Psychology of Homeschooling

During the time that I was just learning about what homeschooling is, lessons taken up during my college years were refreshed, touching on Theories of Learning, Educational Psychology and Developmental Psychology as well. This cemented my decision to homeschool. I've learned that homeschooling is the closest thing there is to what learning is all about and that conventional schools nowadays tend to stray from how and what learning really is. Here are my notes and I'd like to share them with you.

I've learned that:

1. Homeschooling gives more opportunity to learn using the five senses.

• Being able to learn using as many senses to learn enables the learner to grasp the information better, deeper and retains longer.

• This is related to how our memory works. The more senses that are stimulated, the more connections are made and the more it deepens in the memory bank.
• Ex: Teaching soft and hard.
• (sight) to see the word "soft"/"hard" and connect it to the actual object
• (touch) to feel what soft or hard is by pressing a pillow or a rock
• (hearing) to hear how soft/hard is pronounced
• (taste) to eat a gummy bear and a lollipop and classify it as soft or hard; to feel how soft/hard [food] is using the tongue

*Conventional schools now tend to limit learning through what can be seen or heard, not so much to what can be experienced.

2. Homeshooling provides more avenues to develop ones multiple intelligence.

• Different intelligence includes:
1. Musical - recognizing beats, rhythm and pitch
2. Linguistic - deals with written and spoken language
3. Interpersonal - ability to recognize others' feeling; learning empathy
4. Intrapersonal - self-awareness
5. Logico-mathematical - thinking conceptually and abstractly
6. Spatial - drawn to blocks, paints, clay; putting together and taking apart
7. Bodily-kinesthetic - ability to coordinate body movements; motor skills

• In homeschool, children are viewed holistically and individually. Learning is not only limited to what can be read and calculated but rather learning is geared towards ones totality.
• John Dewey (psychologist, educational reformer) makes a strong case for the importance of education not only as a place to gain content knowledge, but also as a place to learn how to live. In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one’s full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good.   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey>

3. Homeschooling has the capability to tailor fit learning to each individual need.

• Not all children have the same learning styles. Knowing which is it and being able to adapt to it helps in providing motivation to learn. It is hard to teach someone who is not motivated to learn.

• Not all children learn the same thing at the same time. Different individuals process information differently based on their cognitive development and ability to connect present information to past experiences.

• Jean Piaget (developmental psychology, theories of cognitive development) - "Moreover, younger and older children may often interpret and respond to the same objects and events in very different ways because cognitive structures take different forms at different ages."

 Shaffer, D. R., Wood, E., & Willoughby, T. (2005). Developmental psychology: Childhood and adolescence. Toronto, Ontario: Nelson Education Canada.

•   "...According to these theories, changes in information processing mechanisms, such as speed of processing and working memory, are responsible for ascension from stage to stage. Moreover, differences between individuals in these processes explain why some individuals develop faster than other individuals" (Demetriou, 1998).

4. Homeschooling promotes active learning rather than a passive one.

• Active learning involves examining of information, questioning and rationalizing ideas to make a sensible connection to ones own experience.
• According to the theory of Constructivism, learning is a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts based upon current and past knowledge or experience. Constructivists recognizes the role of the learner to actively make sense of ideas presented to him, to confirm or contradict earlier perception and to construct one's own knowledge.

• This is why some children, after reading a textbook, simply cannot make sense of what they read. It is because the process of connecting it [topic] to his past experience or knowledge has not taken place. Therefore, construction of one's own knowledge has not taken place and true learning did not exist.
• Ex: To a child, who hasn't seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly, explaining that a caterpillar is actually a baby butterfly is absurd and defies previously conceived notion. The child may be confused and ask where are its wings and legs and why does it look very different. But if you let the child observe an actual caterpillar go through its process of becoming a butterfly, he would then process this information even before you lecture him about it.

• Active learning also refers to an active questioning, examining and concluding of ideas.
• In conventional schools, children are presented with topics to be learned. The teacher lectures and the students are expected to  understand the lessons presented. Information is fed and not learned. Often times students are expected to keep quiet and pay attention during the lecture. Not much chance is given to the child to speak, whatever it is that they have to say.
• In homeschool, parents have all the time to listen to each and every inquiry how trivial they may be. These questions are oftentimes considered cues for learning. It is encouraged for information to come from the child based on what he discovered rather than just being fed to him. Discovery and exploration are some  of the avenues for learning and not just lectures.
• Jean Piaget - By contrast, in cooperative relations, power is more evenly distributed between participants so that a more symmetrical relationship emerges. Under these conditions, authentic forms of intellectual exchange become possible; each partner has the freedom to project his or her own thoughts, consider the positions of others, and defend his or her own point of view. In such circumstances, where children’s thinking is not limited by a dominant influence, Piaget believed "the reconstruction of knowledge", or favorable conditions for the emergence of constructive solutions to problems, exists.

I transformed from being unfamiliar to homeschooling, to being a believer, and now an advocate. I have learned that homeschooling recognizes the cognitive development of each individual learner and that it is the perfect setting to address the specific need for each stage. I also learned that homeschooling provides the environment and  the set-up described by the earlier psychologists of Constructivism about what learning is about and how learning takes place. In the world of Educational Psychology, the works of educators like Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori have been 

household name in many of the homeschooling families. This is a proof that there is real science behind homeschooling and its methodologies. As more and more families are now adapting this educational set-up, hopefully, the world would finally recognize and grant Homeschooling its rightful place in the area of education.