Kids feel free to explore when they feel safe. Safe from physical harm. Safe from harsh criticism. Safe from bullies. If we want kids to follow their muses and curiously explore the world, they need to know they dwell in safety. If a school cannot guarantee a child’s safety, it will never produce a lifelong learner.
As a part of my interview series about “5 Things You Need To Know To Be A Highly Effective Educator”, I had the pleasure to interview Donna Baer.
Donna left the world of investment banking in the 1980s to homeschool her ten children. She’s taught every subject, K-12, including AP classes and fine arts. In her free time, she’s written blogs and books on parenting and education, including the title Strong Happy Family: Unexpected Advice from an Ivy League Mom of Ten, and has recently released a course with Wondrium/The Great Courses Plus called “How to Raise Lifelong Learners.” You can learn more about her at stronghappyfamily.org.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the “backstory”behind what brought you to this particular career path?
Well, I suppose no little girl sits in her playroom and dreams, “One day I’ll have ten kids, and I’ll quit my lucrative job, and I’ll spend thirty years teaching my kids myself at home.” But that’s what I did, so I suppose my career arc came as a surprise even to me.
When I left Brown in the early 1980s, I landed a job that I loved at an investment banking firm in Chicago. A few years later when I was pregnant with my first child, I fully intended to return to work after she was born. That is, until I met her. I just fell head over heels in love with her and decided to change course and go all-in as a mom. And did I ever. I loved raising my ten kids.
The choice to teach our kids at home really stemmed from a disappointment in my own education. My early success in school was entirely fear-based: I was afraid to cross my teachers so I learned all the little hacks to succeed in the classroom without really deeply understanding any topic. At Brown, with its vaunted “Open Curriculum,” I was able to pursue my passion for science, but never learned anything about history or literature. I wanted something different for my kids. I wanted them to fall in love with learning and explore all the disciplines of knowledge from a place of rest and joy.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your teaching career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
The thing that has surprised me most in my decades of teaching teenagers is realizing how quickly they can change — sometimes for the worse, but much more often for the better. There seems to be a fog that lifts in many kids’ heads somewhere during adolescence that turns them into critical thinkers, sometimes overnight.
I can think of no better example than my eighth child. He stumbled through grade school, junior high and high school in a kind of somnambulistic daze. If I gave an instruction, he’d invariably ask for it to be repeated. His face was locked in a perpetual perplexed expression. There seemed to be a befuddling haze clouding his mind.
In his junior year of high school, he took the ACT exam and scored in the 12th percentile. Though this was disappointing, it really came as no surprise to me. Consequently, we started talking about gap years and career paths that didn’t require higher education.
Then, a few months later, he seemed to change. The mist in his mind seemed to burn away. Overnight he was able to grasp theses, analyze propositions, and critique arguments. He moved from concrete to abstract thinking in the blink of an eye!
He retook the ACT exam. This time, just six months after his first attempt, he scored in the 91st percentile! All the teaching I had done seemed to have been locked up behind a dam in his brain, and the dam burst in an instant.
I share this story with parents and teachers who are worried about kids who are trying hard, but just not “getting it.” Time was the only thing my son needed to “fix” his problem. It’s a solution that is sometimes neglected in modern education.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
I’m really excited about the course that I developed with Wondrium/The Great Courses called “How to Raise Lifelong Learners.” I relied heavily on Wondrium courses as I homeschooled my junior high and high school kids. (It was called the Teaching Company back in the day.) The Shakespeare scholar from Dartmouth and the American lit guru from Brown became part of my “faculty” as we listened to their amazing courses from the comfort of our sofa. When Wondrium asked me to create a course, it was like a rabid baseball fan had been called up to the Big Leagues! I’m excited to share what I’ve learned from homeschooling for thirty years, and honored to be doing it with a company I respect so much.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. From your point of view, how would you rate the results of the US education system?
I want to paraphrase Lincoln who said of a book he was asked to review, “People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.” People who are succeeding in the US educational system will find they are succeeding there. That is to say, the US system works really well for some kinds of learners. It works for little boys who can sit still for long periods of time. It works for little girls who like to color neatly between the lines. It works for kids who hit the benchmarks at the “right” time.
Sadly, I think our current system fails super-energetic kids. Or late bloomers. Or kids who are bullied. Or kids who prefer to learn independently. Or kinesthetic learners. Or really creative kids. It’s a bit one-size-fits-all. If you happen to fit into that size, you can receive a great education in the US. If you don’t fit into the mold, you run the risk of being left behind.
Can you identify 5 areas of the US education system that are going really great?
When I think of the education system in the US, I think of public schools, private schools, charter schools, and home schools. While it’s hard to lump all these groups together, there are collectively many things to laud:
American teachers are amazingly gifted, dedicated professionals. You cannot match their passion in any other field.
The flexibility and ingenuity required to switch abruptly to an online teaching environment during the pandemic was a Herculean feat that the US system accomplished with aplomb. All teachers and administrators ought to be applauded for how they executed that course change. Homeschoolers certainly experienced less upheaval, but even they had to make adjustments.
Educators in the US have incorporated new technologies into the ancient art of teaching, reaching kids in ways we didn’t dream of even a decade ago. Teachers’ willingness to constantly hone their craft benefits students in every kind of school.
Schools have more and more come to recognize the value in nurturing the whole student. Teachers care about physical and emotional health, and strive to challenge kids in STEM+ courses, fine arts, and the humanities.
The variety of educational options now available to parents and kids is beginning to break the one-size-fits-all straightjacket that has traditionally encumbered the US system.
Can you identify the 5 key areas of the US education system that should be prioritized for improvement? Can you explain why those are so critical?
When kids have a passion for learning and possess the skills they need to teach themselves, they will soar. The US system should be prioritized to focus in the early years on drilling the fundamentals: reading, writing, and arithmetic. Once kids acquire these skills, teachers really become coaches who give advice and cheer their students on. As kids are passionately pursuing their interests, classroom discipline problems vanish.
A focus on the fundamental is grades K-3 would include:
An intensive phonics program that is taught in first grade and repeated in second grade.
A writing program that employs the time-tested model of copying, restating, and emulating.
A math program that focuses on memorizing the arithmetic facts: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squares and square roots, with tables from 0–15. These facts should be cemented in kids’ memories; recall should not require pausing or finger-counting.
Ample time for read-aloud practice.
Ample time for quietly reading excellent literature.
Drilling the basic skills doesn’t have to be dull: songs with hand motions, recitations with exercising, and writing in unique mediums are among the ways to bring variety and joy to mastering the fundamentals. A good teacher can make a child eager to master the multiplication tables or memorize spelling lists.
Super. Here is the main question of our interview. Can you please share your “5 Things You Need To Know To Be A Highly Effective Educator?” Please share a story or example for each.
The way I see it, the goal of any educational system should be to create lifelong learners. No school can teach children everything they’ll need to know for the rest of their lives, but if schools can entice kids to fall in love with learning and give them the tools to teach themselves, then those kids will be prepared for anything the world throws at them.
Sadly, many of our schools are not oriented toward creating lifelong learners who possess the tools to teach themselves. A lot of modern education focuses on testing, meeting benchmarks, and “preparing kids for jobs” — even though we have no idea what kinds of jobs will exist twenty years from now. For schools to really prepare kids for a future of unknown challenges and possibilities, they need to shift the paradigm and begin to think about fanning the flames of curiosity to mold kids who have a passion for learning.
As a homeschooler I had the privilege of structuring my school toward the goal of raising lifelong learners. Though some of my practices might be difficult to implement in a large institutional setting, others can be adapted for use in public, private, and charter schools. I’ll list a few of the insights that helped me raise ten lifelong learners — and, I suppose, made me a highly effective educator.
Kids bloom at their own pace. I had a son who learned to read when he was four. I had another who couldn’t read until he was nine. (The latter made the Dean’s List every semester at a very selective college; the former did not!) Focusing on benchmarks can frustrate late bloomers. They can begin to believe they are stupid, give up trying, and never meet their full potential. I was decades into my teaching career when my late-blooming son came along. I had enough professional confidence to know there was not a neurological issue at play, so I gave him space to grow and bloom at his own pace. At age nine he finally began sounding out basal readers. By age ten he was reading Shakespeare. And curiously, I believe my willingness to back off allowed my son to develop his super-power: Since he was curious, he was always asking questions. Since he couldn’t read, he always listened very carefully to my answers. Today, that young man has a steel-trap memory for anything he hears! He listens to history podcasts on double speed and remembers all the details, even years later. I believe if I had forced him to read when he was not ready, he never would have developed his super-power.
Kids need time to follow their passions. Scads of time. Hours and hours to sit in rapt concentration, building their robots or composing their scores or constructing their treehouses. A school day that allows no time for kids to concentrate on their passions robs kids of a tool for building lifelong learning. My daughter is a genius in this regard. She schedules nothing for her kids from noon to five each day. No lessons. No sports practices. No playdates. No homework. (Also, importantly, no TV.) Her ten-year-old spends hours teaching himself coding and is building a mechanical arm. Her seven-year-old has taught herself to play piano beautifully and spends hours illustrating books she’s writing. Passions like these don’t develop in 20-minute blocks of scheduled time. They unfold in the unhurried peace of free time.
Kids who fall in love with books fall in love with learning. And kids don’t fall in love with books unless they’re read to a lot when they’re little. Then, they must read aloud a lot. Then, they must be given hours and hours of free time to read excellent books. I hear parents and teachers lament often about kids who show no interest in reading. They often name electronic devices as the culprit. And to be sure, smartphones and video games can rob children of their inquisitiveness. But parents and teachers must give kids solid reading skills, then entice them toward good literature if they expect them to be drawn away from the blue light toward the warm fires of a good book. In my experience, it takes years of dutiful phonics lessons, reading practice, and read-aloud time for a child to develop a taste for reading. Then, adults need to be discerning to present only the best literature for children to devour. If kids begin reading garbage, they will quickly lose their taste for books. Who likes the taste of garbage? My Wondrium course contains a curated book list that can help any parent or teacher get started on serving up a diet of delicious books.
Kids feel free to explore when they feel safe. Safe from physical harm. Safe from harsh criticism. Safe from bullies. If we want kids to follow their muses and curiously explore the world, they need to know they dwell in safety. If a school cannot guarantee a child’s safety, it will never produce a lifelong learner. In a home, this takes the form of harmony among family members. This requires intentionality, since we often put our guards down at home and let the ugliest parts of our personalities come out. When all the members of a family are committed to living in lovingkindness, kids feel safe to explore. In a traditional classroom, safeguards need to be in place to rein in abusive teachers, bullying classmates, and cruel cliques. I don’t pretend that this is an easy thing to do, but it is a necessary prerequisite for setting a child free to learn. A child won’t set his mind to working on a complex problem if he’s constantly looking over his shoulder to see who’s mocking him.
The best way to train a lifelong learner, i.e., to be an effective educator, is to model relentless inquiry. Curiosity is not taught; it is caught. When kids hear their teacher saying, “That’s a great question! Let’s look that up right now!” that habit will rub off on them. When kids see mom with her nose in a book or dad focused on a history documentary, they learn that this is how adults behave. And learning alongside a child is a beautiful bonding experience; you will have treasured memories of the time you explored the Fibonacci sequence together or learned to play a duet on the ukulele.
As you know, teachers play such a huge role in shaping young lives. What would you suggest needs to be done to attract top talent to the education field?
Teaching is a calling for people who are blessed with very unique gifts. Excellent teachers can synthesize complex information and restate it simply. They help young minds organize knowledge. They have a passion for the subject matter they teach. They inspire students to strive for excellence. They nurture a child’s natural curiosity.
Sadly, many teaching jobs require so much clerical, secretarial, and administrative work that gifted teachers find they spend little time each day using their amazing gifts. People who are passionate about teaching often find their gifts are being wasted, and they move on to other fields that will appreciate their talents. Some of them even migrate to homeschooling where they can exercise their passion for teaching without being encumbered by bureaucracy.
To attract and retain superb teachers, the job description must be revamped. Administrators need to clear away suffocating loads of paperwork, mindless meetings, and endless documentation requirements, allowing teachers to do what they love and serve their students well.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
William Butler Yeats said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”
I try to recall those words every day when I teach. All teachers can slip into the habit of thinking, “Here’s this body of knowledge I need to pour into my students. Here’s the checklist. Here’s my deadline. Go!”
I have to remind myself all the time that my job is not to fill the pail of my students’ heads, but to present information in a way that makes them want to consume the information. Like a consuming fire. This means meeting each student where he is, and figuring out what motivates him. It means presenting information in a manner that resonates with the student’s values and experiences. It means getting out of the way when the fire begins to blaze!
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Tim Tebow seems like a nice young man who really enjoyed his homeschool career. He would be a lot of fun to have at lunch, especially if I could bring along my eight homeschool-graduated sons.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
I’m on Facebook @stronghappyfamily, and on Instagram @stronghappy_family.
Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!
