The questions of what to teach our children and what methods to use are perhaps some of the biggest questions we are facing in today’s world. There is a lot of talk about how the public school system has failed the children. Some would even say schools are little more than indoctrination centers at this point. There is also the huge growth in the number of families who are choosing to homeschool their children for a variety of reasons and within that group are hundreds of Moms redefining their own ideas of what is education and how it should be taught.
In the Ringing Cedars of Russia book series, the wise forest dweller, Anastasia is asked by the city-dwelling father of her child, Vladimir, how should one educate children. Anastasia replies with a demonstration. In book 7, in a chapter aptly named “Training Thought” Anastasia is playing tag with a pet wolf.* The wolf is unable to catch her.
When her son, aged somewhere between six and eight years old takes on the game, he always gets tagged by the wolf. His mom tells him he has to visualize his moves in advance and anticipate the moves of the wolf before engaging. When he employs this strategy, the wolf is outsmarted every time and unable to tag him. Her son is delighted to have figured out how to out maneuver the wolf by being unpredictable and declares the wolf will never catch him again.
In another part of the series, Vladimir, throws up his hands in frustration and says, “That is not an education method. That is anti-schooling!” Vladimir unknowingly touched upon a subset of the homeschool world with his phrasing.
There is a style of homeschooling called “unschooling.” This is a method that is completely child led and the parent aids the child in whatever projects they are working on, or leaves materials lying around that may be of interest to the child. When the child is ready to move on, they do so on their own terms. There are no pre-determined lesson plans, workbook pages, quizzes, or projects. It is completely child-led. The parent is strictly supporting the learning journey and not initiating it.
Anastasia takes unschooling to another place entirely by introducing the Socratic method into it. The child presents a point of view backed with evidence according to their understanding, and she asks questions to clarify the idea or encourage the child’s thought process to evolve the idea into something that may make more sense in the moment. Ideas are probably visited again and again and new understandings emerge, but at no time does she draw a conclusion for her child or say that these are the facts that someone else came up with. There is a strong emphasis on the child coming to those conclusions on their own.
While plenty of discussions occur within the unschooling framework, the strategy of question and answer is not used in such an intentional way. That may be because unschoolers are still finding their way and relying mostly on instinct to guide their learning journeys. Unschooling is relatively new and barely charted territory in the world of home education.
Anastasia, however, has direct experience with her way of educating because she was also educated in a similar fashion by her grandparents who were employing ancient strategies of education. These old ways literally trained a person on how to think not just what to think about. Anastasia says that this way of teaching has the ability to “accelerate one’s thought process.” So while parents are instinctively feeling that there is a dumbing down or slowing down process happening in brick and mortar schools, Anastasia is offering ways to speed up thought.
The speeding up of thought is accomplished not just by words, but through diet, lifestyle, emotional connections, and establishing certain foundational beliefs. These are the core principals of the entire Ringing Cedars series which is well worth reading, but right now let’s keep focused on methods of teaching.
In taking responsibility for their child’s education, parents find that they have to unlearn so much of what they were taught growing up. Eventually, parents realize they have to make choices about what to teach and what not to teach. It’s impossible and unnecessary to teach everything. Even basic ideas about what is important are being reformed, redefined, and challenged, making our current era one of the most interesting times to live in.
There is room for new methods of teaching and rediscovering old effective methods for educating the next generation. If parents can make the mental shift to allow children to explore without hampering their thought process, children will learn all they need to be successful. This is the monumental task before us: to undo the dumbing down of generations and utilize methods what will speed up our thinking. It can be argued that the bright future of humanity depends on it.
* The wolf is actually a wild wolf, but it regards Anastasia as a friend.
** This blog is not affiliated with the author or any organization having to do with the Ringing Cedars of Russia.
