Is there a place for self-discovery methods in good education? I think so but…
…I am encouraging that “self-discovery” isn’t all that you aim for as a homeschool teacher!
This is part 2 of the series about balancing homeschool perspectives and is about inquiry-based or self-discovery learning.
Part 1 is at this link. It is about the perspectives of delayed learning versus “everything is school”. (It also includes a bit about broad subjects versus specializing into areas of study.)
Table of Contents
Curriculum and Methods of Teaching
Our curriculum is not really “inquiry-based.” Even for PSLC science for elementary levels, we generally have the scientific explanation FIRST and THEN perhaps an activity to show that the explanation is true.
We love independent work and try to put most of our resources in an age-appropriate language so that he or she can understand and learn independently, get items from around the house to use for lesson independently, and feel a sense of accomplishment.
Moms are busy people in a home, often have more than one child to care for, and cannot always sit down for long periods of time beside each child to read long paragraphs.
There is a point to not just opening books and picking up pencils to answer questions. Hands-on learning IS good to include, at least some of the time, and in every subject area!
We don’t want to go to the other extreme however, and only have hands-on experiences. In keeping with a balance of methods, we do NOT provide a hands-on activity for all lessons in a subject area – only for some of them. (And that means for science too).
What about the method of getting a child to guess first before they find out the real answer?
This is a methodology used in the public school system these days. It is a frustrating one though.
One of our preteens was in a classroom as a visitor for a few weeks. The science topic was on recycling and students were instructed to fill out the KWL chart:
- K- “What do I already know about this subject?” (OK, that’s a question one could think about although why do they need to write that down if it’s already in their memory?)
- W – “What do I want to learn about this subject and where am I going to find out?” (This was to be filled in without being taught more about the subject first. So this answer could go anywhere a student’s imagination could take them. Or it could be stalled at the point of, what else is there to know about this subject that I’d want to even know? Because if it’s already known, then it’s written down in the previous row, and if it’s not already known, then I don’t know about it to be able to write it down. To figure out “where” am I going to find this information, one could say, read about it in a book. But if the student expected to be “taught” by a “teacher”, somehow, the teacher thinks it is no longer his/her role to teach or provide answers – only to encourage the students to find out their own answers from “somewhere else”. For some subject areas, this could spell disaster by getting students used to the idea of truth is relative (instead of absolute truth on some things). To the credit of the teacher, the class DID go on a field trip to “learn” about recycling in a hands-on manner – they picked up trash and recycled it for a science class.)
- L – “What did I learn?” (I think this was the point when students were to share and discuss their varied findings themselves about what they had wanted to learn further about recycling, accepting one another’s answers and perhaps jotting those down alongside their own conclusions. Such was the extent of student notes in a notebook about the topic.)
Essentially, the students set the standard of “what” would be learned; the teacher was only there to assign them the topic of what think about.
In homeschooling, this method sometimes goes by the names of “child-led learning” or “unschooling” or “self-discovery” learning, if this method is intentionally used for the majority of educational activities.
(Note: Sometimes, “child-led learning” simply refers to a student being able to choose an area of study that is of personal interest, such as choosing their own book for a book report, choosing their own topic for a science fair project, choosing a high school elective. I think it’s great for children and teens to be able to make choices like those. But it is also great for children and teens to actually be taught or at least guided in their learning experiences instead of wandering around with only self-direction.)
Sometimes, giving answers and explaining things first, is best!
The self-discovery methodology taken to the extreme would shudder and say, “Oh no! Don’t tell the kids the answers; don’t teach them! You’ll ruin their learning capabilities if you guide them with statements that you think are true. Only ask them questions back if children come and ask you for the answers. Don’t give them the answers!”
We would disagree. Yes, there is a place for self-learning. But there is also a real need, especially in the school-age years, for a good teacher to provide some answers and guidance.
We don’t mind at all if a child peeks ahead at more explanations instead of coming up with an original idea.
We don’t have to keep children “guessing” in order to strengthen their curiosity and thought-processes about the world.
They will naturally have questions the more they understand something of interest.
A teacher/parent has (hopefully) more maturity with previous knowledge and experience to simply pass along to the next generation. It is a good thing to be led by someone who knows, instead of blindly groping for some sort of answer but not being sure it’s an appropriate or correct one.
And a good curriculum and a good teacher/parent can keep students interested by providing more than just questions to “guess at”! Think of the variety of learning activities and opportunities which are already known to be both effective and interesting to children/teens!
An Interesting Experience…
This is a true story about an inquiry-based curriculum home school science resource our family tried when our oldest three kids were in the junior grades. (The resource shall remain unnamed.) It was to be a resource that was supposedly able to be USED WITHOUT ADULT GUIDANCE.
That last part really sounded good at the time, since I do like my children to learn independent skills and I was busy writing on the other side of the room at the computer.
“Mom,” asked my children one day, when they were just beginning to learn about things like reflection and refraction. “Do you want us to do this experiment? It’s to be outside in our yard.”
“Of course,” I mumbled from my corner. “Why not? It’s a nice day out there.”
“Well, we need a magnifying glass and a bit of paper.”
“We have that. It’s over there in the box,” I replied back.
“Are you sure it’s OK to do all this?”
“Do what?”
“Don’t know. Remember, the book says we’re not to turn the page until we discover what happens first, and then there’ll be an explanation on what happens?”
“Right.”
“So you’re sure?”
Upon hearing so much hesitation from them, I decided that I would turn the page and look ahead.
And would you believe it???
When that page was turned, the curriculum went on to ask students if they had seen any bits of smoke from the paper and if it scorched for them!
All that the children were told on the FIRST page was that they were to gather dried leaves in a pile in their yard and use a magnifying glass to try to catch the sun’s rays on a piece of scrap paper put in the leaf pile and then report what they discovered!!!
Now, we lived in a forested area, it was especially dry that summer, and so we always have to be careful with forest fire safety.
You can be assured that we did NOT do the experiment after all!
Don’t you like any “self-discovery”?
Yes, definitely there is a good side to self-discovery if a student desires to e x p a n d his/her knowledge on the topic.
That kind of self-discovery can be very meaningful and memorable for the long term.
(I personally really like things like science fair projects, for example.)
But that kind of “self-discovery” is for when knowledge gets expanded, not back in the elementary stages of learning the basics about a topic!
One of the very first steps to using the scientific method is RESEARCH, not an experiment!!! Research and learning from a teacher or media presentation is for that first stage of discovery and those elements are more effective to gain a solid understanding.
Self-discovery can be great and we love the idea of independent learning whenever appropriate, as long as it is also balanced with having a teacher— for safety’s sake and for the sake of having someone who knows something important and can teach it on to the child as well as can correct any wrong answers to things the child would think is right but needs to learn differently.
The inquiry-based learning seems to have become more popular sometimes as a reaction against a rote learning methodology (which can be boring).
But that doesn’t mean that we have to swing to the other extreme and just let things naturally flow wherever the child wants to go.
A child generally does not have the same level of wisdom or discernment or years of experience as an adult and still needs some guidance.
Just imagine how YOU could learn a new skill to fix something… by trial and error experimentation or by being taught (e.g. by watching someone else first explain what to do and why). How many of us search online for “how-to…” because we want someone else to teach us and not discover the answer on our own?
In Conclusion…
If home schooling, we’d encourage parents to take the responsibility of being the teacher and guide children in learning, at least until the children grow into a reasonable level of maturity and have a good foundation.
“If you don’t have time to show a child the right way to go, someone will take the time to show them the wrong way.” (an anonymous common saying)
A child has a lot of faith to believe a lot of stuff. Not everything presented on the internet or in library books is true or good. You can save your child some wasted time or bad choices or frustration by giving some direction.
P.S. If you are leaning towards preferring a homeschool approach/style called “unschooling”, this is a good article from HSLDA for tips on how to manage that: Safeguarding Unschooling: The Importance of Communicating How Learning Happens – HSLDA
(This post has been updated since originally posting in 2018.)
Part 3 in the “Balancing Homeschool Perspectives” series is specifically written for Christian homeschooling parents. It is about homeschooling being a choice, not a Biblical mandate.