Please Don't Teach My Child

Sometimes a really good book can turn your entire view of the world upside down, black becomes white, up becomes down, good becomes bad. I just finished reading "How Children Learn" by John Holt. My view of teaching and learning will never be the same.

Please don't teach my child. Answer her instead. I don't care how many times you point at a block and say blue. If she doesn't care about it's color you can't make her. Plus, quite frankly from my attempts to do just that, it's pretty boring from an adult point of view. If you aren't doing it for fun she's not going to think it's fun either. The last thing I want is for her to start thinking learning is boring. If you want to help her to learn stop pointing and look where she's pointing instead. I was totally set in my head that she should start learning colors. If I hadn't been paying attention to what she was doing I would have never realized what she really wanted to learn was letters! She's got a good part of the alphabet down with sounds and all I did is start saying and writing them when she asked. Who knows what she'll want to learn next but I'll be listening for the question.

Please don't quiz my child. Asking her what color the block is doesn't help her learn. It doesn't even tell you what she does or doesn't know. It just tells you if she's in the mood to respond to your questions or not. When you ask a question with a clear right or wrong answer one of two things will be true. Either she already knows the answer and wonders why you are acting like she might not. Or she doesn't know the answer and doesn't appreciate having you point out her ignorance. If you want to know what she knows stop for a minute and listen to her. I guarantee that if she knows something... and is interested in it you will hear all about it. Thanks to my daughter I know about every circular object (Wheel) in the house, including my nose. I know about every plane (ANE!) that passes over head and every letter printed in the sidewalk ("A A A") on the way to the park. If you stop and listen you will be amazed by how much she knows.

Please don't correct my child. Give her time and she will figure it out on her own. So she calls the purple pajamas blue? To us adults it looks like she has her colors confused. From her point of view she has figured out that blue is a color and colors are used to describe things you see. She's also figured out the general range of color blue applies to. Especially if she can't yet pronounce purple, blue is a really good word to pick. Oh, and by the way... technically she is right. Purple pajamas are blue, just with red mixed in too. Imagine if your boss sat over your shoulder and corrected every mistake you made the second you made it. Would you ever learn to figure things out yourself? Would you even feel like doing anything at all if someone pounced on you the moment it wasn't perfect? You ask, "How will she learn if we don't help?" Well the same way she learned that blue is a color. Watching and listening to the world. At some point she will notice everyone else using the word purple and then it will come naturally.

Please don't teach my child. Stand back and let her learn.