Utterly Meaningless

Another Late Book Report

Filed at 9:35 pm under by dcobranchi

I love finding books that incidentally come to the conclusion that homeschooling is a good thing. Once again, I’m behind in my reading, since this isn’t a brand new book, but I recently picked up In Praise of Slowness: How a Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honoré, and found a several solid pages devoted to homeschooling. And I wasn’t even looking for homeschooling references!

Honoré notes that there are many positive reasons parents choose to homeschool, but specifically points out that “many see home-schooling (sic) as a way to free children from the tyranny of the timetable, to let them learn and live at their own pace. To let them be Slow. Even families that start off home-educating with a rigidly structured day usually end up taking a more fluid, freewheeling tack. On the spur of the moment, if the sun is shining, they might head off on a nature walk or to visit a museum. . . . Both parents and children report that the power to fix their own schedule, or choose their own tempo, helps to curb the hurry reflex.” (page 262).

Honoré has also managed to understand that homeschoolers who don’t begin with “political” or deeply philosophical views about homeschooling may develop these interests. He quotes Roland Meighan, whom he calls a “British expert on homeschooling” as saying, “Once people start asking questions about education, you find they start asking questions about everything – politics, the environment, work. . . .The genie is out of the bottle.” (page 263)

Homeschooling doesn’t mean kids will suffer socially or lag behind, says Honoré, and he follows with a nice anecdote about a thirteen-year old girl who enjoys the pace, fluid schedule, and flexibility of homeschooling. Then he segues into a passage expressing the need for children to play and enjoy unstructured time, which many homeschoolers themselves have found so important to their children’s development.

The homeschooling pages in In Praise of Slowness make up a small part of the book, which also covers the desirability of slow food, patient doctors, and a rather detailed treatment of the benefits of, um, the iconic Slow Hand. But homeschoolers will recognize the re-ordering of priorities that Honoré suggests throughout his book. As the book jacket says, “People are discovering energy and efficiency where we may have least expected – in slowing down.”

We get busy in our house, but homeschooling still leaves us room for Slow. Today our youngest son played barefoot in the grass in the pouring rain under Papa’s big green and white golf umbrella for an hour. He came in saying he was outside “feeling the seasons change.” My neighbors probably wouldn’t, but I know Honoré would approve.

Find Honoré’s website here to read more about the benefits of Slow.

8 comments »

8 Responses to “Another Late Book Report”

Comment by Jason October 7th, 2006 at 9:16 am	There is something very compelling about slowing down, especially for people like me who are chronically unable to slow down. I will definitely check this book out …
Comment by JJ Ross October 7th, 2006 at 3:48 pm	This summer “time” was named the most frequently used word in the English language, and not without reason!
Comment by JJ Ross October 7th, 2006 at 3:55 pm	Daryl, are you up on the Slow Foods Movement yet? A few years back I saw a PDK journal article comparing slow food to slow school, making the case we need a lot more of both than we’re getting for good health . . . I’ll poke around for a link.
Comment by JJ Ross October 7th, 2006 at 4:37 pm	Hey, it’s by Holt! (not John though) December 2002 KAPPAN- It’s Time to Start the Slow School Movement The “slow food” movement began as a protest against the global proliferation of McDonald’s restaurants. Mr. Holt calls for a similar backlash against today’s “hamburger” approach toward education, which emphasizes uniformity, predictability, and measurability of processes and results… (skip to end) There is no reason why the phrase “slow school” should not acquire the cachet associated with “slow food.” In many aspects of life, doing things slowly is associated with profound pleasure. Fast sunbathing is not regarded as particularly enjoyable. If we want to understand a striking baseball catch, we replay it in slow motion… the treasures of Florence… If we want our children to apprehend the variety of human experience and learn how they can contribute to it, we must give them — and their teachers — the opportunity to do so. Let the slow times roll!
Comment by Daryl Cobranchi October 7th, 2006 at 5:25 pm	JJ, Jeanne authored this post. It should have been obvious that it wasn’t one of mine, as I’ve never strung together that many sentences. 🙂
Comment by Jeanne October 7th, 2006 at 5:54 pm	Brevity is not my best quality.
Comment by Daryl Cobranchi October 7th, 2006 at 6:14 pm	Not at all. I simply meant that I couldn’t. I get bogged down after about two paragraphs.
Comment by JJ Ross October 7th, 2006 at 6:24 pm	Duh. Sorry – Hi Jeanne!