Redefining motherhood and teaching in home education
Relationships are absolutely essential to learning. Without good relationships learning much more difficult. Before I became a home educator I had little awareness about how our relationship with our children would influence our home educating journey. I had an inkling but as with so many things in life I had to experience it to really understand. This opened up a whole new perspective on the teaching and learning relationship that I was fascinated by and consequently became the focus of my doctoral research.
When exploring what other researchers had covered in this area I came across a paper by Lois (2006) that particularly resonated. Lois (2006) notes that the role of ‘parent’ impacts significantly on the role of ‘teacher’ in home educating families. The ‘emotional labour’ of motherhood is therefore also influenced by the child becoming not just a son or daughter, but a student. This drastically differentiates the home educating mother from the classroom teacher. In light of this, Lois used grounded theory to explore how home educating mothers adjusted to the role of teacher, formulating a four stage model to explain this process:
Stage 1: Role ambiguity At first mothers were unsure how to be a teacher and a mother, leading to insecurity. In response many felt the need to structure learning by, for example, investing in curriculums. Experienced home educators would advise the opposite, to be more relaxed, flexible and not doubt their ability but this served to heighten anxiety among some mothers rather than reduce it. In response, mothers sought to alleviate their anxiety by employing a rigid, structured approach which brought respite – for a while.
Stage 2: Role failure For most of the mothers using this structured approach, the initial respite from anxiety abruptly came to an end when their children lost motivation and lacked the expected progress. Managing their children’s negative emotion towards learning was very draining and mothers’ happiness was often intimately linked with whether their children conformed to their expectations of performance. If a child was perceived as ‘slow’ this led to a reduced sense of accomplishment. These events led to extreme feelings of failure and fear of ‘ruining’ their children. In response, the mothers further upped the pressure, introducing an even more intense curriculum.
Stage 3: Role conflict and overload Being torn between professional and mother roles – either enforcing learning or responding to children’s emotional need for comfort – led many to burnout. This was compounded by the responsibility for managing the household. In response some mothers tried to juggle all of it, compartmentalising roles and keeping them separate or looking to religious beliefs for support.
Stage 4: Role harmony Some mothers moved through the period of burnout by prioritising the role of motherhood over housework and being more relaxed and flexible with their curriculum, re-defining the role of teacher as ‘facilitator’. These approaches assisted mothers to obtain harmony and for many this also meant relying upon partners to help with the housework.
Lois concludes that in the initial stages of home educating, mothers only had traditional conceptions of ‘mother’ and ‘teacher’ to draw upon yet committing to these definitions was extremely difficult, if not impossible, as they led to conflict in their relationship with their children. This links with the work described another paper by Lois (2009) that identified how cultural ideas about motherhood are frequently insufficient to cater for mothers who are home educating (I shall write about this another time!). In addition, traditional definitions of what it means to learn and teach are based upon the school system and do not cater for the home education process. Mothers are required to discover new definitions which can be a challenging process.
Lois, J. (2006). Role Strain, Emotion Management, and Burnout: Homeschooling Mothers’ Adjustment to the Teacher Role. Symbolic Interaction, 29(4), 507-530. doi:10.1525/si.2006.29.4.507
Lois, J. (2009). Emotionally layered accounts: Homeschoolers’ justifications for maternal deviance. Deviant Behavior, 30(2), 201-234. doi:10.1080/01639620802069783Ahmed (2012).
Best wishes, Kasia