Learning is your responsibility.
I tell my kids that all the time. They know they must learn something every day (including days they don’t have school), whether or not someone has taught them anything. The death knell for them would be to come home from school and tell me they hadn’t learned anything. Sometimes I think they scramble for some shareable learning, just so they don’t have to deal with me. I’m fine with that – as long as they are learning.
During this COVID-19 pandemic crisis, with so much of society shut down, including schools, the mantra “Learning is your responsibility” resonates in our home. My kids realize that even though they cannot attend school, they still need to learn.
They also know learning doesn’t necessarily look like poring over textbooks and articles. It can, but it can also look like watching videos on how to make pasta then testing out skills in the kitchen or fine-tuning a fingering technique on a musical instrument.
My kids have only been out of school for a little over a week, and the first week of that was spring break, so we are still new at homeschooling, unschooling, or whatever kind of schooling we are calling this. Armed with the materials their teachers and district have prepared, the internet, and our own curiosity, my kids and I have embarked on a new education journey. We will have our triumphs and our missteps, but it’s my responsibility to keep us moving forward.
As a parent, I must set the tone of daily learning in our home, so not only do I tend to their learning, I stay cognizant of my own. My kids don’t always ask me what I learned, but sometimes they do, and woe to me if I can’t answer.
Lately, I’ve been learning about various online platforms. I learned about Eventbrite to create registration pages for upcoming LELA House events. I learned about Doodly to create a video about Octavia E. Butler (my all-time favorite author). I’m learning about Wordpress every day as I blog for LELA House and on my personal blog.
What about you? What are you learning?
Even if you’re no longer in school, I encourage you to make learning a daily activity. The article “8 Benefits of Lifelong Learning” urges readers to adopt the practice of intentional learning for the following reasons.
- Improving self confidence
- Fighting boredom
- Maintaining brain health
- Learning skills
- Modeling positive behavior
- Learning for the sake of enjoyment (of course!)
- Sleeping better
- Staying healthy
If you want to partner with someone as you figure out how to incorporate intentional learning into your already full life and work to improve your confidence and pursue your passions, please contact me. I would love to join you on your journey.
If you like what you read and think others will, too, please share.