Some thoughts from an old mother.

While raising my children, I worked full-time in my home office. I woke at 3:00 a.m. and got straight to work. By the time my kids got up, I had half a day’s work done. We made breakfast, got dressed and when my kids headed off to school, I went back to work. By noon I’d put in a full 8-hour day and headed to my shop where I worked until the kids got off school. If there was still work to do I’d pick up the kids from school and put them to work at the shop. By 5:00 we were home. By 8:00 we were in bed (hint: my kids were allowed to read all night if they wanted). Our strange routine had some interesting results.

First of all, I learned that parenting is teaching and really looking for teachable moments – ways to apply what they were learning. By working together my kids learned basic concepts before those lessons were placed before them in school.

For example, by cutting apples into quarters and figuring out 4 quarter cups of flour is one cup of flour, my kids grasped the concept of fractions long before their teachers introduced fractions in school. By filling orders at the shop, they learned to follow directions. By working with the fabricators, they learned how to use hand tools, then power tools, then machine tools. They applied their skills to their arts and science projects at school, on Halloween and won first place in every contest they entered. By recording things correctly, they learned that math matters. By sixth grade my kids were entering numbers on spreadsheets. In seventh grade, my kids taught me how to use excel.

Applied learning is deeper, more meaningful and more enduring. Applied learning teaches kids how to think (not what to think). It shows kids how they learn best, and once they know that about themselves, they are independent learners.

Bringing the classroom into the home is absurd. Instead of trying to teach 30 kids sitting in different homes, teachers need to be teaching on-line groups of parents how to teach. Teaching five groups of 6 parents, is a lot more doable than teaching 30 kids on-line.

Parents, here is this week’s work and here are the tools we have available, now let’s brainstorm ideas about how you can teach this to your kids. Kids learn by doing. Kids learn by sharing. Kids learn by experimenting. Kids retain what they’ve applied.

Warning. Applied learning can be super messy. Put down some drop cloths and teach away.