Embracing Self-Directed Education
There are three areas where we as parents tend to have the hardest time embracing Self-Directed Education (SDE): letting kids have access to digital technology, letting kids solve their own problems and manage their own social struggles, and waiting for kids to come to academics on their own. These are also some of the most researched, contemplated, discussed, grappled-with, and written-about issues in the theory and practice of SDE. Here is a sample of our own experience with each of them.
Letting kids have access to digital technology
A couple of years ago, Vanessa Niro and I wrote an article on Peter Gray's Substack entitled What Do Kids at a Center for Self-Directed Education Do on Their Smartphones?. This was an informal survey of a group of our teen members. Here’s what we found:
Most of the teens we spoke with did not use social media at all, and those who did generally used it for less than an hour a day. This was not due to limits or restrictions set by their parents. It was something they had come to on their own after years of experimenting and learning to manage their priorities. They were very aware of the dangers and pitfalls of various digital technologies, and they demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the kinds of tactics used by video games and social media to manipulate their attention and behavior. They had figured out for themselves how to recognize when they were being drawn into something that wasn't serving their interests and how to avoid getting sucked into it. In fact, they were even more well-informed about the potential dangers and harms and more critical of certain aspects of technology and the internet than many adults I’ve talked to who have more of a secondhand knowledge of the things kids do on their devices.
But they had also found ways to harness the power of technology to enhance their lives. They used it to explore things they were curious about, pursue deeper knowledge in areas of interest, connect with other people and communities based on shared interests, stay connected to their friends, and stay organized and achieve their objectives and goals more effectively. Having the freedom, trust, guidance, and support to explore, experiment, and make mistakes taught them how to use technology toward their own ends instead of being used by it.
One of the key factors in helping kids develop healthy habits around technology at the Center, which we did not discuss in the article but which bears mentioning here, is the way staff engage members in thoughtful conversations about online safety, media literacy,and healthy technology use. Staff are well-informed about the benefits and risks of kids’ use of digital technology and the internet and are committed to maintaining a safe and appropriate environment for kids to explore technology. We also encourage parents to engage their kids’ in conversations about their kids’ online interests and to come at it from a place of curiosity and non-judgement. When kids feel understood, supported, and cared for by the adults in their lives, they are much more likely to come to those adults openly when they have questions or concerns about what they are encountering online. It’s also important for us as adults to be informed and not motivated by fear. We recommend https://www.thegamereducator.com/ as a useful resource to start from.
Letting kids solve their own problems and manage their own social struggles
If you have spent time around the Center at all, you’ve seen how friendly and respectful the older kids are toward each other, toward the staff, and toward the younger kids. This has always been one of the greatest strengths of the SDE model and of Macomber in particular. The kids who grow up here have had years to practice relating to people of different ages, personalities, and backgrounds, navigating difficult social dynamics, and resolving their own conflicts in an environment where no one is managing their social interactions for them.
While kids in more typical settings are expected to “behave” so that the program can be administered without distraction or disruption, kids at the Center are free to pursue their own interests, activities, and relationships. But they understand very well that doing those things successfully, in a way that brings the joy and satisfaction they are seeking, depends on their ability to get along well with other people. They have to learn how to communicate, cooperate, negotiate, compromise, resolve conflicts, set boundaries, repair relationships, and navigate the inevitable difficulties of playing, living, and working alongside other people. They are therefore intrinsically motivated to develop these skills because they need them to create the kind of life they want to live.
This is not to say that kids are left on their own to navigate challenging social dynamics or solve difficult problems. In fact, one of the important skills kids at the Center develop is learning when and how to ask for help from someone besides their parents whether from an older kid or a staff member. This is an indispensable skill they need to develop, and it is why it is important for parents not to immediately step in when they hear that their child is having a difficult time at the Center, but instead to encourage them to seek help from the people who are there to support them. When parents trust this process, they are communicating, without words, that the staff are trustworthy and supportive adults who can help their child when things get hard.
Waiting for kids to come to academics on their own
It is quite common for self-directed learners to suddenly become interested in some form of formal academic study somewhere between the ages of 13 and 17. We see this every year at the Center. One year, we decided to document it because it is something parents often ask about. We wrote about a group of teens who decided they wanted to see whether they could place into high school or college-level academics. They began studying writing and math together with a couple of our staff members, eventually took a placement test together, and went on to try some college classes. You can read more about it HERE.
To summarize, what we saw with this particular group is fairly typical for kids who have never been made to do academics. They approached the process with curiosity, enthusiasm, and ambition. They approached learning this new material with the creativity, open-mindedness, and resourcefulness that they bring to everything else they are genuinely interested in and fascinated by. They did not approach it with any sense of external pressure or competitiveness, but instead engaged collaboratively and were eager to help each other along. Finally, they demonstrated a remarkable ability which has long been documented in the SDE literature: they learned in a matter of months what school makes kids drag out over years.
Notably, the kids who already had experience with formal academic learning did not, on the whole, do better or progress faster than those who had never sat down with paper and pencil to work with numbers and letters. In the end, every one of them placed at grade level, and many placed into college-level math and writing.
The magic ingredient
So why do Macomber kids end up being so successful in these three areas? It really comes down to a single, critical factor: They have a deep, intuitive sense of being in control of their own lives, and they see their education, the process by which they shape their lives, as their responsibility.
This distinction between education as one’s own responsibility and education as something one receives from an external authority was driven home for me when I was conducting alumni interviews over the summer. I asked Martin, one of our early members who has now finished college and had a couple different careers, how his Macomber experience prepared him for college. He told me that he realized he was different from his classmates during his first semester in college when his math professor asked him to help tutor other students in her class. She told him that most students just want to know the formulas they need to get the correct answers, but that she had noticed something different about him. He always needed to understand why those formulas work. This is why she chose him to help other students. So he began tutoring 20-year-olds while he was still only 17.
Martin is not some kind of math genius. In fact, he only started learning math for the first time as a teenager with one of our staff members at the Macomber Center when he decided he wanted to go to college.
This is the difference between someone who has learned to take responsibility for their own education and someone who relates to education as something that is imposed on them.
Academics vs. Essential Knowledge and Skills of Self-Directed Education
Kids at the Center have no trouble learning traditional academics when they are ready and when it matters to them. But looking for this to happen as a sign of the success of this model is barking up the wrong tree.
The essential knowledge and skills of SDE are not easy to observe or assess, which is why they require us as parents to understand what they are, why they are so important, and how kids acquire them, and to trust that they reliably emerge when kids are in control of their own lives. These are the skills and knowledge kids are working so hard every day to acquire at the Center, even if they’re not aware of it, and even if we as parents don’t always recognize it as such.
here’s how I have formulated what I think of as the essential knowledge and skills of self directed education:
Self-Knowledge
The product of years spent exploring their interests, discovering and developing their unique talents and strengths, experimenting with different versions of themselves and different ways of being in the world, and figuring out what is important to them, what they value, what motivates them, and how they learn best.
Self-Direction
The ability to identify and pursue the things that bring them joy, meaning, and satisfaction.
Self-Design
The ability to create the conditions, including knowledge, skills, social connections, and arrangements, for their own happiness.
Preparedness for Adulthood
The ability to translate their interests, talents, and strengths into meaningful, satisfying adult work.
Mastery of Learning
In the future, it’s not going to be what they already know that helps them; it's going to be their ability to adapt quickly and easily to constantly changing conditions and to learn new things quickly and effectively.
Diligence
Self-directed learners learn to persevere in the face of hardship, difficulty, and frustration when it’s part of pursuing meaningful goals.
Conclusion
What parent doesn’t want their child to be intrinsically motivated, take control of their own lives, embrace difficulty when it is tied to meaningful goals, dive headlong into academic and intellectual endeavors, and, yes, impose their own limits on activities they find magnetic but ultimately unsatisfying and unrewarding?
Unfortunately, they are unlikely to just magically take responsibility for their own education if we are doing all the work for them, placing limits on their technology use, stepping in to solve their problems and manage their relationships for them, and telling them what to learn and when they have to learn it. We have to let them take control and steer their own ship, even when it looks like they are heading in the wrong direction or not moving at all!
This means that we, as the adults in their lives, have to learn to bear some of the discomfort, impatience, and worry that can come with letting kids find their own way. One of the most helpful things we can do is educate ourselves about Self-Directed Education. There are now so many excellent podcasts, videos, books, and articles about how SDE works and why it works. The more we understand the process, the easier it becomes to trust it. You can’t really have faith in a process you don’t understand.
And parents don’t have to figure this out alone. The staff at the Center can be an important resource for helping parents understand what they are seeing, work through their worries, and stick with the process when it is difficult to do so. We have been through it. James grew up self-directed, as did Ben, who is now raising his own children this way. Matt and Kerry have raised their children here since they were four and six years old, and Denise has two adult children who went through SDE from a very young age. She has also been doing this work for almost 40 years. We have seen the process unfold over and over again, and we know how hard it can sometimes be for parents to trust what they are seeing. That experience is part of what we are here to offer.
