William F. Russell / Ed.D. Family Learning

How to Help Your Children Succeed in School by Learning at Home
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9888570-1-8
Verlag: William F. Russell
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 364 Seiten

Family Learning: How to Help Your Children Succeed in School by Learning at Home offers practical, simple activities that parents can do with their children (grades K-8) to help them learn. These 'learning adventures' provide real-world applications for concepts taught in school, as well as enrichment for any homeschool curriculum. Family Learning promotes the idea of making learning an unexceptional part of everyday family life. With these fun, easy learning activities-which can be shared in the kitchen, in the backyard, in the car, on vacations- all parents, no matter what income or educational level, can help their children develop an interest in learning and develop a richer understanding of the world around them. 'Even a little Family Learning,' says author and educator William F. Russell, Ed.D., 'will help children succeed in school and in life.' Family Learning identifies hundreds of library books (all with Dewey classifications) and other free or inexpensive learning resources, and it provides over a hundred web links to videos that help parents explain and demonstrate concepts in all school subjects including character development. For the parent who asks, 'How can I help?' this is the perfect place to begin.

Autoren/Hrsg.

William F. Russell, Ed. D.

Ed.D.,

Leseproben

There is one fact that is absolutely essential for parents to know about their children’s education, and for parents to think about when considering the kind of education they would like their children to receive, and it is this: There is a difference between learning and schooling. We all know that this statement is true, and our experiences in everyday life confirm the fact for us again and again. But today we have reason to view this fact with new-found joy, for it may hold the secret to solving some of the most vexing problems in public education. You see, if learning and schooling are not one and the same (as some educational bureaucrats insist they are), then we can actually do something about improving the former without solving all the myriad problems of the latter. After all, our children spend only about thirteen percent of their waking hours from birth to age eighteen in school, so what sense does it make to isolate all their opportunities for learning into that one, narrow sliver of their lives? The fact that we have done so, and that we have been told that we have no alternative, could explain very quickly how we as a nation could spend billions of dollars focusing on the schooling crisis without having much effect at all on the real problem that is plaguing our country’s children, namely, the crisis in learning. Family Learning is an attempt to change that focus. Opportunities for learning are everywhere—all around, all the time. They are in everything we see and everything we hear, no matter where we live or where we go. Learning can happen in our homes, out under the stars, on a trip, even in a classroom. But the foundation for all these learning excursions should be the home and the family because that is where we spend the bulk of our time; that is also where we can acquire the learning attitudes and learning skills that will make all our outside learning opportunities— even those that occur in the classroom—valuable and rewarding educational experiences. Then, too, the home and family should be seen as the primary educational setting because learning is not, cannot, and should not be confined to childhood alone. Solving all the problems of schooling would do nothing to feed the natural desire for learning that exists in adult human beings, such as parents, and so mothers and fathers would be no better at all in their roles as learning models or resource guides for their children. What I call Family Learning describes a whole range of activities through which parents and children improve their knowledge of the world by learning and doing together as a family. It relies upon and takes advantage of the fact that families can be loving, caring, non-threatening environments where children can ask questions without fear of “sounding stupid,” and where adults, too, can learn about, and think about, and talk about all the things they have ever wondered about, but couldn’t explore in the presence of friends or co-workers. Family Learning makes use of learnings from school, learnings from experience, and learnings from books and other reference sources to broaden and deepen the understanding of adults and children so that they can begin to notice and take advantage of the many learning opportunities that exist all around them every day. Family Learning is really a way of looking at the world—a life-style, if you will—that any family, no matter what its size or configuration, can practice at its own pace and can adapt to its own needs. In all honesty, I must say that the term Family Learning usually describes a result—a situation that takes some time to achieve. For it is usually the case that a parent, perhaps both parents, will adopt some of the learning habits and practices I suggest, then their children will begin to participate in a few Family Learning activities, then more, until the children adopt these learning habits for themselves. Family Learning will then describe the life-style through which that family grows together as a unit, while each of its members grows as an individual, autonomous, lifelong learner. Parents do not have to spend vast sums to acquire the books and computer programs and laboratory equipment and all the other educational aids that are touted as “necessities” for parents who are interested in their children’s education. They can, instead, learn to make use of all the free or inexpensive resources that are already present in their homes or are available to them through their own public library or through government agencies of all kinds. They can learn to see telephone books, newspapers, road maps, and dinner table conversations as valuable educational aids that can both stimulate and reinforce learning in the home. Does this sound like “homeschooling” to you? Well, keep in mind that one of the main purposes of Family Learning is to help your children succeed in school, and so Family Learning is not like the homeschooling that many parents have resorted to out of frustration over the public schooling their children were receiving. But it is helpful, I think, for all of us—parents, teachers, school administrators—to keep in mind one vital point: Every family homeschools its children. That’s right, every family—some more than others, to be sure—but every family is a homeschooling family because it is in their family life that children—all children—develop the attitudes and the behaviors and the understandings that they will carry with them into the classroom, into the workplace, into their adult lives, and into the families they themselves create. The term homeschooling actually covers a continuum that ranges from “I provide all my children’s schooling at home” on one end, to “I didn’t realize that I was actually teaching my children at home” on the other. Do you as parents want and expect your children to apply themselves to their schoolwork with diligence and dedication? If you do, then you are teaching them a powerful lesson at home; and if you don’t, then you are teaching them an equally powerful lesson at home. Does most of the language that you and your children hear in your home come from sitcoms, rock videos, and rap music, or do you read to each other—perhaps a newspaper article, a library book, a lesson from your child’s textbook. In either case, you are teaching your children about language, and you are developing the attitudes they will have about language throughout their lives. It is what you do in the course of your normal, everyday family life that determines and creates the attitudes that your children have both toward their schooling and toward learning in general. Is it okay to be curious in your home? Can children ask “why?” about things they see or hear or read without appearing silly or ignorant or meddlesome? Do your children ever hear you wonder aloud when something stimulates your own curiosity, and then watch or accompany you in a search for that missing piece of knowledge? This could be as simple as locating the place of a news event on your family globe, or looking up the spelling or pronunciation of a word in your family dictionary. What? You don’t have a family globe or a family dictionary? Well, that’s home-schooling, too. You are teaching your children that learning and schooling are one and the same; you are teaching them that knowledge comes only from certified teachers and textbooks and an occasional filmstrip, not from resources that you can just summon up whenever you really need them. Even more important, though, is the accompanying lesson that serves to stifle whatever curiosity they still may have: Because they can’t readily answer their own questions, it is best not to ask those questions in the first place and just wait for them to appear in a workbook exercise. Now think of all the lessons that aren’t taught in school, but are learned just the same—lessons about character, and conduct, and virtues, and what living a “good life” really means. You may not think you are providing instruction in your home about any matters like these, but when parents and teachers create a void in a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world, the common culture will gladly rush in to fill it. MTV, Real Housewives, sexting, Lady Gaga, Viagra and Victoria Secret ads, the Kardashians—and all of their alluring messages about what to value in life and how to attain “success,” these are part of the homeschooling curriculum, too. Here, again, you may not think you are teaching at home, but I guarantee that your children are learning at home. You can’t shut out these influences altogether, nor should you, because your children can benefit from seeing and hearing how the common culture thrives on people’s weaknesses, and tries to take from them whatever respect they have for themselves. And this self-respect, which is so often praised by modern educators and hailed as the essential ingredient in all learning, is also a product of home-schooling. What you do—and what you don’t do—as a family in your own home and in the course of normal family life will strengthen or weaken your children’s self-respect, but just remember that it will do one or the other. The attitudes that your children have about learning itself also come, in whole or in part, from their home-schooling. Do they think that the entire purpose of their school experience is to get a...