Well, what do you know!

Some years ago I began a project to create a learning center here in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. There was not enough support from families at that time and I shelved the project.

About six weeks ago, I received word of a group of parents who are now actively working to create a learning center, such as I envisioned! I have joined this group. It feels good to join a group of parents who are dedicated to providing an alternative for their children. I will keep you posted as I have the time to do so and as the project develops.

Currently, we have about twelve children enrolled. That is not enough to make the Center a viable space financially. Also, we are looking for a property suitable for the creation of the Center.

I have attended several planning meetings and an information presentation to the larger community. We received good press coverage at this latter event, which is wonderful.

More to come, I hope!

Post Script

There just is not enough interest from the parents and children in the community to sustain my interest in this project.

Perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that this idea was one that would benefit people, or perhaps it is simply that it is not I who should implement this idea.

Melanie Whitham is working now in this community to establish a group project for home schooling families that will greatly benefit the children. So, I leave it to her to do this and have offered her my full support for her endeavour.

I have learned and grown through this project and I do not at all regret the experience or the time and effort that I gave to it.

Another Step Forward

I did something totally unrelated to this project. I reached out offer support to a person in my community who is working to establish a 'gifting ecomony' system in our area. I wanted also to help someone in need in my community and asked this person for help with that project. By doing this, I created an opportunity for myself to meet a homeschooling father of two young children.

This person is interested in my vision of a Center for Independent Learning. He would like to gather other interested people in the area for a sort of 'information evening' event during which I will present my ideas, vision and the possibility of a way forward that supports parents in the area who want something more for their children than is currently offered in the local public school.

I could not have asked for a more perfect venue to present myself to the parents in the area who might be looking for what I have to offer. And the idea was his, which feels perfect to me.

This is a crucial step in the process. Such an undertaking will determine the level of interest and support for a Center for Independent Learning in Sutton village.

I have already reached out to my contact in Knowlton and she is very interested in attending such an event. So, we shall see what transpires!

If this project is relevant and of value to the people in this area, its time will come. It is through an event such as the one proposed by this homeschooling father that we will make a big step forward in realizing the viability of this project.

Imagine...

Imagine that you want to get somewhere, but you are absolutely convinced that you cannot. You believe that you are limited and unable. You believe that you have deficiencies and that no matter how you try, you can’t succeed.

Fear of not being able is very real for most of us. Many learn to fear failure and judgment at a very young age. Imagine you are a child in school being graded and compared to others every day. You are learning new things, practicing new skills, and you feel that you are always short of the expectations of your teachers and parents. As you experience this day after day, the fear that you cannot succeed grows. 

This is the way that many children experience  learning at school. How can we expect these children to reach their full potential?

Successful learners confidently try new things, learn easily from their mistakes and are happily curious about the world. Children who struggle in school often become adults who struggle in life. Before they adopt attitudes of successful and joyful learning, they need to face the very real and powerful fear of failure and of not being able to learn or to live successfully in the world.

Most adults have a really hard time facing fear. They don’t know how to face fear and they don’t want to have to do it. However, both children and adults can do this, and when we face our fears, we are made free in a profound and transformative way. Facing our fears is actually very simple, for the key is courage and courage comes from the heart.

Breathe deeply into your heart as you intend to face your fear. Take another deep breath and look within yourself at that fear. Don’t look away. Don’t distract yourself. Breathe slowly and deeply as you imagine the worst that you could experience, the worst outcome, the most complete failure. What you will find is that it is bearable. If it happened, you would bear it, you would continue, you would go on from there. The fear becomes smaller; it becomes no bigger than you are. You come to realize that if you can face the fear once, you can face it over and over again. In fact, each time you face it, it becomes smaller and you become stronger and the whole dilemma shifts and becomes easier for you.

Then, whether you are a child or an adult, you are ready to make a choice about yourself and your life. You do this with a new inner strength because you have already faced your fear. You decide whether you will take on challenges that have the possibility of failure, or whether you will stay in your ‘comfort zone.’ There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these choices and it’s up to you which way you go.

If you decide to take on challenges, you have to do it with all of your will and your heart. You can’t just do the minimum as you grumble and groan and expect to succeed against the odds at something that you’ve always found really difficult.

So, that is where perseverance comes in. You have to set a goal or two and formulate a strategy. Then plan your time and your efforts and also look for support. Then, when you go for it, keep on until you get to where you have chosen to go. That’s the approach that will have the people around you saying, “Wow! You’ve accomplished so much!”

But impressing others is not why you should face your fear and persevere. You should do this so that you will know in your heart that you can. For then you will always have that knowing; no one will ever take it away from you, for perseverance leads to self-empowerment.

www.teachkids2learn.wordpress.com

More about working with Lu Emanuel at www.beautifultangle.wordpress.com   

(This is my latest article published in Sutton's community newspaper Le Tour. I am publishing it here as well because those who live elsewhere might enjoy reading it, and might find it helpful. Le Tour's editor and publisher, Denis Boulanger, chooses one word as the theme for each issue of Le Tour. The newspaper has a new edition for each season of the year, for a total of four editions each year. The theme for this Spring, 2014 edition of the newspaper was 'perseverance.' )

Ideas to Share

Here are some TED Talks videos which address the issue of teaching children what they truly need to know, or teaching through projects, learning through projects.... changing the paradigm....


This first one is speaking of what I truly believe about most children and their experience of school.

Why Kids Hate School:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvg2zBYWtU

This one gives a scientific basis for the idea that children can and do create their own learning and organize their own becoming.  

The Self-Organizing Child:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fg73WnLWQ

 

This one gives some good examples of media literacy and teaching children how to navigate the 'real world' of mediated messages with which we are all constantly bombarded.

Teaching for Freedom:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t4uSi1OwQ0


This one gives a great example of self-directed learning, of family-project learning and of following your passion and your interests.

Project  Learning for Life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Enjoy these and please feel free to email me with your own suggestions or to share them in the comments section of this blog.

I'm Re-Energized / Inspired

I read an article in The Atlantic January/February 2014 issue titled “How to Escape the Community-College Trap” and as I thoroughly enjoy reading anything having to do with any level of education, I dove in with great enthusiasm. Sure enough, I was not disappointed. The hook at the beginning of the article let me know what to expect, “Almost half of all U.S. undergraduates are enrolled in community college. Yet most of them will never earn a degree - and hardly any will do so quickly. Here’s how to fix that.”

For community college, those of us who live in Quebec, Canada can substitute the phrase CEGEP. It is not that I know for a fact that our CEGEP’s are not meeting the needs of our young adults, rather that I am fairly certain that our young adults are generally poorly equipped to do well at CEGEP and to take best advantage of their CEGEP experience.

The article examined the needs of the vast majority of post secondary students, that is, students going on to train and learn for a career after high school, and found that in many cases these students don’t have what it takes to truly succeed: “ …students, especially the least prepared ones, don’t just need to learn math or science; they need to learn how to navigate academic and institutional challenges more broadly, and how to plot a course - daily, weekly, monthly - toward long-term success.”

 This is exactly what my program of independent learning seeks to give children. Teach children how to learn independently. Teach children how to set goals, choose a path to reach a goal and then assess progress. Teach children to ask questions and find answers. Teach children how to self-advocate. Teach children how to motivate themselves.

Over and over again I read of the need for self-motivation on the part of our young adults. This can best be taught when they are about 10 years old and then further developed through their adolescent and young adult years.

I am both heartened and energized by the message of this article in The Atlantic. I am heartened because I feel that my sense of the needs of our young people is corroborated by the opinions and findings from fact based studies presented in the article. This tells me that I am on the right track in proposing that our children learn how to learn independently and how to set goals and meet them. I think that these are key skills for all of us to acquire and practice. So, then I feel energized to make this happen for the children who live near me. I’d like to at least be able to offer this approach as an alternative for these children.

Not so long ago, I was talking to a parent of a child preparing to finish high school and go on to CEGEP. For many of the young people in Sutton and environs, that means being away from the guidance and support of parents as well. It is doubly important for these youngsters that they be prepared. This parent was very anxious that her child was perhaps less than well prepared for the CEGEP experience. I’m sure that many parents worry about how their children will fare in the post high school world. This is exactly the kind of concern that my approach seeks to provide answers for.

I’ve seen articles about learning online, about working from home and now about community college students and what all of these articles have in common is a concern that young adults don’t have the skills that they need to be self-motivated, self-directed, self-assessing and so on. These are skills that our school system does not build in students. Quite the contrary, actually. The classroom experience teaches and reinforces the message that teachers know and kids don’t and that kids need to follow the guidance of teachers so that they can eventually know. Kids need to be good at following direction and should not ‘think for themselves.’ This isn’t a stated goal of classroom teachers, but it is a message that children receive on a daily basis. “Do as you are told. Listen well and follow directions. Conform and don’t think outside the box.” Is this what we want to be teaching children?

I worked with a student in grade 8 who didn’t want to do any extra math work, even though she was failing math and really needed the remedial work, because “that’s not what my teacher told me to do.” I would love to work with children of all ages to help them to understand that they are responsible for their learning and that the teacher can be seen as a support person rather than as the one who decides what you will learn and when and how….

I can see, in my imagination, a child of about fourteen or fifteen years of age, choosing to learn about, for example, forestry or project management, to fulfill his own interest and his own career ideas and ambitions. Imagine this child with the skills and confidence to go ahead with a project to learn about project management. He might research the topic online. He might find a number of resources, including a book or two on the subject. He might also interview a person who has organized a large project. The Brome County Fair comes to mind. This is a very big event that requires a great deal of planning. The annual Eco-Sphere Fair is another big event that someone is planning and managing every year. And that someone probably has a great deal to teach someone who knows how to ask good questions.

Now, multiply this one wonderfully self-motivated child, by twenty, and they begin to inform and enthuse their peers. “Wow. You did that? Maybe I can learn about what I really want to know about. I want to know about dogs and breeding and caring for dogs and veterinary care. Maybe I can learn about that!”

Imagine that these adolescent boys and girls know what they love and know how to find out about what they love. They are not bored. They are not alienated, nor do they feel powerless. They are engaged in the creation of a life that will enthuse and fascinate them and ultimately a life that will fill them with joy.

This is what I have in mind.

It’s not just that they don’t flunk out of CEGEP or community college. It’s not just that they are able to do well in high school. It is much more than that. It is that they are empowered to live the life of their dreams. They learn the value of learning, and at the same time, they learn how to learn. This is life-long empowerment.

 

The Joy of Connecting

On Saturday, I met with a parent and her young son.

We discussed the child's experiences in school and the potential benefits to the child of an alternative educational setting. We discussed home schooling and some of the different ways of looking at how children learn.

There is a whole world of learning that children are actually constantly engaged with. As educators and parents, we can help children to see the learning inherent in all of the different activities in which they engage and the various experiences that they encounter as they explore the world.

The word 'educate' in its root form means to bring forth or draw out. As educators, we help children to bring forth the new understandings, insights and realizations that they create for themselves as they live their lives.

The conversation that I enjoyed on Saturday ended with both the mother and me feeling some excitement about the possibility of creating a Center for Independent Learning in Sutton. I was absolutely thrilled to find an ally in this project. She knows other parents in the area and one family that is home schooling their children. I do not have these connections except through her and so above and beyond the sharing of a passion and an interest in this project, she brings valuable information to the table.

This part of the process is essential. It cannot be missed and it cannot be rushed. The creation of a learning center or alternative school for local children depends on the support of local parents.

I met this woman because she was referred to me by another woman whom I had spoken to about this project and about teaching children how to learn. I met that woman because she is a neighbour and graciously invited me to her home. The point here is that every contact is potentially a great contact. Every single community contact that you can make, you should make.

This isn't so easy for me, as I am not a night person, nor much for socializing. I work from home and don't have much contact with local folk. When a neighbour issues an invitation, or I hear word of a person who has knowledge of local home schooling families, I make a point of following up on the connection because the group of people who will help me to create this learning center is built up slowly but surely from just these local contacts.

I so enjoyed meeting this lovely and enthusiastic parent last Saturday! I am thrilled with this development. This is another step on the way to the creation of a viable Center for Independent Learning, and it feels great to 'talk shop' about what I am so passionate about with someone who seems to share my enthusiasm.

Now, we will see if we can generate a little bit more interest. Perhaps, if we can gather three or four other parents to a meeting about this, I can tell them a bit about my vision of what can be done for the children who do not thrive in a traditional classroom setting.

In the interim, I have been inspired to create a model of how the typical day might be in the Learning Center. I'll share that with you next time!