The idea for Boldschoolers came from a series of events…on top of nearly 30 years of experience in education. I’ve always believed that no effort is ever wasted. It all seems to come back around, coalesce in different ways until just the right iteration happens at just the right time.
Time and time again I watched homeschooling parents worry about things like curriculum, extra-curriculars and subject-area resources. While all of these things are important and necessary…and they are conversations to have, I kept having this nagging feeling that our focus on such things was missing an underlying foundation, perhaps even the most important elements. It seemed to me that the first question should be: How does my child learn best? Including ideas about what might motivate a child to fully engage and immerse himself in learning, to understand in a basic way…how it works and to have the skills needed to get through the tricky spots when it gets hard. Also important are conversations about the container, the learning space, the environment and the best ways to create a rhythm of the day, to understand the timing of learning.
So, to say it another way, many people seem awfully concerned about the WHAT of learning with little regard for the HOW, WHY or WHEN. I happen to be most interested in the HOW, WHY and WHEN. There’s plenty of information out there on the WHAT…but not a lot of conversation on the other foundational pieces.
This isn’t surprising because a focus on the what is the focus in our schools, as well. Teachers teach a curriculum and they are trained by the curriculum companies on that particular curriculum. Many teachers don’t ask questions of students beyond the teacher’s manual and we certainly don’t equip students to know how to learn for themselves, how to troubleshoot difficulties and apply a strategy that works, acquire specific feedback, assess their own learning and adjust practice accordingly. We’ve given over all of that control to teachers, to schools to someone else and something else that doesn’t know our child a fraction as well as we do or as well as our child does.
Schools don’t frequently address why kids don’t thrive, why they are falling asleep in class, why they don’t do the homework, how they might engage each child fully or how to create interactive learning experiences that fuel such a deep passion in a child that it turns into a life purpose.
So, firstly, I saw a need that I could fill in the way we approach homeschooling, such that our children might learn to learn, to empower themselves for a lifetime of understanding how to advocate for themselves, how to craft a situation for optimal learning, how to connect deeply with the material studied and how to connect deeply with other learners, mentors and people that share common interest.
Most of us have gone through many years of school and yet how many of us really know how to learn, such that we can learn optimally at will? I would venture, not very many. We can all get by, throw in some trial and error for good measure, but it’s often ineffective and time consuming, frustrating or exhausting and certainly a crap shoot on whether we’ll remember the learning the next day, the next month or the next year. I would posit that it doesn’t need to be that way. There’s a better way…and that brings me to a second event that helped me see the possibilities.
Though I came into homeschooling 15 years ago, my experiences working with children came out of the public schools. My interest had been in creating immersive, interactive learning environments for groups of children. I often spoke to parents about following a child’s interests and employing at least some self-directed learning, but it wasn’t until I met Megan that I truly saw an example of a homeschooled child immersed in flow and the lights turned on for me in a new way.
Here’s Megan’s story:
Thirteen-year-old, Megan, thought school was bearable, but struggled to stay organized and get her assignments completed and turned in on time. Her teachers suggested that she had ADHD, because she couldn’t seem to focus, but from her perspective, she thought school was just tedious and “not very useful.” When her mother offered to homeschool Megan and her sister, she was hesitant, but the family had just moved to a new state and it seemed like a good time for a fresh start. Her mother, Samantha, talked to Megan about her interests and Megan mentioned that she wanted to learn how to animate stories. Megan was a fan of graphic novels, though she didn’t think she was much of an artist herself. Samantha found a free online animation program, and Megan dove in. For the most part, Samantha left her alone with her new computer program, but she was present and available, if Megan reached out. The first day Megan spent 12 hours on the program, only stopping briefly to meet basic needs. That wasn’t what Samantha had in mind, but Megan was driven, actively teaching herself the geometry and algebra she needed to progress forward in the program and commenting later that she had lost track of time, that she was completely into the experience, loving it. Megan adapted the program to creatively build what she imagined in her mind, redefining what was possible. Over the next week, Samantha placed some time boundaries around the program, but Megan effortlessly dropped in again and again, to a state that Samantha described as “almost like altered consciousness,” one of complete focus and deep motivation. Samantha and Megan didn’t realize it, but this state has a name, flow, and scientists have studied it for decades, considering it the source of happiness.
Contrary to Megan’s experience, I’ve noticed that many people spend most of their day doing shallow work and what I mean by that is doing work that isn’t especially mentally demanding. It may center around logistical tasks and it probably is work that can be done while slightly distracted (Newport, 2016). The tasks can be important, but shallow work isn’t very meaningful and multi-tasking, also known as… task switching, doesn’t create much new value in the world.
What’s rare in the world is intense focus on meaningful curiosities, a fluidity between who children are, what they are doing and how they are doing it. How might our culture shift if children could easily apply long periods of intense focus to problems and interests that they find valuable? What if these kids could drop into the mental and physical state Megan experienced, called flow, and in that state, learn faster than others, tolerate risk, embrace uncertainty and challenge the status quo, touch the impossible? What if those children became their most capable version of themselves in the process?
Boldschoolers was born from a desire for kids to own their learning and embrace life with passion, curiosity, and interest. For kids to understand that the best learning doesn’t necessarily happen inside four walls, sitting at a desk, but rather happens 24/7, when we can adjust our own mental frames and step into life’s many opportunities. It is my belief that the best learning, at any age, happens when we are playfully engaged and fully immersed in pursuits, we find meaningful. We can train our children’s minds and bodies, but we can also teach them how to best acquire skills in whatever pursuit they may choose.
In Japanese, the word kokoro refers to the connection between heart, mind and spirit. If you write kokoro as a Kanji character, 心, it literally means center, heart, and mind. The shape of the character originated from the shape of the human heart, just as the heart has four parts, the character has four strokes. If you ask a Japanese person where the mind is located, many will point to their chest, whereas many Western people will point to their heads. Japanese people think from the heart at the same time as they feel from the heart. I like to use the word kokoro because the closest word in English, mindset, doesn’t adequately address the connection between the heart, the mind and the spirit when striving towards optimal performance. Several forces work within my use of the word, kokoro: motivation (heart), skill development (head), and forward movement towards meaningful/purposeful goals (hands).
We spend a great deal of time within education teaching knowledge and some time teaching skills. We don’t spend much time learning how to learn, how to regulate emotions, how to create positive motivational constructs or how to move forward when we feel stuck. These skills are trainable and if we can teach this capacity for shifting our mental states, our kids will have a distinct advantage along any life path. When learning how to drop into a flow state, kids are learning a state of consciousness rather than a set of skills. If kids can learn how to access creativity, critical thinking, optimal learning, adaptability, emotional regulation, etc., the primary skills of reading, writing, coding, and mathematical application, for example will come easier.
You’ll see the Boldschoolers triangle logo indicating the beauty of kokoro: the heart, head and hands working seamlessly together.
Heart: Motivation
Layer choice, connection and competence to increase motivation.
A child’s motivation is built upon curiosity, connection (passion and purpose) and competence. When learning is tough, what is the long-term goal that drives your child to keep going? Learning how to draw upon positive motivation can help a child handle failures and setbacks. And excited, curious kids sure make the learning day a lot more fun.
Head: Skills
In the Head portion of our triangle, we successfully pair focused attention and Brain Breaks to build a capacity for deep work using before, during and after learning strategies.
Skills are best developed in supportive environments that provide consistent feedback. Children start off setting clear goals to learn very basic skills (learning how to metaphorically crawl) and slowly build capacity to walk and later mastery to run.
Hands: Optimal performance and real-world application through flow
It’s a move from expert-directed partnering to child-directed flow; it’s forward movement towards meaningful, purposeful goals.
The flow cycle can be used to drop into a state of optimal performance. Children can use their passions and interests to do something meaningful for others.
And remember…Flow is an optimal state of mind, body, emotion and spirit where we feel our best and perform our best.
Now that you know a little about the foundation underlying what we do here at Boldschoolers, my intention is for you and your children to learn how to learn optimally. Please, enjoy what we have to offer...head on over to Boldschoolers Blueprint at boldschoolers.com if you would like to learn more and make sure to reach out to let me know how it goes!
