Back-to-school is on everyone’s mind lately, and it has inevitably monopolized televisions, retail displays, and the nightly news. There’s something about seeing that first school supply commercial that still sends a chill up my spine. It’s a mix of the eighteen years of first-day jitters I experienced as a student, combined with the five years I spent teaching. Habits built over that amount of time are tough to kick.

My daughter isn’t school age yet, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about her educational future. The poor thing has a math teacher for a father and a former teacher and full-time writer as a mom; talk about nerdy parents who get excited about homework. But that piece isn’t what I’ve thought about when I consider her starting school. In fact, it’s much bigger than that.

Education has changed so much since I was a kid, and it’s only been twenty-seven years since I started kindergarten. Technology is no longer a special class that you attend; it’s integrated into every subject. Teachers rarely stand at the front of the room, with desks in rows, and lecture; it’s much more cooperative and interactive. Even the physical classroom itself, with desks and texts and pencil sharpeners, has changed, pushing outside of its own borders and into interdisciplinary and often virtual realms.

But it’s how education is viewed and approached and valued that interests me. My sister has homeschooled her four children for the last few years, and I’m always amazed at the smorgasbord of educational offerings that they take advantage of. Two of them study classical languages with a local college professor. They take online classes in government and history. The younger ones learn Spanish from a tutor. The arts and p.e. classes are taken with a group of other local homeschoolers. My sister works with them on their writing and math – both of which are becoming more of a self-directed study for the older kids.

As a teacher, this approach to learning makes a lot of sense to me. It seems like kids should be able to have these different types of learning experiences – one-on-one, small group, independent study, and large group – while they’re young, so that they can apply the skills learned in different environments when they are older. Whether you send your children to public school, private school, or homeschool isn’t really the issue. No matter what educational facility we choose, parents have the job of helping our children become active and independent in their learning.

There is a lot of fear on the part of parents out there as their children get older, often related to personal academic anxiety. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase, “I want to help her, but I just don’t understand the new math.”

What message does that send to our children? That if they just don’t understand something they shouldn’t try? That they can’t do something if they don’t have help? That they can’t work with their parents to solve a problem? Most parents I know don’t want to convey those message to their children, which is why it’s so important to teach your kids how to be active in their education.

Let me clarify. I’m not talking about hovering over your kids every night and making sure every word is spell-checked, every reading log up-to-the-minute, every math problem triple checked. I’m talking about teaching them to care about these things by showing them that learning is a process without an end. Let them see you grapple with a work problem and celebrate when you solve it. Let them experience natural consequences. Let them ask you questions about what you do, how you continue to learn, and how you find answers to questions when you get stuck.  

One of my favorite things about my job as a writer is that I learn so much every time I write a new article – even if it’s something I have a background in, I’m always surprised by something I learn through research or an interview. But I also love tackling unfamiliar topics, because they help me make connections, and keep me up-to-date on what’s new and exciting in different industries.

Our children’s teachers have the important job of enriching our children with content and concepts; parents need to find ways to support this at home. The learning habits parents enforce at home determine what kind of learners our kids will become. And while I personally have a few years until my daughter starts school, I’m looking forward to helping her choose her own “ed” ventures.