Learner's Day

"Have fun!", I yelled down the corridor after I kissed my daughter and sent her off for her exam. At least 3 pairs of eyes stopped what they were doing and looked up to see who this mad lady was! (Wishing exams should be fun! What sacrilege!)

The whole point of an exam is to find out what you know and what you don't know so that you can learn what you don't know. Right?! So why wouldn't you have fun at exams assuming they lead to more learning which in itself is so much fun?! Confused? I thought you would be, because like me, you have probably grown up believing the following:

1. Exams are stressful

2. Learning is tedious

3. Teachers have to know everything about the subject they are teaching

4. Marks! Marks are the source and summit of everything to do with your education. From your marks, comes your deepest, truest identity! Don't believe me? Talk to anyone who has just passed their board exams.

Don't you wish things could be different? Well, congratulations, if you believe they can, you are halfway there already!

I discovered quite by accident that I DID NOT HAVE TO pass onto my children all these terrible experiences and beliefs about education. When we collected my older child's first set of books from her first school, I opened them up ceremoniously on the dining table and shrieked with joy because my baby had become so big she had her very own school books. My very normal, happy 3 year old child interpreted my joy to mean that school books were even more exciting than the regular books we read at home! I gazed at her happy face and decided I did not want to change her first impression. And together we both delighted in the world of possibilities that lay ahead!

To cut a long story short, once I learned that I could unlearn my own beliefs and give my children a better deal than I got, I set out with complete focus to find the best possible options to give them the best possible education within our budget. I had worked with many schools ranging from the poorest to the richest, so I knew what questions to ask and what to look out for.

And the best option I found absolutely stunned me because it was the farthest solution I could have ever imagined!

I was looking for a school that was able to:

1. be personally invested in my children's well being

2. go the extra mile to resist the pressures of the system and prioritize children

3. teach children not subjects

I knew that I was expecting a lot but I was most horrified to discover that such a school was entirely possible, if only, I was willing to start it!

It turns out there was no one who would be more personally invested in my children than I was, go the extra mile for them more than I would and be willing to teach them (i.e. the children) not teach subjects to children.

And so we began our homeschool journey, with me learning how to unlearn so many things after I asked myself the most honest questions:

1. If 19 years of formal education in good schools and colleges with mostly great teachers had left me feeling ill-equipped to teach my own children in my own home, what does it say about the education I had? Then why would I want to send my children through the same system?

2. Why I am terrified of spending 24*7 with the very children I yearned and prayed for, for years? I'm the adult here, they aren't going to eat me up. So why does it feel so scary to take full responsibility for my own children?

3. What part of the rat race that I so painfully endured would I really like to bequeath to my children?!

My honest answers convinced me that I wanted to give my children a lifelong joy of learning. And I was willing to pay the price for it.

Soon, I found many communities of homeschoolers and started learning so much from their experiences. And then we took the plunge, got the school leaving certificates and are currently enjoying our third academic year of homeschooling.

Here are some lessons I have learned along the way:

1. Learning is fun. You don't have to make it fun. It already is fun. What you have to do is enjoy it and not suck all the joy out of it with deadlines, marks and competition that have nothing to do with the learner. When was the last time you learnt something new and enjoyed it?

2. You can unlearn old ways of being and learn new ways at any age if you are open to it. The day you stop being open to learning, you stop living.

3. Human beings are intrinsic learners. We are wired to watch, observe, imitate, explore, understand and apply what we learn. No one has to teach us how to learn: we already know that. Just leave any child alone with a new gadget and they'll teach you how to learn. What we need is the right environment and resources around us to facilitate that natural learning process.

4. The best teachers are learners. All the teachers who've had a positive impact on my life are great learners. They know that they don't know everything and they never tire of learning more. To them, learning is a joy and hence their teaching is joyful and bears fruit.

5. The best learners automatically want to share their joy of learning with others. Just like a post-party party, my children have the post-homeschool homeschool where they share what they've learned with each other and others without any stress or pressure.

But what has all this got to do with YOU if you're not a student or teacher?

Well, here's the invitation:

1. Examine your life and all you've learned, all you still want to to learn. Who told you that you can't? Was it you?

2. What are the big questions you have that remain unresolved? For example, who can really love me the way I want to be loved? What is this life all about? Is there anything more to life than checking all the boxes? Do you want to stay with what you learned as a child (even though you don't really believe it) or find out for real while you still can?

   Are you ready to unlearn so that you can learn?

3. Get connected with a community of learners who are on a quest for more. Jesus has promised us all an abundant life and I think its a big insult to Him to settle for anything less than that especially if we think that's all the world can offer.

Ultimately, there is only One Perfect Teacher and He has designed us in His image and likeness to seek and find in Him all that we are looking for in life. But this begins with a discontent with the present way of life.

If I had made peace with all the ways in which the best schools failed to deliver what's best for my children or all my inadequacies that would get in the way of transitioning to a homeschooling family, we would never have been enjoying OUR education as much as we are now. Be dissatisfied with the dis-satisfactory! You deserve the abundant life your Father wants so very much to give you because you are His child.

Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,

who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down, they cannot rise,
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

I can't wait to run up the corridor into my Father's arms for my final exam because I know as long as I'm joyfully learning everyday, everyday is learner's day and I will have fun at the exam!

 

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