Unconditional Teaching

by Tammy

How and why do we impart our knowledge on our children? Now, that’s an important question! I guess it depends on what we want for our children. If we want them to be mini-mes, or to take over the family business, then our whole upbringing will be focused on what we know and how to carry on our legacy. However, if we want our children to make their own life choices, then imparting our knowledge is more of a process of sharing, and allowing our children to be included in our lives to see what we do so they can use that experience in whatever endeavor they choose. Whatever we teach them, or whatever experiences we give them, is a gift to them. We can give the gift with trust that they will appreciate it in their own way, or we can give that gift with attachments.

Unconditional teaching is a way of sharing knowledge, with whatever form, without the attachment that our kids should do something specific with what they learn from us.

Personal passion is the best way to give the gift of learning without attachments. When we’re passionate about something, we can’t help but impart our knowledge on our kids, because we will talk about it and be open with what we do. And when we’re enthusiastic about something, the kids can easily see that the reason we are sharing our knowledge is because we ourselves find it important, giving them the freedom to decide how to use the information. Although, it is indeed possible to push our passion onto our kids and expect them to follow in our footsteps, if our goal is to give our children as much experience and knowledge as possible without wanting to push them into something, passion is an excellent way to go about it.

I think of my hubby, who has a hard time communicating his knowledge in a teacher->student approach. For him, the most effective way for him to educate our children is to work on a collaborative project. As soon as he tries to instruct the kids in his “school teacher” tone, it falls apart. I can hear his voice get frustrated, edgy…expecting. If he lets them help him and works with him on a common goal, hammer in hand, it is like a song in harmony.

But how do we know which skills to teach our children? Which ones will they need in their adult life? To be honest, we can’t know. Our parents raising my generation would never have known that computer science was the way to go, or that it would also bittersweet to those who chose to pick that subject, especially if they are one of the many who got caught up in the .com mess. My neighbor is a plumber, and he makes a wonderful living. My other friend is a carpenter/GC, and he struggles to survive. They are both wonderful at their craft. Why does one make a good living, and another doesn’t? How could anyone have known what information these people grew up to be as adults?

The tools for making a living when we get older are only partly the practical knowledge of a subject. The “whats” of making a living can be learned at any time, at any age. What’s much harder to learn, if it’s lost as a child, are flexibility, willingness to pursue something previously unknown and to see opportunities where others do not. But in the end, knowing ourselves and just being who we are, are the best tools for being successful as adults. Making a living requires an ability to work with people in some fields, and to be able to work independently in other fields. For some, making a living is determined by inertia and creating opportunity where we fly, for others it is advanced preparation and a plan to make something where nothing was before. In the same way that everyone has a different skill set, everyone also has a different way that making a living will come to them. In this sense, there is no one universal way that teaching our kids stuff, no matter what stuff we teach, will ensure adult success.

In other words, our children’s adult success is NOT about what WE give them, but about how we support the things they ALREADY have in them. Teachers and parents cannot create anything new that doesn’t already exist in their beings. We can only work with the child that we have in front of us – not what we want that child to be later.

My hubby makes a living working 9-5 for a boss, and he likes it that way. He’s tried working at home, he’s tried being the boss. He prefers being the lead engineer, 9-5ing, not being a boss. For me, that would be soul crushing. I either need to be the boss, or break away and be independent. He and I started out in college working similar jobs (computer tech/help) and we went two different directions. Not because of what we knew. Not because of what we learned in school. Not because of the breadth or depth of our educations, but because of who we were – our personalities and inner beings as individuals.

Although electrical engineering is a very successful way of making a living for my husband, there was no way to know ahead of time that’s where he was going to go – or if there was even a possibility he’d go that way. He could have grown up and wanted to be a historical fiction writer or a painter. How could his parents have possibly known or prepared for what he was going to be – or how we was going to get there? They did not prepare him to be an engineer. In fact, he spent most of his time working in his dad’s nursery.

By the time he was done with high school, he had chiseled his way into understanding the elementary concepts of engineering despite all of his schooling and family experience. His family allowed him to pursue his passion, and didn’t make a big deal about school. They saw how he worked with computers and electronics – something his schools (and his parents) did not have any capacity to teach him – and let him pursue it. They had no understanding or knowledge of computers or anything technical, yet it was because of their supporting of his skills that he was able to be what he was born to be – not because of what he was taught, or what his parents wanted him to do, or what specific knowledge his parents imparted on him.

He became a successful adult because his parents passed down the power of personal truth.

I think that in families that are close, where parents are transparent about what they do for a living and for hobbies, children will be naturally more inclined to be interested in what their parents are doing. And even if they don’t follow in their parent’s footsteps, they will have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what it is that their parents actually do, in a practical sense. Homeschoolers have the freedom and flexibility to include their children in any and all endeavors that they deem appropriate for their age and their capabilities. By showing our passion for what we do, it will infect our children to at least wonder why we love our lives so much. Then, as they grow older, they may or may not learn the what’s of our expertise, but they will certainly learn the passion that is behind it. And as they grow, they take more and more initiative to create their own lives around their own passions because that’s what they are truly being taught by their parents who share with them their means of making a living.

Tammy Takahashi lives and learns with her three children (10, 7 and 4) and supportive husband in California. She is the author of Deschooling Gently: A Step by Step Guide to Fearless Homeschooling. She also serves as the editor of the California HomeSchooler magazine, a bi-monthly publication for the Homeschool Association of California. You can read more from her about education and homeschooling on her website. And you can email her at tammy.takahashi @ gmail(dot)com.

Comments

[JoVE]

That is so well put. I agree about how we find the right career and what we need to be able to do so. I think I'm going to link to this from my blog.