By Tammy
John Gray writes in the introduction to his book How to Get What you Want, and Want What You Have:
“Personal success is the middle ground, the place from which you get what you want and continue to want what you have. Personal success is not measured by who you are, how much you possess, or what you have accomplished. Instead, personal success is measured by how good you feel about who you are, what you have done and what you have.”
This, to me, is the essence of education. Teaching people to be happy with who they are and what they have, while at the same time giving them tools to achieve their goals. This gives them everything they need to be a success. Our homeschooling lives revolve around these two concepts: Accepting ourselves right now, and knowing that we have the power to get what we want.
A friend of mine, Michelle Barone, a respected family counselor and homeschooling mother, has told me time and again that when kids are teenagers and adults, it’s much easier to patch up holes in their education. What’s really difficult, is when they have to patch up holes in their confidence, relationships and self-love. Fixing our ignorance in math or history is easy. Fixing our psyches is a monumental task.
My primary role as a teacher is not to teach my children math or science, although that does come into play. My role as a teacher is to teach my kids how to get what they want. My role is also to give them the OK to be who they are today. They may not know how to multiply. That’s OK. They aren’t interested in writing. That’s OK. They have a keen interest in video games. That’s OK. No matter who they are, they are OK.
For example, reading. One time, my five year old daughter wanted to do a puzzle book. I couldn’t help her because I was in the middle of doing dishes. I asked her if she could read what it said. She said, “I can’t.” I told her, “OK. When I’m done with the dishes, I’ll help you read it.” She took her book and stomped to the other room. After I finished the dishes, I went to see if she still needed my help. “With what?” she said. I looked at her puzzle book and she had done five pages without me. Somehow, she managed to read enough of the instructions to get done what she needed to do. She wanted to do the puzzle so she figured out how to get what she wanted without help when it wasn’t immediately forthcoming. I don't need her to "be able to read." She needs to be able to read to get what she wants. And so she does.
People learn and do difficult tasks when they have the confidence that their efforts will achieve their goals, and they have a strong desire to meet those goals. Kids who resist hard work are not lazy kids. They are lacking either motivation or confidence. Who wants to do a difficult task just because someone else says they have to? How often do successful people do what's asked of them without a personal reason to do so? Who wants to do a difficult task if we have low confidence in our own success or worth? Working hard for someone else’s goals doesn’t teach children how to persevere, it teaches them to acquiesce. To acquiesce, is to give up who we are to please someone else’s desires.
What I realized, is that I don’t need to purposefully put them through hardship in order to teach them how to work hard. They make themselves work hard on their own, without my cajoling; they work hard to get what they want. It is by this kind of hardship that they learn to better themselves. They are learning to say, “I know what I want, and I’m going to get it, no matter what it takes.”
But the key here is, that in order for difficult tasks to give kids a real sense of empowerment, is that kids have to also be OK with who they currently are. If they are faced with difficult situations in order to get what they want, and they happen to fail, if they don’t have a strong sense of self, they will be far less likely to be willing to endure difficult tasks in the future. In order to get through adversity, our children not only need to have a strong desire to get what they want, but a strong sense of self. I believe kids are born with both of these things. I can’t give either of these things to our kids. I can, sadly, take them away.
The neat thing about this natural tendency for my kids to try and get what they want, they also naturally teach themselves self-love and confidence. They learn how to get what they want by trial and error. They are learning that if they keep trying, odds are they are going to get at least some of what they want, and if they fail, they are just fine, because they can always try again later. And not only do they learn to get what they want, but to identify what they want in the first place. To be able to identify their own wants is another way to say that they know themselves, and they accept themselves enough that they can stand up confidently when faced with a challenging goal.
When I say, “get what they want”, I’m not referring to our children having everything handed to them the minute they say “please”. That’s not getting what they want. That’s being wasteful. That’s like trying to fill a bottomless bucket. Nor am I saying that we stand back to watch them struggle when we could offer our help. Getting what they want has more to do with satisfying emotional and physical needs than anything else. When a person's emotional and physical needs are met, then they don’t want anything. So, teaching our kids to get what they want, is another way of saying that we are teaching them to meet their needs. I respond to them when they need help. But I allow them to decide when they have an emotional need that is ready for filling. I allow them to decide when they need to learn more. Attempting to make them learn more when they don't need it, is like pouring milk into an already filled glass.
Because I feel that being empowered and self-accepting are two of the most important parts of personal success, I don’t ask our children to perform for my assessment. I don’t implore them to learn. I don’t give them the sense that in order to be a “smart kid”, they have to please me by producing proof that they are getting smarter. I know they are getting smarter. I know that they are learning and that they will continue to do so. I make this clear by how I share information with them. They have a confidence that no matter what they know or don’t know, they are just fine the way they are. And that if they want something, they should try and get it, and see what happens, and somebody will be right there to help them out (and if they aren't, they find someone who will.)
Education in our home has zero focus on what people know. We appreciate each other’s unique knowledge and perspective, and we talk about all kinds of things. And we chuckle when our kids come out with something so curious, we wonder where they learned it from. But when someone doesn’t know something (i.e. their times tables or their state capitals), it’s not a matter for concern. We know our children are learning how to obtain knowledge. And if they ever came to need to know the times tables, or the state capitals or any other thing, they would not hesitate to take the initiative to get the knowledge they need. I know this, because I see it happen, all day, everyday.
Our children experience daily practice in making goals, working on their projects, then achieving their goals. In most cases their goal achieving process is not explicit. But I watch them. And every day they do the same thing over and over – work on getting what they want. When they go to bed at night, they love who they are. And we love who they are too, even if they haven’t learned even one new thing that day (although I highly doubt that’s ever happened.)
When our children are adults and off on their own, living their own lives away from our nest, if all they have are the ability to get what they want and self-acceptance, then we have succeeded as parents and teachers. What they know means little if they aren’t empowered with self-appreciation and confidence that they can do what they need to succeed. If they know nothing academic (which is practically impossible), and go into the world with nothing but a lifetime of experience in meeting their own goals, they are set for life. Then there's not much else they need for success.
Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children (10, 7 and 4) and supportive husband in California. She is the author of Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling. She also serves as the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine, a bi-monthly publication for the Homeschool Association of California. You can read more from her about education and homeschooling on her website. And you can email her at tammy.takahashi @ gmail(dot)com.
Wonderful post, Tammy. ITA - Give them a solid, confident, loving foundation and kids can always learn to fill in any gaps that may occur while we are out living life!
Posted by: Kris | May 15, 2006 at 01:24 PM