Stars: ★★★★★ (Study This Book)
Premise
“I told myself I wanted happy learners, but I secretly wanted cooperative learners more.”
That fateful quotation set the book up perfectly for me. Julie walks through the ways in which we can add magic to our parenting, especially as homeschoolers, but all of the tactics she suggests can be used to make all homes and relationships more magical. In our minds, we want our children to love school and classes and reading, but mostly we want all those thing to be easy and not require much work. Her ideas throughout the book require work, preparation, time, and flexibility, but they are eye-opening to see the ways we can add fairy dust to the days to increase the joy around learning, relationships, and life.
Loved
- The magic that comes from the little things
In a variety of practical suggestions, Julie walks through small things around our homes that add excitement to learning. Fun colored gel pens to write with. Yummy special snacks for more challenging subjects. Fancy tea pots that the children look forward to using during poetry time. Small changes that release the magic of learning. Spoiler alert: I own none of these things. I happen to have a candle because my friends gave me one for my birthday, and I realized burning it during read aloud really did make the kids enjoy the time more.
In offering these examples, she dispels the myth that “suffering is the evidence of a solid education.” I bought some fancy erasable pens in a variety of colors. Suddenly, my kids were asking to practice handwriting. These were tiny additions changed the whole atmosphere of the subjects, which is what the book calls “adding the magic.” It isn’t about sitting in a desk and having the appearance of learning. It’s actually about learning, which happens more effectively in a comfortable and fun environment, called in the book “relaxed and alert.” Formal lessons are no longer being imposed on the children but enjoyed by everyone.
For children who are not homeschooled, these small bits of magic can be added to homework, studying, spelling words and anything else adding stress to the family’s life. - The Collaboration vs Independence Table
I love the way Julie explains the different applications of independence and collaboration. As parents, we can make lists of the things that our children learn independently and then evaluate that against the places we think they need more focus. These focus areas are the biggest opportunities for collaboration. These are subjects in which we can sit beside our children and read with them, complete an intentional project together, or write a narration for them and read it back. We can engage the independent subjects with interest but collaborate on the harder ones.
“When adults ask kids to love learning, they’re asking children to find academics pleasurable so that adults will be relieved of the obligation to nag.” Ouch. The truth of that struck me hard. I don’t want to nag my children about doing their work, any of their work, which means there are so many areas that I can choose to collaborate with my children instead. Because my kids are very young right now, they are willing to do anything with me that I am doing – dishes, laundry, quilting, reading, shopping. They want to be in my proximity. So I can use those opportunities to collaborate with them rather than sending them away, as am I wont to do. - Learning Lasts a Lifetime
“We don’t have to cram it in by age eighteen.” Wow, what a relief! I think it’s helpful for any family. Our kids don’t have to learn everything they are supposed to know before they graduate high school. They have a lifetime to learn what they need when they need it. This is a very unschooling principle, but it applies in so many areas.
I remember one of my friends telling me as adults that she never learned her states and capitals. My first reaction was horror, but she said “I’ve never really needed them.” It got me thinking as to how I probably didn’t need that information in order to be a successful adult, although based on how many hours I had to spend studying them as a child, one might have predicted differently. Maybe our kids don’t have to know the quadratic equation to have a perfectly fulfilling life. Maybe we can stop harping on the kids about their grades and allow them to explore their focused interests, especially if those interests are difficult for us to understand or different than ours.
If at some point they realize there are skills they need to accomplish a goal, they will learn those skills. If someone tried to teach me SQL or Tableau in high school or even college, I would have struggled because I didn’t see the practical application. When I learned those skills as a financial investigator, it came so easily that I trained other people on how to use them. - Sometimes you must disrupt your own narrative
Julie spent a whole chapter discussing the consequences of ideological purity, which I would call demagoguery. This is a trap I easily walk myself into, repeatedly. When I discovered unschooling, I thought that was absolutely the way for us to go but it felt like something was missing. Then I found Charlotte Mason, and everything about that appealed to me except the lack of diversity in the curricula. I have very slowly had to force myself to think outside of the boxes. We can pull a little from multiple philosophies, both in education and in life. And we will likely be better for it.
One area she discussed extensively was video games. In a stark contrast, she explained how any parent would be proud of a child who played chess for hours a week, strategizing and studying the various methods. However, a parent would be reticent to brag about the exact same focus and skills applied to video games. In fact, parents are more likely to be embarrassed about hours on video games, even if the video games are enhancing reading, math, and strategic skills. In moments like this, it is important to disrupt our own narrative and consider the reality of the situation instead of our imposed perspectives.
Didn’t Love
I loved this book so much, and I cannot wait to implement these changes; but it would be easy for a family who does not homeschool to dismiss this book as not applicable to them. However, all families could benefit from a little extra joy and fun around the house, which is what The Brave Learner offers.
Lessons Learned
- “Everything we teach can be ruined by a single tone of voice.” There were multiple mic drop moments throughout the book. I had to put it down and marinate in it for a few minutes. This was one of them. I could be saying the right words and doing the right things, but the annoyance and irritation in my voice is unmistakable. It can throw off all the well laid plans of the day. Julie recommends smiling when I speak, even if I don’t feel like smiling. It can change everything about the tone of the day and the tone of the lesson.
- Poetry Tea Times are worth the extra effort. Poetry is not my strong suit. It never has been. I tend to deal in numbers, facts, and logical arguments. The imagery and symbolism in poetry has always been a little inaccessible to me. I tried to do a poet study with the kids at the beginning of our first school year, and it was an unmitigated failure. None of us enjoyed it, and I could understand the poems but I couldn’t explain them to the children well. Julie walks through how to have a great poetry tea time. Taking a few of the simple ideas, especially not trying to analyze the poems but simply enjoying them will likely help us be more successful in this area.
- Yelling is a tool of desperation. Yelling is a tool of desperation. Yelling is a tool of desperation. This is the one area of motherhood that is wrapped in so much shame for me. I am kind, joyful, and patient with so many people in my life – except my children, who deserve these things from me more than anyone else. Yelling is a tool of desperation.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It has given me simple tools to enhance the joy, fun and love of learning around my house, and there are so many ways to practically implement these suggestions in any home or family.