Power Struggles vs Agency

This post is part of my thoughts on educating the kids

Whenever I talk to someone who is having a hard time getting their child to learn something, I've noticed that it's usually because they are involved in some type of power struggle.  Kids do need to learn obedience.  It's hard to know when to let kids exercise their agency and learn from their mistakes, or when it's better to teach them to be obedient.

How do we know when to insist on obedience and when to let them practice making choices in their education?

I've chosen to let the kids practice obedience when it comes to chores and family work.  I have decided to let them make their own choices when it comes to their education.

Why in the world would I do such a thing on something as important as their education?!?

Because I want them to love learning.  Because I want them to develop a passion about the things they learn.  Because I want them to take responsibility for their education.  Not to mention,  it is a power struggle I CAN NOT WIN.

Sure, I can make them memorize certain dates and names.  I can make them practice their arithmetic.  I can make them memorize vocabulary words and practice penmanship.  But is that an education?

When I first heard Oliver DeMille (author of A Thomas Jefferson Education) say that our current educational system is based on a myth - namely that a person can educate another person - I wasn't sure if he was right (about it being a myth).  Why can't someone force someone else to learn something?  Isn't that what tests and grades are for?

Then I thought about my own experience.  I got good grades through most of school (except for a couple of years when I decided I didn't care)  so why didn't I remember anything?   The only things I recall are the things I was interested in and wanted to learn about.  Unfortunately, I wasn't interested in a whole lot of things.  I liked rocks and plants so I still remember some of those names.  I recall zero history from high school (even though I love it now), I remember some math that I found interesting, but for the higher level math - I mostly just learned to plug in numbers to get a result - I had no idea why I was doing it - I didn't care to understand it at all.  I absolutely had the education I had chosen - regardless of what the teachers taught.  I was just good at taking tests.

If you're having a hard time believing that you can't force your kids to learn something - think back to your own education.  Do you really remember anything that you were not interested in knowing?  Do you remember the answers to all those tests you took?  I sure don't.  I realized Oliver DeMille was right (at least in my case).  My kids are going to get the education that they choose.  There is no point in having a power struggle that I am going to loose.

So how do I get my kids to learn anything if I don't require it?

Another interesting thing about my education was that  the subjects I remember caring to learn something about were the ones in which a teacher was very inspiring.  In other words, I don't think I had an inherent love for rocks and plants, but those teachers found them fascinating.  Their excitement rubbed off on me and I wanted to learn all about rocks and plants.

The mediocre teacher tells.

The good teacher explains.

The superior teacher demonstrates.

The great teacher inspires.

          --William A. Ward

When I first read about the leadership education principle: Inspire Not Require, I thought (as most people do at first), "Okay, I'll be inspirational, but I will still require a, b and c."

It turned out that those things which I required where the ones that the kids were most resistant to.  Spice would sometimes cry when it was time to do math.  I wasn't sure what the big deal was.  I knew she could get it.  She is a smart girl.  I just thought she was being lazy.  Then one day I heard her tell someone that she hated math.  I wondered if I was taking the wrong approach.

Later, I went to yet another Thomas Jefferson Education seminar.  Again, I heard the principle, and again I knew it was true.  I decided I would really give it a shot.  I would not force my kids to learn.  Instead, I would inspire them.

Doing this is not so easy, but it is a LOT of fun.  I've heard Oliver DeMille emphazise that it's NOT Ignore don't require - it's Inspire Not Require.  The Leadership Education book has some great insights about how to do this.  I'm just a novice and I have a whole lot to learn, but in the short time that I've been doing this (or trying), I have seen some great things happening.

Here is one example:

I had tried all sorts of different ways to get Spice to practice piano.  I tried bribing her with suckers if she passed off a lesson.  I tried a sticker charts with prizes.  None of these things were good enough motivators.  She resisted my efforts to make her practice.  I even tried telling her that it was her talent and her responsibility, but I didn't mean it.  If she went back to not practicing, I would try a different tactic.

Finally, one day, I decided that it really was okay if she never learned to play the piano.   There are many great, talented people out there that don't play music.  I told her this, and she could see that I really meant it (I did).  She told me that she wouldn't practice it anymore.  The next day, she practiced for two hours!  She decided that she wanted to learn.  I guess she realized that no one else was going to make sure she learned and the thought of never getting good at it was enough to motivate her to try.

When a child decides that they want to learn something - they not only learn it, but they learn it quickly.  Why do we spend so much time teaching a child basic arithmetic?  When they decide to learn it - it goes so fast!  I've seen this with my kids.  Bud hasn't done a math worksheet in months (although, I should mention that Spice has - with no promptings from me).  Today he was playing with a calculator and talking to me about negative numbers.  I asked him to subtract 9 from 7.  He immediately responded, "Negative two".  I asked a few more questions and he understood the concept very well.  I'm sure this would have taken me quite a while to explain if he wasn't ready to hear about it.  We use math all the time in our daily lives (I also get a lot of math books disguised as stories from the library) so the concepts come quickly as they see them.

I don't require the kids to learn certain things in a certain time frame.  I do talk to the kids about their goals and counsel them on what they need to do to achieve them and then I work hard to inspire them.

I really think that everyone comes to a point in their life when they realize that their future is in their hands.  No one else can take responsibility for it.  I think my kids are starting to understand that.  Sometimes they don't choose what I want them to choose for their school day.  It takes a great deal of effort for me to let them.  When this happens, I ask myself why I want them to study that particular thing.  If I have a good reason (sometimes I don't), I do all I can to inspire them to want to learn it (I'll go more into this when I talk about Table Time).  We've had some great experiences so far.  I'll try to share some on my blog as we go along.

"If the purpose is to train leaders, it’s important not to force the young person through their learning experiences. Force in learning kills the spirit, dampens the passion and destroys the zest and life of learning. Force trains followers, not leaders. …Inspiring, in contrast to ignoring and forcing, means finding out what the students need and then creatively encouraging them to engage it on their own—with excitement and interest." -Oliver DeMille