The Curriculum

As I said in the previous post, I used to work for the school board as an assistant.  I didn't have kids yet, but I found myself paying attention to what subjects were covered so that I could discuss them with my own kids one day.  I hadn't even considered homeschooling at this point, but I love to learn and I wanted to share a love of learning with my kids.

Fast forward a few years and I had my first child.  When she was 3 she started noticing and talking about subjects that had been covered in the classes in which I had worked.  She noticed shadows on the ground.  She taught herself the alphabet by watching TV.  She learned shapes on her own.  She learned colours on her own.  She learned to spell her name. The list could go on and on.  By the time she was officially kindergarten age she had mastered at least half the kindergarten curriculum, and knew about subjects from higher grades.  She hasn't necessarily mastered everything she "should" know by the end of kindergarten yet, but she is learning everyday and I know she will eventually learn it all.  I am not concerned that she is learning at her own pace because she is learning.

Watching this unfold, I came to the conclusion that much of the curriculum is composed of subjects that kids would learn anyways.  They might not have the vocabulary for what they know, but they learn it nonetheless.  Therefore I began to think that the main purpose of school was to teach kids how to be students, rather than to teach them subject matter.  A lot of a teacher's time is spent on class management.  In a one to one situation you could teach much of the curriculum in a very short period of time, but when dealing with 20+ students that is impossible to accomplish.

For a child-led perspective, this means to me that if there is something you truly want you child to learn, you just need to make it available in the environment.  If you want them to learn about shadows you can go outside at different times of the day to notice how shadows change.  If you want them to learn about colours then have paint/crayons/dye/etc available.  If you want them to learn about patterns, have pattern blocks and beads available.  Whatever you put in their environment, they will eventually look at and explore..

What are things that you do to encourage your kids to learn different subject matter?