Wednesday 25 July 2012

On the teaching of subjects about which one knows nothing at all


I have explored the notion in recent days of a ‘hidden curriculum’, which guides parents and children towards focusing on some areas of education to the neglect or even  exclusion of others. Some people avoid mathematics, for example, or science, and concentrate instead upon creative activities.

In my case, it was the opposite. I was confident of dealing with solid academic stuff like history and physics, but felt disinclined to bother with things like art, music and acting. For that reason, I deliberately set out to make sure that my daughter achieved at least  as much in those fields as she would in conventional school subjects.

Take acting. How on earth does somebody who knows nothing about it and has no interest in the matter, teach this? It was easy enough. Our family has always been one for playing parlour games, rather than watching television. So I made sure that we also played games which would help with drama; games like charades, where people take it in turn to act out the titles of a book, film or play. We also devised a version of this which we called Biblical Charades, which entailed acting out a scene from scripture. (This version is only suitable for mad people who spend a lot of time reading the Bible, of course, into which category we unfortunately fall.) Another good game is one where you make two piles of slips of paper. On one pile you have activities written down; mowing the lawn, making toast, reading the paper and so on. The other pile consists of adverbs; sadly, cheerfully, slowly, thoughtfully and as many others as you can think of. Each person then takes a piece of paper from each heap and tries to mime the appropriate actions; for instance ‘doing the washing up angrily’. This is really good for getting a child to move about, to act in fact. Reading out loud expressively is also good practice for drama. Getting a child to vary her voice, put on different accents and generally bring the thing to life.

Another way of encouraging an interest in and appreciation of acting in a small child is by taking her to the theatre. There is a lot of nonsense talked about how boring children find Shakespeare, but that is because it is often just read out in a classroom. That really is boring and would be enough to put anybody off! I took my daughter to plays by Shakespeare, as many as we could manage. She first sat through an entire play of this sort when she had just turned seven. In fact, for a child of that age, a visit to the theatre is even more exciting than going to the cinema. Obviously, you have to do activities beforehand to explain the plot and so on and look at the context. It is good to have the animated Shakespeare plays on DVD as well, to watch. By the time she was fourteen my daughter had seen eight plays by Shakespeare, as well as other plays by authors as varied as Gogol, Ibsen, Shaw, Tennessee Williams, J B Priestly, Arthur Miller and Christopher Marlow. Going to the theatre became one of her main enjoyments during childhood.

As for actually taking examinations with LAMDA, this was very straightforward and a lot of fun. The specifications are freely available. They may be found here:



http://www.lamda.org.uk/exams/downloads/documents/LAMDAGradedExaminationsinPerformancev3v3web.pdf



As you can see, no knowledge of teaching drama is needed. Can you encourage your child to speak clearly? Can you make sure that he does not mumble? Are you able to get him to move about while he is acting and make appropriate facial expressions? Vary the tone of his voice? Imagine that he is talking to some particular character? There you are, you can teach drama!

As I say, this was all a deliberate strategy to make sure that my own prejudices did not hamper my child’s future intellectual development. I didn’t care at all for this sort of thing on my own account. It was so successful that she very nearly applied to study English at university, rather than the Philosophy, Politics and Economics that she finally decided upon. She still has an absolute fascination with Tudor theatre and Shakespeare. This is purely a result of my decision to make sure that one gap in my own mental life would not be transmitted to the child for whose education I was solely responsible.

In the next few days, I shall examine one or two other things of this nature, such as the teaching of music; something about which I knew even less than I did drama!

30 comments:

  1. I agree with most of what you are saying.
    However, don't discount the phenomenon of rebellion! My kids have also taken a great interest in various things I *don't* like, perhaps in an effort to carve out different identities to the others in the family. It's nice for a kid to have their 'own thing' that no one else does/likes.

    We played that same adverb game, by the way! Also, a sound version on long car trips. 'A goose laying an egg' or 'A man finding a frog in his shoe'. Lots of fun!

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  2. 'However, don't discount the phenomenon of rebellion!'

    Very true and my daughter managed to find many areas where I could not follow, such as fencing. (With swords that is, not the stuff you put up round your garden.) If acting and the theatre had been some hobby of mine, then I am sure that she would have rebelled and told me that she hated it at some point. As it was, I was open about not knowing anything about it and simply said that a lot of people enjoyed it. We learned together, which is the best sort of home education. I would say things like, 'Do you fancy trying out this play called the Crucible? I've hear that it is exciting." Few children will turn down the chance of a night out like that.

    ' Also, a sound version on long car trips. 'A goose laying an egg' or 'A man finding a frog in his shoe'

    I'll warrant you never played Biblical Charades though! My wife and I agreed that neither of us would ever do the sin of Onan; partly on the grounds of taste, but also because it would have been too easy to guess.

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  3. Ha! Actually, we have. But it was a card game from the states and because it was aimed at kids, it avoided certain subjects :-) Mercifully.

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  4. Great post Simon. What fun you and your daugther had! I'm looking forward to your next post. I am genuinely baffled as to how you could manage to teach music with no expert teaching yourself.

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  5. 'because it was aimed at kids, it avoided certain subjects :-) Mercifully'

    Until you have seen an eleven year old girl mime the death of Sisera at the hands of Jael the Kennite, you have never lived. Actually a pretty easy one to get, what with the hammering of tent pegs through the temple...

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  6. ' I am genuinely baffled as to how you could manage to teach music with no expert teaching yourself.'

    Just hang on for a few days and I will go into that. My daughter now plays three instruments and not a single lesson!

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    1. Gosh - that sounds like you took an autonomous approach to music! I guess lots of kids learn instruments with little or no expert input (Lennon and McCartney being obvious examples).

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  7. 'Gosh - that sounds like you took an autonomous approach to music!'

    Nothing of the sort; I taught her and got her to practice regularly! Few children have the stickability to study for exams and practice scales each day without some encouragement.

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    1. Sorry Simon, that doesn't get you off the hook. Encouragement is fine within AE and to be expected. It's only when the 'encouragement' is given in a form such as, "you *will* practice your scales now", with the implication that they will regret it in some way if they don't (and I don't mean corporal punishment as you've assumed in the past!). But you've already said that this was not possible with your daughter and she always freely chose to follow your suggestions, so it's still AE.

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  8. 'Encouragement is fine within AE and to be expected. It's only when the 'encouragement' is given in a form such as, "you *will* practice your scales now", with the implication that they will regret it in some way if they don't (and I don't mean corporal punishment as you've assumed in the past!)'

    Heartening news indeed! So all the education she received, including being taught to read, compelled to study eight IGCSEs at an early age, being forbidden the watching of television and so on; this was all autonomous, because I did not threaten her with punishment? I am rejoiced to hear this.

    Simon.

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    1. Being forbidden or compelled to do something implies that your daughter was prevented from doing things she wanted to do or had to do things she didn't want to do (so happily for you you did not AE). How did you do that since you've already described your daughter as strong willed and someone who could not be forced to do things against her will? Coercion can take many forms (emotional our social pressure, for instance) and are often more subtle than obvious punishments such as sitting on the naughty step.

      Since you've said before that Jan FW coined the phrase Autonomous Education and you would stick with her definition during discussions, we should probably stick with her definition of coercion whilst discussing AE. Coercion is anything that causes the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse while a conflicting impulse is still active in one's mind.

      Plenty of autonomously educated children have learnt to read early and studied for exams, so I'm not sure of the relevance of that part of your comment.

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  9. 'Coercion is anything that causes the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse while a conflicting impulse is still active in one's mind.'

    Wholly impossible to establish for a child. We can never know what is in any other being's mind, except for our own. Jan Fortune-Wood would have done better to stick to theology, rather than dabble in cod psychology!

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    1. It's not something the parent is supposed to establish, it's for the child to decide. Parents can only offer information and choices and let the child know as clearly as possible that the choice is theirs.

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  10. 'It's not something the parent is supposed to establish, it's for the child to decide.'

    I am at a loss to know how I would successfully establish that a child of five felt that I was, 'causing the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse' while she had, 'conflicting impulses still active in her mind.' More importantly, I am not at all sure that this would in any case be a bad thing.
    If I had told my child to stop playing hopscotch by the edge of the canal, in case she fell in, then moving away from the water's edge might very well result in, ' the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse while a conflicting impulse is still active in one's mind.' I do not think that under such circumstances, offering her, 'information and choices' to, 'let the child know as clearly as possible that the choice is theirs' would be the best course of action!

    Incidentally, is there a prize for identifying you as either Sarah Fitz-Claridge in person or one of her devoted acolytes?

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    1. "I am at a loss to know how I would successfully establish that a child of five felt that I was, 'causing the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse' while she had, 'conflicting impulses still active in her mind.'"

      I've just said that you're *not* supposed to establish that.

      "If I had told my child to stop playing hopscotch by the edge of the canal, in case she fell in, then moving away from the water's edge might very well result in, ' the psychological state of enacting one idea or impulse while a conflicting impulse is still active in one's mind.'"

      Not unless she wants to fall in the canal. It's part of the parent's job to offer information that might be useful to their child. It's also quite easy to pull a child out if you are close at hand. I'm surprised you would be concerned about something so trivial after your escapades with dangerous animals!

      "Incidentally, is there a prize for identifying you as either Sarah Fitz-Claridge in person or one of her devoted acolytes?"

      I read the TCS email list without contributing for a few months and before that subscribed to the print journal for a year. Does that qualify me as an acolyte? ;-)

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  12. 'I'm surprised you would be concerned about something so trivial after your escapades with dangerous animals!'

    Back in the knife-box with you, Miss Sharp!

    'I've just said that you're *not* supposed to establish that.'

    I think that I would have to if I hoped to respect the child's wishes; that is to say, in order to respect them, I would need to be satisfied in my own mind what they were.

    'It's part of the parent's job to offer information that might be useful to their child.'

    Of course, but sometimes the information is beyond their understanding. Telling a three year-old that she will develop tooth decay in later life if she does not clean her teeth regularly, for instance. The consequence, dental caries, is too far off in the future to mean anything and in any case, a child of that age would not fully be able to realise what having bad tooth deacy felt like.

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  13. "Back in the knife-box with you, Miss Sharp!"

    :-)

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  14. "I think that I would have to if I hoped to respect the child's wishes."

    Mine never had any trouble communicating their wishes, and from what you've said about your daughter, I'm surprised you think it would be difficult.

    "Telling a three year-old that she will develop tooth decay in later life if she does not clean her teeth regularly, for instance. The consequence, dental caries"

    Discussions about pain they had experienced in the past, microbes producing acid combined with experiments looking at the effects of acids on various materials, teeth looking and smelling nicer when brushed, etc. seemed to do the trick for ours.

    But, given the combination of genes with different upbringings in parent's families, disabilities and a host of other influences, there is unlikely to be a parenting theory that works for all families.

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  15. Simon said,
    "Can anybody imagine forcing, against her wishes, a child of twelve to study calculus?"

    And Simon said,
    "So all the education she received, including being taught to read, compelled to study eight IGCSEs at an early age, being forbidden the watching of television and so on;"

    You seem to be contradicting yourself. Let me guess, one of the comments was a joke?

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  16. 'You seem to be contradicting yourself. Let me guess, one of the comments was a joke?'

    Exceedingly odd question which is also depressingly predictable. My daughter was forbidden television and compelled to study for eight IGCSEs, which I chose. The whole trick of the thing was to present these chosen parameters in such a way that she would accept them and take them as given. In other words, to inspire in her an interest in mathematics, for instance, such that she would want to study it and find out more about the subject without any urging from me.

    I have been working towards this theme, that of enthusing children with the love of things like music, acting and mathematics, but judging by the above comment, it would be a pointless enterprise. Instead, let's just fall back into the usual, sterile wrangling, so beloved of many home educators!

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    1. Touchy!

      Maybe you should choose more appropriate words. Then you are less likely too confuse simple mortals like me. ' Compelled' usually means:

      1. to cause (someone) by force (to be or do something)
      2. to obtain by force; exact to compel obedience
      3. to overpower or subdue
      4. Archaic to herd or drive together.

      But it sounds like persuade or enthuse would have been a better fit and a far better approach with strong willed children I'd imagine.

      I'm surprised that you are going to let a single commenter change your plans since you have has more people asking for this type of post than anything. The power of text!

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    2. "In other words, to inspire in her an interest in mathematics, for instance, such that she would want to study it and find out more about the subject without any urging from me."

      Careful Simon, that'd sounding a bit close to AE again :-)

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  17. 'I'm surprised that you are going to let a single commenter change your plans since you have has more people asking for this type of post than anything. The power of text!'

    Ah, I see. When is said, ' Instead, let's just fall back into the usual, sterile wrangling, so beloved of many home educators!'. the presence of the exclamation mark did not alert you to thefact that this was not meant literally.

    Compulsion takes many different forms. For example, one of Pavlov's dogs was still being compelled to salivate at the sound of a bell, even though nobody was using force to overpower or subdue it.

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  18. Simon said,
    "Ah, I see. When is said, ' Instead, let's just fall back into the usual, sterile wrangling, so beloved of many home educators!'. the presence of the exclamation mark did not alert you to thefact that this was not meant literally."

    Oh good! Sarcasm is difficult to convey in text; the tone of voice is so important. The problem is that exactly the same text can be used non-sarcastically and use of the exclamation mark is neither here nor there. It could just as easily indicate a temper tantrum in this instance, for example. However, you may find the parenthesis surrounded exclamation mark useful since this does indicate sarcasm. So if I'd intended my first sentence sarcastically I would have written, Oh good(!).

    Simon said,
    "Compulsion takes many different forms. For example, one of Pavlov's dogs was still being compelled to salivate at the sound of a bell, even though nobody was using force to overpower or subdue it."

    I've never seen 'compelled' used in this context, it's more usually 'trained', and neither appear as synonyms for the other in my thesaurus, there being no overlap at all in the alternatives for each word. Maybe 'trained' would have been a better choice originally?

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  19. 'I've never seen 'compelled' used in this context, it's more usually 'trained', and neither appear as synonyms for the other in my thesaurus, there being no overlap at all in the alternatives for each word. Maybe 'trained' would have been a better choice originally?'

    This really is weird. Have you really never heard somebody say, 'I felt compelled to visit my old grandmother, even though I didn't really want to'? People often feel compelled to do things against their wishes, often as a result of conditioning on early childhood. They feel compelled to be polite to old people, or defer to their parents, avoid swearing or any one of a thousand other things.

    These compulsions are none the less real for being psychological, rather than being made under the threat of force. I do not think that replacing the word 'compelled' with 'trained' or 'conditioned' as you suggest would make for normal speech! You seldom hear anybody say, 'I was conditioned or trained in early childhood to feel obliged to visit Granny against my wishes'

    In fact the Oxford Dictionary of English, second edition, revised, gives just such a definition for 'compel'. The example of usage which they give is, 'A sense of duty compelled Harry to answer her questions'. It is the ordinary use of the word.

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    1. I hadn't heard it used in connection with dog training or Pavlov, of course I've heard the use you mention here. So would it be accurate to say your daughter studied from a sense of duty? All of the uses you give here seem negative - someone doing something they aren't particularly bothered about but feel they have to. Which doesn't fit with other descriptions of your daughter's education.

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  20. Why all this effort to try to prove Simon was an autonomous home educator? It is because he was a successful home educator?

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    1. LOL, no, I'm just teasing :-) Given his views about autonomous educators I just find it amusing that his descriptions of HE are so similar to ours in practice, despite our different ideas about education theories.

      I'm also trying to reconcile and understand his descriptions of a happy, enthusiastic learner with an approach that includes compulsion and forbidden activities, especially as he has described his daughter as strong willed. I'm sure many parents would love to hear how he achieved such control in these circumstances since many have difficulties with issues such as this.

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  21. "I'm surprised that you are going to let a single commenter change your plans since you have has more people asking for this type of post than anything. The power of text!"

    Yes, I tried to persuade Simon to get away from having a rowfest on his blog, cos it's not what ordinary home edders want, esp the new ones who are really hungry for information. On Google, this blog is high up the list when you search for home education, so I think there will be new home educators coming here. It would be a shame if they found it a discouraging or confusing read. I personally don't care(unlike Simon) if you unschool or are more eclectic in style.

    A

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