Please join me on my quest as I search for… in all the world, what should I teach my homeschool children?
I find it to be an important question as I venture further into the our homeschooling adventure. And all the more so, the deeper I delve. When faced with the challenge of homeschooling my children, I had to ask, what, actually, should I be teaching them? Should I be trying to replicate school at home? One book after another I look at, in pursuit of answers to my question, and with each one I reach a similar conclusion – “Well not the what the schools do!”
Last week I wrote about the importance of schools to have a moral ethos that should be taught, one that actually asserts morality and draws clear boundaries.
https://thereisnoshouldbe.com/balancing-internet-in-education/
This week I am looking at educational content – what should I teach my homeschool children.
The Intelligence Trap, by David Robson
Currently I am a little way into ‘The Intelligence Trap’ by David Robson. It’s a fascinating, if slightly disturbing book that highlights the pitfalls with relying too heavily on the judgment of those with ‘high intelligence’, a high IQ, or more accurately predominantly analytical intelligence. This type of intelligence can in actual fact have the potential to be small minded, to the point of serious collision when we look at the scope of what analytical thinking can be capable of. It uncovers problems with bias and practical stupidity from some of our most ingenious thinkers and scientists.
But what stands out to me most in this book is the journey of education systems – the streamlined approach to teaching information. The rational behind chosen syllabuses, the method of standardised testing and streamlined approach to academic success, is very administrative led – top down education. How easy it is to teach students patterns and vocabulary, without them learning to think morally and ethically about topics and stories. Where academic gains and ‘discoveries’ can be such a rocket booster on the career ladder, much is lost without the intricacies of “if, but, when, perhaps not, and what could happen next?”
Educational approaches – analytical versus creative, pragmatic
Starting from IQ tests designed to measure analytical and abstract thinking, the schooling of these components remains the backbone of our education systems. Analytical thinking (measure by IQ) is easy to teach, easy to test, and very much in keeping with a ‘bums on seats’ method of education. However it has long be known that there are different strands of intelligence. These can be categorised as creative intelligence, and pragmatic intelligence. These strengths can allow a person to excel in their life aspirations, as well as professionally, well beyond their previously apparent intellectual capacity would have suggested with an IQ test. With creative, imaginative and inventive thinking as one strand, and with innovative, responsive and emotional and social intelligence as another strand, these out of the box thinking capacities serve as a colourful, broad, big picture approach to learning tasks.
A study by pyschologist Sternberg at Yale university showed that students taught in the approach of these two measures of intelligence (creative and pragmatic) performed better when tested, rather than simply leaning on an information based, vocabulary and spatial reasoning model (analytical intelligence). Furthermore, this applied to all subjects, even maths, English and sciences, which could be assumed to be subjects of a mainly analytical nature.
Schools haven’t adapted
We’ve known this since 1980s. It is understandable that schools haven’t adapted to this ground breaking information on methods of good education. These types of intelligence are harder to teach. They require more personal engagement, they require conversational and interactive methods, and are harder to test for in the end. Of course there are the exceptional, wonderful teachers who step out of the box and make this kind of effort – they are the wonderful exception. And yet, we know it is a superior way of teaching. The pupils can learn to think deeply and with a greater understanding of the information when they are encouraged to think creatively, pragmatically, and physically (as shown in the book ‘Smart Moves’ by Carla Hannaford.
A dramatic rise in IQ
Between the 1940s and year 2000, the IQ of the global population has risen 20 points. Clearly this is misleading – the population has not become 20 IQ points more intelligent. But it does point to our education system – methods of teaching are impacting on the minds of the people. People are more apt at recognising patterns and are more literate. But whilst, analytical scoring is raised 20 points, other factors came up as decreased, such as navigational skills. It would be very interesting to see, with the rise of social media and technology, with reduced interactive play amongst children and with this praised, fact based approach to education how social and emotional intelligence (within the pragmatic intelligence bracket) would score, if it could be measured.
The problem with an IQ centred education
However we shall see that creative and especially pragmatic intelligence is in fact a superior approach to one’s everyday and professional function. One particular subject named Sara Ann (from a prolonged educational study by psychologist Lewis Terman) with an IQ of 192 in later years expressed a neglect of other cognitive skills that could have been encouraged in her IQ centric education. While she was expected to have an exceptional career and achieve great things, by her 50s she had lost interest in this academic life, and spent her years sofa surfing, and at one point in a commune. She wrote, “My great regret is that my left-brain parents, spurred on by my Terman group experience, pretty completely bypassed any encouragement of whatever creative talent I may have had. I now see the latter area as of greater significance, and intelligence as its handmaiden. I’m sorry I didn’t become aware of this fifty years ago.”
Here she seems to be referring to the relationship between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. In “The Matter with Things” by Iain McGilchrist, he outlines the narrow minded role of the left hemisphere, where it serves as an administrative, literal, outline approach to the right hemisphere, which on the other hand allows complex, unassuming, creative, emotionally and socially apt thinking.
And it is true – as mentioned before, students taught through a lens of a pragmatic approach or creative thinking showed better understanding of the content of the learning than when taught purely on an IQ basis. Whether naturally apt at creative and innovative thinking or not, being brought up in an attitude of thinking in this way brings on students’ learning more than favouring purely knowledge based learning. Likewise, regardless of whether students are natural at practical thinking and implementation, people skills like defusing situations, the complexities of working alongside others, or considering emotions of others, are what bring brilliant ideas to fruition. They are intricate skills that allow fuller understanding of the learning at hand. And they are also life skills that cannot be neglected. These must be considered when addressing ‘what should I teach my children’.
Examples of creative and pragmatic thinking
Then what should I teach my children at home? For children, it doesn’t require a whole lot of thought, except not to rush through content of learning. Children are so naturally inquisitive. It is me that is drawing them away from the noise and ‘distraction’ of creative thinking. I have to remind myself to allow the extra chat around the subject, such as “I saw that on this trip!” or “we read about a bore tidal wave in my book on the Amazon rainforest!”. These extra notes of interest are precious, natural learning – children joining dots.
I find it hard to allow extra chat, because things can get frantic – the chaos of a little bundle of mischief, not quite ready for this level of read aloud book can mean I feel the weight of time constraints. But I think it would be better to cover less content and allow the discussions, than to fire through a chapter on ‘British Towns’ or ‘mountain ranges’. I have to remind myself that reading aloud to my kids is great fun because of their wealth of interest. Then when things go to far off topic we can just carry on reading. Truly, it’s the discussions that allow children to join the dots on their own, and form pictures and deeper understanding. It allows them to recollect memories, and sometimes process thoughts and interactions in retrospect.
More practical examples
Drawing pictures of their ideas, or working out how to conduct their own experiment helps turn quixotic ideas into inspiration they can work through. These skills of gradually working through a process, whether cooking, or building, or crafting, or drawing, or jumping over a river, or climbing a tree all allow children to engage with their own competence. These active tasks help a child feel invincible! But really they are making friends with their own limits, and then expanding these limits as they persevere.
We are regularly talking about character analysis – was Voldemort ever good? Was he clever? If Harry had had Lucius’ upbringing, and Lucius Harry’s, would they have turned out the same?
It’s all the ifs, buts, could they, would they that lead creative thinking. One of David Robson’s examples is asking questions such as ‘Would the First World War have occurred, had Franz Ferdinand never been shot?’, and ‘What would the world look like, if Germany had won the Second World War?’ These are the conversations and thought processes that are vital to be encouraged to adopt or foster complex, creative thinking.
What should I teach my homeschool children
For us to raise ethically thinking, empathetic children, we must be willing to use a conversational, active approach. Time consuming questions and noisier discussions must take precedence over fact driven learning. Inventive thinking, not just to in creative writing but also in other subjects, will allow a deeper understanding of the information and a wider context. Supporting children in problem solving, socially and organisationally, equips them for taking initiative. And supporting negotiation skills requires extended play times. Outdoor play helps children feel empowered, even invincible. That’s not a cause of fear or loss of control – we want capable and confident children.
We must not assume for them intellectual prowess as a priority. In the case of Sara Ann, it is highly possible that given the freedom to explore her options, despite her unbelievably high IQ, she may not have wished for the expectation academic success. Likewise, we must not assume our children find their self worth in their academic achievements. Increasingly, occupations are requiring employees to think creatively and to be able to work in harmony alongside one another. New advances in technology mean we should be thinking ethically all the more, and asking moral questions.
Schools must stand up and take on their role as pillars in community, adopting a clear moral ethos, establishing boundaries, and encouraging questions and embracing creativity, and facilitating outdoor play.
But for us homeschoolers, ‘what should I teach my homeschool children?’ Certainly, having the courage to step outside the rat race approach and bolster my children with creative, initiative based learning opportunities, I will trust the theory that analytical skills (fact learning, maths and English) will follow suit.
Here is an interesting blog on teaching physics to her homeschoolers through discussion, experiments and problem solving. The blogger also notes her own difficulty understanding the subject, despite having achieved an A in GCSE, in her words ‘due to the education system’. https://fiveescapetheclassroom.wordpress.com/2020/11/07/a-view-into-our-homeschool-days-physics-lessons-part-1/
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