Learning With the Child
I don't know whether it was desperation or confidence, but I always tell myself that if I do not have a background in a particular subject, I can still teach and learn along with my child. This has led to many new experiences like learning about animals we see in our neighbourhood and the local plants, which I would not have bothered with before.
It was refreshing and mind-opening and learning together meant, we spoke to each other as equals searching for answers to what we were clueless about. I shed my authoritarian more-knowledgeable-than-thou adult to child structure, and this was something I have always wanted for my homeschool.
Unlike the traditional 'banking' concept of education, Freire imagined learning to be a mutual dialogue between the student and the teacher where "no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught." instead we "teach each other, mediated by the world (and)... cognizable objects."
There are many benefits to this dialogical method of learning. For one, students shift from passive to active learners, who are involved in the unravelling of the knowledge together with the teacher. This is of course possible even if teachers are the experts in their field. The teacher can gain new perspectives while the students start to look at the topic with more critical eyes.
However, as the children grew older and national or qualifying exams loomed in the background, and as I had more children, it soon became a struggle. I was dividing my attention between the children and I had to quickly understand concepts or the children will not be ready in time for the exams which had to be taken by the sixth year of primary school. Society makes demands on how fast we should finish our education, so the working class can be replenished in time.
It was still manageable then, but as my children reached secondary levels, I raised my hands and told myself I could not do it, and found them tutors. I still teach them what I am familiar with, but not computer science or physics. God, I may take a decade to be conversant in those.
I was reminded of this reality recently at a parents-administration meeting for a revamp of my children's madrasah. The principal spoke about the importance of having teachers who are conversant in the language medium used for teaching. If the teacher is not capable of expressing the lesson in the language the child understands, the lesson will not be smooth and the idea will not be communicated well. There's a breakdown in transmission from the teacher herself. We can hardly expect the child to get the message.
A child coming from a vocabulary-rich home is more likely to adapt to 'school language' because words have been used in many ways and layers in his environment. If he is always read to, for example, he knows that sometimes you can be 'scared' of the dark or 'bewildered' by the shutter that opens and closes by itself in the still of the night or that the sound of your teacher shouting can 'shudder' you and he can comfortably rephrase these to someone in a manner he is most likely to understand.
Me learning along with my child as things advance, is like me trying to explain Tennyson with a vocabulary of a 5-year old. I will not only be handicapped by what little symbols I can hold on to, I will also lack the connections to form concepts and reproduce it into new groups of symbols decipherable by the person I am trying to communicate with. It is not impossible but it will be more time-consuming. On that note, however, if there is really no one else to educate your child, it is far better that you struggle together.
While I always want to transcend my resistance to the study of certain subjects, I recognise that I am limited in the language of that subject for various reasons and my content knowledge is limited, thus I would not have done as good a job as another teacher who has studied and taught it for years. Yes, I can facilitate and supplement with physical and digital resources, but to have a knowledgeable teacher is sometimes irreplaceable.Yes, I am still learning with my children, but I am also okay with them learning from someone else or in a school.
It was refreshing and mind-opening and learning together meant, we spoke to each other as equals searching for answers to what we were clueless about. I shed my authoritarian more-knowledgeable-than-thou adult to child structure, and this was something I have always wanted for my homeschool.
Unlike the traditional 'banking' concept of education, Freire imagined learning to be a mutual dialogue between the student and the teacher where "no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught." instead we "teach each other, mediated by the world (and)... cognizable objects."
There are many benefits to this dialogical method of learning. For one, students shift from passive to active learners, who are involved in the unravelling of the knowledge together with the teacher. This is of course possible even if teachers are the experts in their field. The teacher can gain new perspectives while the students start to look at the topic with more critical eyes.
However, as the children grew older and national or qualifying exams loomed in the background, and as I had more children, it soon became a struggle. I was dividing my attention between the children and I had to quickly understand concepts or the children will not be ready in time for the exams which had to be taken by the sixth year of primary school. Society makes demands on how fast we should finish our education, so the working class can be replenished in time.
It was still manageable then, but as my children reached secondary levels, I raised my hands and told myself I could not do it, and found them tutors. I still teach them what I am familiar with, but not computer science or physics. God, I may take a decade to be conversant in those.
I was reminded of this reality recently at a parents-administration meeting for a revamp of my children's madrasah. The principal spoke about the importance of having teachers who are conversant in the language medium used for teaching. If the teacher is not capable of expressing the lesson in the language the child understands, the lesson will not be smooth and the idea will not be communicated well. There's a breakdown in transmission from the teacher herself. We can hardly expect the child to get the message.
A child coming from a vocabulary-rich home is more likely to adapt to 'school language' because words have been used in many ways and layers in his environment. If he is always read to, for example, he knows that sometimes you can be 'scared' of the dark or 'bewildered' by the shutter that opens and closes by itself in the still of the night or that the sound of your teacher shouting can 'shudder' you and he can comfortably rephrase these to someone in a manner he is most likely to understand.
Me learning along with my child as things advance, is like me trying to explain Tennyson with a vocabulary of a 5-year old. I will not only be handicapped by what little symbols I can hold on to, I will also lack the connections to form concepts and reproduce it into new groups of symbols decipherable by the person I am trying to communicate with. It is not impossible but it will be more time-consuming. On that note, however, if there is really no one else to educate your child, it is far better that you struggle together.
While I always want to transcend my resistance to the study of certain subjects, I recognise that I am limited in the language of that subject for various reasons and my content knowledge is limited, thus I would not have done as good a job as another teacher who has studied and taught it for years. Yes, I can facilitate and supplement with physical and digital resources, but to have a knowledgeable teacher is sometimes irreplaceable.Yes, I am still learning with my children, but I am also okay with them learning from someone else or in a school.