Overstatement #5: Children Will Learn What They Need to Learn on Their Own
The idea that children will learn all that they need to know through discovery and interaction with the world around them is an idea at least as old as Rousseau in the 18th Century. It has been promoted with some variation by the Montessori movement and provides the main reasoning for unschooling. But is it true? I have read articles about successful unschoolers, and of course there are famous examples of self-learners like Abraham Lincoln that attest to the idea. But do these examples prove that all children in all circumstances, or even most children in most circumstances are self-motivated learners? Is it universally true or just conditionally true? I suspect that it is conditionally true.
My main concern is how one determines the objective. What is meant that children will learn what they “need” to learn on their own? Many homeschoolers would say that what they need to learn is what they are driven to learn, or what they want to learn. They contend that the best person to make that determination is the child himself. While I agree that input from the student is necessary for an adult to develop a suitable curriculum, I strongly disagree that the student alone should determine his coursework.
That a child is not capable to decide for himself what he should and should not learn is so obvious that it is difficult to articulate. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that a child should learn in an environment free from adult interference; he should learn experientially through his own discovery from investigation and trial and error. The idea is ridiculous on its face. Does a baby learn his first language free from adult interference? Would a child survive long discovering which berries in the garden were edible and which were poisonous? Would a child be able to discover a foreign culture or the meaning of the symbol “A” without adult interference?
The idea that a child cannot benefit from an adult who serves as teacher, lecturer and mentor disregards the exponential progress that humans have made as a result of what is called “masterminding”. One generation of humans discovers a fact through trial and error, observation, experimentation and then shares the information in the most efficient way - through oral or written language – to the next generation who compounds the abstract concept by applying it to some other discovery, and on and on. Humans naturally learn from one another, peer to peer as well as generation to generation. As Newton said in a letter to Robert Hooke, “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants”.
If each generation had to repeat the research and learn previously discovered concepts anew through experience, human progress would stagnate. (It’s called “reinventing the wheel” - I'm sure you've heard of it.) You may argue that a student does not need adult guidance to pick up a book and learn about the great ideas of the past. That is true. But what that argument overlooks is the adult that is represented by the book. A child did not write about that great idea. An adult did. Students need teachers, whether those teachers are represented by textbooks, computer programs, or human beings. Maria Montessori would agree. She advocated for self-motivated learning within specific conditions. Students are self-directed within a limited choice of educational activities, but those activities are predetermined by educators for the purpose of promoting certain concepts.
To be fair, I recognize that no one could possibly believe (Rousseau notwithstanding) that a student should be isolated from all adult guidance. Self-directed learning is not self-generated learning. If an unschooler asked his parents to explain a difficult concept with which he was struggling, I imagine the parent would oblige. So I believe we can all agree that students need adult guidance. Returning to our initial question then, is a student capable of deciding which subjects to study? For the same reasons that he cannot learn without adult assistance, he cannot know which courses of study will take him into successful adulthood. As a minor, he most likely does not have the responsibilities of an adult and so cannot relate to the knowledge base required of a responsible adult.
Educational expert Sir Ken Robinson contends that none of us today know what an adult twelve years into the future will need to know because of the rapid pace of change in technology and human progress. Although it is true that we cannot predict some of the future’s technological and vocational skills, we can guarantee that human beings will still communicate abstract concepts using language, mathematical formulae, and visual data. We can anticipate that humans will still express themselves artistically through music, dance, drama and art. We can be certain that humans will still struggle with purpose, meaning, value, morality and other metaphysical and philosophical questions. Some things will change. Most things will not.
Therefore, while there is certainly room within a home-based curriculum for students to study subjects about which they are passionate, the core curriculum of language, mathematics, basic science, social sciences and the arts must also find their way into the student’s coursework. I believe it is a home educator’s responsibility.
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