🌟 How much control do you have over your child’s education? 🌟
I know you care deeply about your child’s education. But, you are busy, there is a lot of noise on social media and the school system is bafflingly complex. It can feel overwhelming. Despite it being important to you, it can slide down your list of priorities.
My mission is to help you navigate through your child’s educational journey, providing you with the information, tools, and resources you need to feel confident and in control.
One of the first things we need to do is to stop using the words learning, education and school as if they mean the same thing. They do not. This might sound like a pedantic point to make but they each mean quite different things and you have very different levels of control depending on which word we are talking about.
What is learning?
📚 Learning is the process that separates the animate from the inanimate - one of my favourite educational philosophers, Dewey, makes this point well. It's about acquiring new skills, behaviours, and knowledge. But learning is messy and haphazard. It's unpredictable, it can happen anywhere, and it doesn't always lead to the "right" outcomes.
What is education?
🎓 Education, on the other hand, is structured learning. It's intentional, sequenced, and often delivered by experts. It is the roadmap, guiding students on their journey of knowledge and skill acquisition. In fact, the word ‘curriculum’ derives from this idea - it means the bounds of a track, guiding people along a route. For example, in my courses for parents, I have thought carefully about the material, the sequence, the method of delivery and the way I evaluate success.
What is school?
🏫 School is one place where education (and learning - some unintentional) happens between 08:30-15:30 from age 4-18. Yes, it's important, but it's only a small part of the bigger picture.
What does this mean for us as parents?
Knowing this, as parents, it means we can focus our energy on the areas we can influence the most. While we can't control what our kids learn (no matter which school they attend!), we can shape their learning culture at home and create experiences that support their educational journey.
We have a huge amount of influence in the spaces outside of school. This can mean arranging trips to museums or helping with homework. It might be signing your child up for a summer camp over the holiday or getting them piano lessons. It could be more involved - thinking about experiences which relate to what they are learning in school… for example, going to the beach to collect shells because they are reading Snail and the Whale, watching Baz Lerhman’s Romeo and Juliet to help with understanding Shakespeare or going to Bletchley Park to learn about how the code-breakers applied their Maths knowledge.
Education can also be more general and values based. We hope our sons learn how to be kind, creative and happy. We can’t make this happen, but we can try our hardest to educate them in that direction.
It is important to remember that just because we provide an education it doesn’t mean a child will learn the things we hope (or anything at all for that matter).
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