Troy Headrick
The American University in Cairo
Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
contact@savvy-women-magazine.com
Village Home Education Resource Center from Village Home on Vimeo.
It’s confession time. Before watching this video, I’d always had kind of a negative feeling about homeschooling. I’d wondered if homeschooled children were getting the sort of educational experience that would allow them to become happy, well-adjusted people and productive members of society. But I now realize that those notions were based on what? Ignorance, I suppose, would have to be the answer to that question. After all, what experience did I have with homeschooling? What did I really know about it? Not much before viewing the Village Home Education Resource Center video.
Now, after watching, I’d have to say that if I had a child, I’d want her to attend Village Home or an “unschool” just like it.
I am a product of the public education system in Texas. (Writing that sentence made me realize that “system” is the perfect word to describe how I was educated during my formative years.) My schooling was indeed heavily systematic, meaning regimented, boring, teacher-centered, and designed with the idea in mind that “one size fits all.” The system did everything it could to turn me into a human widget. About the time I started eighth grade, I became something of a rebel. Looking back at that period of my life, I’d have to admit that frustration, in large part, fueled my rebelliousness. It frustrated me to have to spend so many hours of my day cooped up in an institution that didn’t know me or didn’t know how to give me what I needed and/or wanted to become my best self. Rather than setting me free, the system held me back.
I bet many of you have similar stories to tell.
Now, all these decades later, I am on the other end. I am part of a system. I am a teacher, and I have students. I work for a well-known university in the Middle East. On a daily basis I have to find a way to balance the needs of my students with the mores of the institution that pays my salary. In finding that balance, I almost always end up tilting the scale toward the needs of my students.
One thing I have learned over the years–and is shown so vividly in the Village Home video–is that learning and teaching (when they are done well) are “messy,” meaning that too much control can stifle them. I’m afraid that such an idea would scare many school administrators. (Administration, after all, is about exerting control, right?) While listening to Lori Walker, Executive Director of Village Home, I get the feeling that she understands this and that the resource center she represents does a lot to encourage the sort of learning environment where children can be themselves and thus flourish.
One of my favorite parts of the video comes at the very end when Alice Cotton, one of the Village Home instructors, says, “The children are already geniuses. Human beings are natural learners. We don’t have to force it. What we have to do is allow it.”
Well said, Alice. I couldn’t agree more.
Tags: Education
June 1st, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Yes, it’s a wonderful place indeed. My kids and I are there three days a week for several hours. We have found the most wonderful friends, have learned plenty of lessons, and will call this place home away from home for many years to come.