By Tequila Sway
As an adult, you are so used to doing all of the teaching, especially if you are a teacher or coach of some sort, right? More often than not, adults play an authoritative role to where children feel they can not make a move or have an opinion unless an adult figure authorizes it. If the goal is to raise the generation of tomorrow to be productive members of society, the goal should not be to have them mimic similar cycles that have been proven to be outdated. In order to raise leaders, a different approach must be taken, and it starts with rearing children to be free thinkers capable of their own discernment. Whether your child is being homeschooled or in a public educational facility, it is important to not only give them material, but to also be a witness to how much they are learning by allowing them to be the teacher, and you be the student.
I had the honor to homeschool my son up until the first grade where he, then, attended first to third grade at a public school. I then removed him based on the statistics that little black boys in the third grade get lost in the system. He was already so gifted, and I was told by his teacher that he was one of the two other children who were above their grade level. She asked what my plans were with his educational journey, and I told her I was deciding between putting him in gifted classes or going back to homeschooling. She was honest and said homeschooling him would not be a bad choice and she wished she could do the same with her son because he was experiencing hardship in middle school. While she was adamant about teaching my child and many others in the class, her very own child was struggling. I felt really bad because those are the topics that go unnoticed and not talked about. She was one of my favorite teachers because she challenged her class. They were learning how to write essays in the third grade! As a former English major, I was really excited and proud of that moment. She ended up having to leave the school to attend to her own child, and that is when I decided to go back to homeschooling.
After a while, I wondered whether my son was, as they say, “picking up what I was putting down” because he was studying five to eight subjects per day. Homeschool allows more flexibility, but I was putting pressure on him like a tiger mom, and it was overwhelming him to the extent he would not complete most of his work. I became disappointed thinking he was playing around in his room (which sometimes he did) instead of doing his work, and because I was working from home, I slacked on checking his work frequently. I had to figure out another way to ensure that he was soaking up what he was learning while also ensuring I was checking his work, knocking out two birds with one stone.
Then, it dawned on me to use and incorporate the skills I had learned in high school and college to teach myself. One of the best ways my teachers and professors made sure we learned material was by doing a presentation on a subject whether it was picked or chosen by self. I decided to allow my son to choose a topic from one of his favorite subjects; animal science where he had to choose an animal, do research about its origin, population and any other fun facts he wanted to present. To my surprise, not only was he able to express and explain, he had fun teaching it and I learned new information! After the presentation, he mimicked some of my teaching skills by asking follow-up questions, affirming when I was right, and correcting when I was wrong. It was such an enriching experience that strengthened our bond as mother and son, but also as growing human beings.
I recommend both parents and teachers to use this method to give the children the opportunity to change roles to empower them to learn and discover new passions while also demonstrating comprehension levels, oratorical skills, and to determine whether some lessons need more studying time. This will help even the most introverted child who are too shy to speak of topics they aren’t familiar with by giving them the stage to speak about whatever they desire.
