Parents as Struggling Teachers Can Have Long-Term Benefits

Remote on-line learning has struck the nation by scholastic storm and report cards are on the way. Many parents have shared how challenging it is to work from home and homeschool their children. One parent told me how his children would ask many questions about their school work that he and his wife struggle to answer. After a few weeks, despite his children learning, he had given himself a “C-” in homeschooling. There may be a surprising lesson to be learned here: Children may be learning to learn independently, and that might be a good thing for the future.

Metacognition, or the awareness of how learning works, and when/how our memory may fail us, is an ongoing process. As a psychology professor at UCLA, I notice how many bright new undergraduate students struggle with how to learn efficiently. Despite long study hours, students (often in their first year) are disappointed in a lower than expected grade on a test or exam. Despite its popularity, highlighting text is not an effective way to learn, and cramming before a test can yield some success but then fast forgetting. I notice by their senior year, many students have learned how to learn: spacing out study sessions well before an exam, testing themselves with flashcards, and teaching challenging concepts to another friend. I outline and encourage students to use these techniques in my classes at UCLA, and include weekly quizzes that allow them to engage in potent “retrieval practice”, which research shows enhance learning much more than simply restudying or highlighting [1]. Many students often comment they wished they learned these techniques earlier in life.

As students of all ages are now learning from home, unbeknownst to their parents, they are being provided with an ideal “college prep” class, where one has to become an efficient self-regulated learner. Metacognition becomes more tuned, meaning students become more aware of what works and what doesn’t, and don’t rely solely on their teacher’s instruction. Well-meaning work-from-home multitasking parents, by revealing their challenges while trying to relearn and teach concepts that they haven’t seen in years, are good role models by demonstrating that not all learning is easy. Research shows that deep/mastery learning is often best when initial challenges are encountered, which then makes learning more effortful [2]. Putting in the initial effort, while making informative mistakes, can lead to long-term retention, proficiency, and future confidence. In the long run, this form of initially challenging learning is better than trying to make learning easy, which then leads to fast forgetting.

Parents are adapting, as I have tried the spaced learning schedule with my energetic 5-year-old son. Instead of one long distracted hour of reading, better outcomes (for both of us) are achieved by breaking this up into shorter 10-minute chunks, especially if he knows there will be time for wrestling or biking after each session. I have learned my wife has more patience and is better at setting up these rewarding learning schedules. When my daughters witness my confusion with their Common Core math, they have to explain it to me and gain some confidence as a teacher and learner. While baking, they then apply their math skills, by measuring and assessing our limited ingredients, as neither my wife nor I can tolerate an hour-long line outside of Trader Joe’s for a bag of flour.

During this work-from-home experiment, I am trying to learn to play the harmonica, watching countless YouTube videos, and struggling to focus for more than a few minutes or play anything remotely musical. We all have experienced the challenges of learning from a computer screen, but people of all ages learn what works even if there is some failure at first.

Time will tell if this anthropological education experiment of learning at home, with more screen time and less commuting (and learning that parents aren’t the best teachers) will yield benefits. We will appreciate our teachers in ways we never have before, having had to assume their roles, and oftentimes feeling like failures. However, the awareness that we can become self-regulated unsupervised learners may allow us to conquer new skills and become more aware of the challenges that can make us more “metacognitively-sophisticated” and knowledgeable.

John Wooden, UCLA’s famous basketball coach, much preferred being referred to as a teacher and not a coach [3]. He said: “You haven’t taught until they have learned.” I think the opposite is now true, as we are learning by teaching our children at home, in that “we haven’t learned until we have taught.” And even if you give yourself a C- as a teacher, your children are learning that it is never too late to learn on your own.