Leadership

What Religious Educators Can Learn From Homeschoolers
Kathryn Baptista, DRE
Unitarian Universalist Church, Wakefield, MA

Like many people, I stumbled into becoming a religious educator. Having moved to a new community, parents of a young child, my partner and I decided to try out a Unitarian Universalist church. Shortly after, they had an opening for a Director of Religious Education. With a background in early childhood education and alternative education, I applied and was hired out of the congregation.

Similarly, several years later, we became a homeschooling family. We recognized that the longer he was in school, the more our child's hunger for learning was diminished. My family has been homeschooling for four years now, and although we did not begin for religious reasons, it has certainly become a spiritual experience. As a family, we have acquired many gifts: time, learning, and a strong relationship.

Last year I began serving a church where many of the children and youth are homeschooled, which brought both of my experiences together. I have noticed that homeschooling families have a lot to teach us as religious educators about the development of learning and spirituality.

Our religious education programs often use a "school" model. We segregate children and youth by age, and separate them from their families. We often use a curriculum that has more to do with our agendas than those of the children themselves. We expect children to sit and do structured lessons that may have little to do with the spiritual message we want them to gain. We often ignore the immediate in favor of the planned. Classes tend to be focused more on the teacher than the students. Particularly in the case of younger children, we almost never ask them what they want to learn, or how they would most like to learn it.

As a homeschooling parent and as a religious educator, I believe this structure runs counter to what we want our children and youth to gain from our programs. Unitarian Universalism is a rich faith, and the usual structure of Sunday school often does not reflect that. We focus on the "Education" part of Religious Education to the detriment of the "Religious." We try to teach rather than help children learn. Optimally, our programs should provide children and their families the tools they need to proceed on their own spiritual journeys. Unitarian Universalist practice is a process of learning. Our third and fourth principles are all about learning and growing. Whether the budding (or blossoming) Unitarian Universalist is a toddler in the nursery, a teen in a youth group, or a lifelong UU elder, our faith demands that we never stop learning. In a sense, all of Unitarian Universalism is Religious Education. We're never "done."

Homeschooling families, at their best, learn together in an atmosphere that nourishes the hunger for learning we all have. They recognize that one size does not fit all, and that we all have our own needs. They trust children (and themselves), and recognize that the desire to learn and grow is hard-wired into them. John Holt, a homeschooling guru, writes in How Children Learn (New York: Delacorte Press, 1983) that learning is a matter of faith. "This faith is that by nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."

So, here are some lessons we, as Religious Educators, can learn from homeschoolers.

Life is intergenerational. Homeschooling families rarely segregate their children by grade level. Everyone learns together, individual children and adults organically connecting with the knowledge and experience that matters to them (and is developmentally appropriate) at the time. There is trust that each will also have a bank to draw on as more interest and ability develops.

Our Religious Education programs would be served with more opportunities to learn and worship together, without age barriers.

Children, youth, and adults learn best when the topic to be learned is of their own interests for their own reasons. Think about the things you've learned in life that have been most meaningful and rewarding to you. Are they topics that someone else made you learn, or things you learned because they were important in your life?

Learning spiritually is an organic process. While you may be able to manipulate a child into learning Bible verses or the practices of the major world religions, until those verses or practices are important to the child, they won't have meaning. However, offering a wealth of the spiritual teachings of the world may touch someone and be the beginning of a long, happy journey.

Spirituality and learning are acts of relationship. In our family, most learning happens through conversation and relationship. Rarely does an adult sit down to "teach" something. Instead, we learn and explore together, as a more knowledgeable person shares that knowledge, and questions are asked and answered together. Sometimes we look for answers together. Often, the more knowledgeable person is a child, and the less knowledgeable person an adult.

At their best, our programs should offer youth and children opportunities to learn with, rather than from, the adults in the congregation. A model where an adult does the "teaching" and the child does the "learning" is less effective and less respectful of the child's own spirituality. Children and youth may have as meaningful abilities and spiritual lives as adults.

There are relatively few things it's vital to know, but a world-full of wonderful things to learn. The longer my family homeschools, the fewer specific pieces of knowledge seem imperative to my son's well being. It is more important that he retains a love of learning, and discovers how to learn and find things out. He does not need to memorize dates in history, but knowing how to find them in case he needs them is important. Process is more important than product.

Even if we could all agree on a core curriculum that we feel all Unitarian Universalist children should have, and even if we kept each child from age three to sixteen, every Sunday, in our Religious Education programs, we'd still have them for a very short amount of time. Rather than worrying about imparting specific topics, that time is better spent helping children and youth feel connected to a community and a spiritual journey.

Parents are the primary educators of their children. Whether or not a child goes to school, families are the center of a child's learning. While as ministers and religious educators we can support children, youth, and families in growing in their spiritual journeys, we are a resource rather than the experience itself. The real work happens at home.

The most important reason homeschoolers are successful is that they love their children, which leads them to trust and respect them. Traditional schools cannot offer our children love, but churches can. Our Religious Education programs can be models of love, respect and trust, giving children, youth, and families the tools they need for meaningful spiritual journeys.