JamLifeIntoDeath wrote:As someone who might be a parent someday and someone whose curiosity is easily sparked, would you please elaborate?
I see my role as being different than I imagined. The whole subject is a minefield of contradictory ideas, and potential hurt feelings. We had discussed and decided certain things before my daughter was born, and this had to do with a nurture gambit, based on the fact that we don't like the local schools, or the goals of schools in general.
Being around children quickly changed our minds on certain aspects, and whatever desire I had to raise her to intentionally be smart sort of gave way to a desire to let her be who she is going to be. We see our role as being facilitators who provide encounters that can provide educational opportunity, rather than lesson plans. We are fairly relaxed about all this, and intend to become even more relaxed once we get past the stages of explosive brain development. We have staked out a couple of focal points that may give an outward appearance of pushing in a certain direction, but our reasoning is pretty specific. We started with sign language when she was very small because it is supposed to build neural pathways that making additional language learning easier when the person gets older. A side benefit was an elimination of the 'terrible 2s' stage as all the literature promises.
Soon it will be time for her to be guiding her education, and our primary role will be to assist with her learning how to learn on her own. Once that is mastered, the content of her knowledge is not all that important. There is a certain amount of cultural literacy, and basic verbal and math skills that everyone should know, but most people get by on not very much when you think about it. Before she was born I saw my role as being to teach, and now it is more about getting her where she needs to be.
People always talk about how this will lead to laziness and other horrible things, but I have not seen that happening to other children brought up this way. They are engaged in a way that I envy. This method also provides many opportunities than are fairly unique. I have the same kind of hopes that other parents do, and want her to be an astronaut, but I think it will be pretty cool if she becomes a baker, or ends up filing all day long. If I could bet, I am guessing she will be a pretty interested and interesting adult.