over Tinkertoys, or have crayons laying around that their child might draw on the couch with.  So they give their kids screens (iPads, lots of TV time) because they are not messy.  And though some vouch for Minecraft as a creative outlet, generally what you get with screens at best is pre-digested creativity, at worst is zero, even negative creativity, as the child feels like what he can do could never compete with the colorful stories and images on the screens.

Nature Kids Philosophy: Playschool rather than Preschool

Play is the prime learning modality for all people.  This may seem like an extreme statement until you investigate what constitutes play.  We usually associate the word with children, and many studies have been done which show that children learn best through play, and when deprived of play they fail to grow in both creativity and academic progress--see side bar.

Dictionaries state that play is to engage in something for enjoyment, rather than for a serious or practical purpose.  But what this definition misses is that any time you are doing something simply because you WANT to, because you enjoy it, this is play, whether or not it has a practical purpose or outcome.  Right now I am finishing a room in our basement--making trim out of oak that came from the trees we felled when we built our house.  Hard work, yes.  Play? Absolutely! I am exercising my creativity and am excited about the project--and it's challenging.  Think about it - what does "play" look like for adults (not watching others play, but actually playing)?  It looks like making fabulous new creations (art, music, crafts, or culinary) or having "man vs. mountain" experiences: challenging, stimulating, one-of-a-kind experiences, where you walk away with new knowledge and insights.

This is just what our traditional learning environments are missing.  A few years ago a large study was done by Stanford University which followed children from preschool age through elementary school.  It found that while children who attend preschool are a bit ahead academically of non-preschool children upon entering kindergarten, the gap disappears by second grade for most children (the exception being children from low-income families).  But there was a strong finding of negative socialization among middle and upper class children attending preschools, which was worsened in those who spent longer hours at preschool.  This finding showed up by second grade, around the time the academic boost wore off as well.

Basically what happens is that the kids are all excited about learning at first, and love the teacher's attention and the fun of being with peers each day.  They willingly work on ABCs-123s-Colors-Shapes, etc. and get those down right away.  But after a few years the magic has worn off.  They are tired of "direct instruction" as their learning modality.  They have "given you the best years of their lives" and now what do they have to show for it?  ABCs-123s-colors-shapes only take you so far when you are not mature enough to handle more complex subjects. And then you get bored and start acting out.  This is exactly what the study found - the children who had been in academic preschools became learning-resistant about second grade.  It's just not fun any more.

Why, then, the push for early academics--the "universal pre-K" that politicians are talking about lately?  While it's debatable whether this would benefit low-income children, it will for SURE not benefit the majority of kids--which makes it simply another egalitarian tool in the hands of the social engineers.

What children need is more self-directed play in an enriched environment supported by a mentor.  That is what I wish for my son's early years.  And what I propose to provide--for him and some other lucky youngsters.