The Place of Work Place Style Learning

By Rosanne Trevaskis

The last issue of Otherways provided a useful summary of the research on home education and children with special needs. In it, Sue identified the importance of the one-to-one teaching relationship.

“All the research shows that home education offers more individual attention which is believed to be the vital ingredient necessary for academic success in the education of children with LD” (p19).

However, individual attention alone, even when the teacher/parent is able to teach at or close to the Zone of Proximal Develoment (Vygotsky) is insufficient to explain the amazing synergy which exists between the learning disabled child and an educationally stimulating home education environment. Are there, therefore, other learning factors specific to the home educating household that help the LD child academically?

The previous article listed several explanations for improved uptake by the child eg less stress, less trauma, improved modelling, better engagement ratios and more available time. My own research also proposed that home education be viewed as a form of workplace learning, that is, learning “on the job”..

John Peacock, through his study of Lave and Wenger (researchers into workplace learning), has I believe, put us onto the right track by describing the home educating home as a community of learning practice. I attempted to develop his insights by suggesting that home educating families (as distinct from home classroom-schooling families) actually practice workplace learning with its associated apprentice-style learning relationships. The understanding of home education as a form of workplace learning advances our understanding of why LD children learn better via home education but also relates to the issue of maternal distress and is therefore too important to be ignored.

Workplace learning is valuable to the LD child because it is highly kinesthetic; uses individualised instruction or small groups; begins with peripheral participation and develops from there i.e. starts at the participant’s level; is contextualised and therefore useful; is meaningfully repetitive; increases the participant’s prestige within their culture/family; is not competitive and is not language based; to name a few.

While some formal “teaching” has a place in education, it is not the ONLY way to learn as I’m sure you will agree. Once home educating parents understand that children learn simply by being around more expert members of the culture mothers will be relieved of the teaching burden (which is immense in the case of LD children) and from the isolation and stress of being the sole or main “Teacher”. When fathers and other family members realise they don’t have to TEACH a child per se, but that s/he will learn simply by letting him/her “hang around ” with them while they do what they always do in life e.g. a father fixing the car, a grandfather in the workshop etc. then fathers or family members will be more inclined to include children in their daily lives and let them learn ‘on the job’.

So the pressure on Mum is relieved because others, especially Dads will have been drawn into the circle of learning expertise BUT at their own particular confidence level and in their preferred environment. Satisfaction and relationships will improve accordingly and maternal overload will be relieved.

Research has still to verify whether workplace learning can be shown to be common to all or most home education practice. From observation of many home educating families and much discussion, it appears to be well utilised by those families who are functioning well and is of particular importance in the home education of children with special needs.

Rosanne has home educated her own five daughters and completed her Masters thesis Home Education: The Curriculum is Life on home educating her own special needs children in 2005.

References

• Barratt-Peacock, J. (1997). The Why and How of Australian home education. Dept of Education. Melbourne, Latrobe University.
• Moll, L. e. (1990). Vygotsky and Education. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.