Guidance VS. Sit Down And Do What You're Told

There's a balance between giving children guidance and telling them, “sit down and do what you're told,” and the schools have definitely shifted into this control thing about it. I see why out of necessity in some ways, but in other ways, it's just not working at all. 

The teachers also are in this, “you have to do what you're told” dynamic. So, they don't really have much choice in what they're teaching children right now.

(Kristy) When I was teaching, I always hated having to tell the kids to be quiet. What I really wanted to do was say, “Hey, you guys, I wanna hear what you have to say. I wanna hear what you think”. And when I was working with little ones, that was easier for them, but by about third grade, they were so programmed that they weren't allowed to do that, that there was a fear. They couldn't comprehend what I was saying.

(Alysia) I see that in my kids. They're starting to release that fear now that we've been homeschooling for a while, but in the beginning, I remember I wanted them to be so explorative and they didn't want anything to do with that.

(Kristy) Every adult in the world remembers those teachers in school, the ones we hated. I had one. I was in fourth grade and I broke my foot, so I was on crutches and she called on me and made me come up and stand in front of the room to recite something. A kid sitting in front of me as I'm gimping up the aisle, tripped me and made me fall down. And the teacher screamed at me. 

(Alysia) I wonder why that is. You know, I had an experience too when I was in third grade. I was a child that didn't talk at school until, I think it was sixth grade. It was my sixth grade teacher who finally got me to open up and start speaking at school. But before that, I would not say a word at school. I would whisper in my friend's ear so she could speak for me. Anyway, my third grade teacher, what she did to me to try to get me to talk, to be the one that finally broke me open, is she would sit me down in the back of the room with another student beside me and make me answer questions.

She forced me to talk and she did it in a way that was very frightening to me. I didn't enjoy that at all and it didn't work, because I still didn't talk for three more years. 

(Kristy) Luckily those teachers are few and far between. Most teachers are really do have a heart for teaching. What worked for me was when I just said, “I'm not doing the rules anymore. I'm doing it the way my heart is telling me that I need to connect with these kids."

Ultimately, teaching is an act of connection.

Connection where we really get into ideas. That's what teaching really is. 

I had a seven-eight combo class, and I was supposed to teach argumentative writing. That's where you pick a side of an issue and make an argument for that side. I thought, “I'm never gonna get these kids to do that.” So what I did instead is I said, "You guys, we’re gonna learn argumentative writing, but we're not gonna write.” That immediately got their attention.

What we started with was debate. We had debates like chocolate versus vanilla, or coffee versus tea, or swimming in a pool versus swimming in the ocean. The kids who didn't want to talk, I didn't force them to stand up. They were paired off and they did debates with each other.

It was very non-threatening. And then we evolved into making notes before the debate, and then we evolved into taking those notes and working them into some writing and they loved it. Now, these are middle schoolers. Everyone knows, they go around to the dark side of the moon and you don't see them again until they get about to be about 16 years old.

That was generally the idea was that they express themselves in an innovative way. By doing that, it allows their minds to make the connections you want them to.

That’s the beauty of homeschool. We can do these out-of-the-box things where the kids just take off. They start making connections and getting interested.

(Alysia) I’ve been experiencing that. Our transition, now that we're further into it—I say transition because my kids were in traditional school setting for many years and now we're homeschooling—it’s started to open them up. It took a little time, but they are starting to open up now and feel safe to express what they want to express in a way that they want to express it.

(Kristy) That’s a really important thing. It's really time to say, “No more." We're not going to fight the system anymore. We're going to do something new and we're going to do it for our children so that they don't have to grow up hating school and feeling like they're a failure if they can't do it the way the school expects them to do it. 

(Aysia) Shifting into guidance versus doing what you're told into the parenting lifestyle, I've always been a pretty laid back mom since they've been born. I've allowed them to explore what they want and how they want to explore it. I learned at an early age—I grew up an only child, so I didn't grow up with little kid around me—that I didn't like experiencing resistance in them. 

A lot of parents disagree. Their dad disagreed with me a lot on it because I let them do what they wanted to do as long as they weren't harming myself or anybody else, or being disrespectful, or anything like that.

This became even more necessary for me as we began homeschooling because we all had our way of adjusting to it. I had to let them go through how they needed to go through it. One of us was angry, another one was excited, another was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, and we went through it each in our own way, and I let them be. Sometimes it got a little ugly, but you know, it was the three of us here in the house and I knew that I wasn't taking anything personally. 

So, I let some of the explosions happen. It actually worked out for the better because everything that needed to be released was able to be released in a safe place. That, for me, was more worth it than trying to step in and control anything or tell them how they should be responding to this transition.

(Kristy ) One of the beauties of Barefoot Learning Club is when we start them little, like preschool, we're going to start teaching kids how to read at age four and they're not ever going to have that experience. Their whole experience is going be excitement and learning and discovery.

(Alysia) I’ve found that if I just give gentle nudges to my children, in the homeschool setting, it just works better for us. I also notice that if I just don't bring it up at all, whatever this thing I'm viewing as a problem is, and instead work within myself and my own energy around it, I shift my energy into it's all going to be okay instead of worrying about it, it actually just dissolves itself.