I recently received a question from a reader about Elon Musk\u2019s recent comments on \u201ctraditional schools\u201d and how he thinks they fail students. As a retired school teacher and current homeschool educator, this is an exceptionally relevant conversation that I am particularly qualified to address.<\/p>\n
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As I see it, Elon Musk has a few core concerns when it comes to traditional education<\/strong>. The objections he discusses most frequently tend to boil down to two major categories: problem solving and creative thinking. In a recent interview, Musk had this to say:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to teach problem-solving. Let\u2019s say you\u2019re trying to teach how engines work. Now, a traditional way is to teach all about screwdrivers and wrenches, which is a very difficult way to do it. A good approach would be like: Here\u2019s an engine, let\u2019s take it apart and how are we gonna do that? We need a screwdriver or a wrench for that. When we teach like this, something important happens, the relevance of the tools becomes apparent.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My Thoughts About This Quote: <\/strong><\/p>\n I have a feeling that most of my readers are expecting me to argue or completely disagree with what Mr. Musk is saying here. The truth is, I don\u2019t. I think he\u2019s exactly right and it\u2019s a large part of why I chose to homeschool<\/strong> my children rather than place them into a public or charter school. In reality, modern schools fail the children that they are meant to support. They teach rigid coursework that focuses on consuming information rather than utilizing knowledge. It\u2019s something that I struggled with as a teacher for over twenty-five years. There were several times where I would discuss with the principal of my school about hands on learning opportunities only to receive budgetary or time limitations that made those activities impossible. Activities like robot building competitions and debate meets where students would engage with other children and adults in real world learning. Instead, I was told to teach<\/a> the established coursework and fall in line. I saw how this type of rigidity failed my students over and over again.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I didn\u2019t know what to do to change the school system until years later when my own children were ready to begin their education. I remember those conversations with my husband well. They were hard and went long into the night. He had gone to public school and was a strong advocate for the social opportunities<\/strong> inherent in attending classrooms filled with twenty to forty students. Eventually though, he saw where I was coming from and agreed to a homeschooling structure for at least the first few years. I wasn\u2019t even close to ready for how hard those initial years would be!<\/p>\n The Merits Behind Homeschooling: <\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve ever talked to someone who homeschools their children, I bet they told you that it was the hardest thing they had ever done. That\u2019s an understatement. Creating a curriculum from scratch that keeps your children busy throughout the school week is a massively complicated undertaking. On top of that, you need to be able to provide concrete answers to subjects you may have not studied since you were your children\u2019s age. That struggle though, proves Mr. Musk\u2019s point. Rather than having a structured curriculum to fall back on, I was being forced to problem solve, customize, and improvise an education that I thought was suitable for my kids. This led to breakthroughs and new opportunities in teaching that I had only dreamed of as a teacher. I was able to engage my children in all sorts of hands-on learning opportunities, including: structured debates about current social, political, and scientific issues; a robotics competition that we nearly won; and biological studies at the nearby nature center. More than anything, homeschooling taught my children how to be proactively curious.<\/p>\n