Growirg Without Schooling 75 Susan Shilcockwrote in GWS #49 about how her daughter Amanda, then 9, had helped a friend learn to read in exchange for the friend's helping her learn to dive. Susan wrote, 'It seems to me, as a parent and witness to these episodes, that there really are situations in which a child is unable to accept input from a parent or another adult, but is willing to hear the same information from
another chtld.'
Norna Richotrx Ross (left) md Eoin Gaj look at books together in our ofEce, Children Leaming frcm Each Other is tle subject of this issue's Focus,
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: News & Reports p.2-3 GED Age Requirements, PA Driver's License Law, Attendance Waiver in NM
Dlscusslon: When Does Guldance Become Manlpulatlon? p. 4-5
Femlnlst Homeschoolers
p. 0-z
Challenges & Concerns p.7-lo Talking With Other Children, Older Readers, Challenges of First Year, Single Parent
Watchlng Chlldren Learn p. 11-14 Needs to l,earn Programming, Interested
in Bratlle, Who is Responsible?, Saving the Tfees, Kids and Money
HowAdults Learn p. t+
way.
Book Revlews p. 15-18 FOCUS: Chlldren Learnlng from Each Other p. 19-21
Chtldren as Phllosophers: Inter:nlew wlth Gareth Matthews p. 2L-22
Older Homeschoolers
Wanting to find out whether this was true for otlters in the GWS readership, we asked several children to write about experiences of learning from or teaching another child. Taken together, the children's responses seem to reflect, almost more than anything else, their refusal to fit any general pattern or to conform to educators' (or this editor'sl) assumptions about what ought to happen. That is, some of the children inslsted it was easier to learn from other children, sylng that children's explanations were easier to follow and that children tend to understand one another better. Others, however, very much preferred to learn from adults because adults' explanations were clearer and because it was somehow less threatening to reveal ignorance to someone who was expected to know more anyway. Some felt that knowing or being known by the other person was more important than either person's age. One thought that did come up repeatedly was about the inspiration or feeling of accessibility that other children can provide. Alison Klein wrote, about preferring to learn horsebackriding from the instructor's daughter, "I think this is because [the daughterl can see my point of view more easily - she knows how it feels to be riding nou.'Kaila Morris explained that she felt more comfortable asking anolher child questions about math because the child was probably able to remember asking the same questions herself. Even when a child ultimately preferred to learn from an adult, as Sara Matilsky did when she found her mother's explanations of division clearer than the explanations given by a friend her own age, she nevertheless acknowledged, 'But David was the one who got me interested in dividing, so maybe I'd already learned a little bit from him.'In Sara's case, the child provided the initial inspiration and the adult then helped her achieve the precise understanding she wanted. It is also interesting to see how much these children have learned about teaching. Olivia Baseman says that the experience of teaching a class of other children gave her a sympathy for adult teachers that she hadn't previously felt. Nathan Williamson writes that he thinks he learned things about rock climbing from teaching it to other children that he might not have learned any other
p. 2g-24
Resources & Reeommendatlons p. 24-26
Addltlons to Directory, Pen-Pals p.2Z-29
Finally, it's worth noting that just about all of these teaching and learning episodes came about informally, independent of any class or organized framework. Perhaps the reason children are often able to learn from each other so well is that no one lnsists that this happen or includes it in the ordinary set of expectations about children's education. Thus, as Olivia Baseman observes, "We're just talking and the learning sort of sneaks in there.' Even as we acknowledge that some children enjoy or even prefer learning from each other, we should not go so far as to mandate that they try it, both because it won't work for all of them and because such insistence on our part would remove, even for those children who benefit from such experiences, the very element that allows them to work so well. Susannah Sheffer
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