Who Is a Teacher?

I came upon some articles lately that made some pretty strong statements about homeschooling, in particular that parents aren’t qualified to teach their own kids at home, and that only a certified teacher can provide a child a proper education. With the buzz over the California decision I just felt it might lift some spirits to look at just who “qualifies” as a teacher.

Governments across North America have pretty much got a monopoly on pedagogy. They determine when our children must go to school, they fund and oversee the schools, and they decide who is and who is not certified to be a teacher. Even in many private schools the government has its say: private schools very often receive government subsidies in exchange for complying with the state’s rules about teacher certification and educational program.

It is interesting to note that until a very short time ago, in the greater scheme of things, public schools did not exist and teachers were simply those who taught. In the days of the old one-room school house teachers were hired and paid by the school trustees, usually parents and community leaders. There was no certification process, and rules for teacher suitability often placed emphasis on the candidate’s moral standards and behaviour - forbidding a teacher from being shaved in a public barber shop for example, or from wearing bright colours. In many places male teachers were given leave to go courting in the evening, but female teachers were dismissed if they received gentleman callers or even if they got married. Teachers were expected to go to church and to maintain discipline in the schoolhouse. They were expected to keep the school clean, and to observe a curfew. Rules were much more concerned with teacher behaviour than training or competence as an instructor.

If we go further back in time we will find first that a) most children who received formal instruction were essentially homeschooled and b) most of their instructors were servants or even slaves to whom the job was assigned because they could read and write. Any tradition of teaching being a specialized career that requires a great deal of training is a fairly new one.

The dictionary tends to reflect a sort of social consensus about the meaning of a word. While there can be different meanings taken or different meanings depending on the context or use of a word, the dictionary generally won’t list a definition unless there is some agreement on it. A fairly good chunk of the population must be summoning up a given image or concept, when they think of the word at hand. Otherwise the definition will be marked with a notation, such as “rarely” or “archaic.”

So what does the dictionary say about teachers? That’s not rocket science: it says that a teacher is one who teaches, especially if this is the main occupation of the individual.

I love dictionary tag, and I’m also not the kind of person to leave my readers with an answer that just repeats the question in a different form. So I went looking for the definition of the verb, to teach. I consulted a number of dictionaries, and what I found was that there are six activities that each come up in at least two dictionaries as being a definition or component of teaching.
They are: 1) to impart knowledge to; 2) to guide the studies of; 3) to train the habits of; 4) to cause to learn by experience or example; 5) to advocate something; 6) to carry on regular instruction in.

You’ll note that nowhere in any of the definitions is a specific certification or type of training mentioned. Rather, according to our dictionaries, to be a teacher is to teach. And to teach is basically to assist someone in learning something.

OK let’s do a bit of a test: does the average homeschooling parent qualify as a teacher according to these criteria? Let’s use the six components of that definition. Does a homeschooling parent:

1. Impart knowledge to his children? Yes. Parents in general impart knowledge to their children, and on a regular basis. Homeschooling parents, however, have committed themselves to providing their children at home a well rounded learning experience that is equivalent or even superior to that which they would receive in public school.
2. Guide the studies of her children? Yes. In fact, the homeschooling parent is responsible for the program of study and for selecting the curriculum for each subject, in addition to giving the instruction. These tasks are often the job of an administrator or other specialist in a school setting.
3. Train his children’s habits, in other words teach them good habits and help them develop self-discipline? Yes, all parents are the first to train their children’s habits. Whether homeschooled or educated outside the home, the parent’s role in habit training is always a major one.
4. Help her children learn by example or experience? A resounding yes on this one! This is how a child learns most of those skills (e.g. walking, talking, using the potty, feeding & dressing himself, etc.) that he needs to be ready for a primary education. Homeschooling parents continue to teach by setting examples and by offering hands-on learning opportunities that may not be possible in a classroom.
5. Advocate something? Yes. Parents advocate certain values, regardless of whether or not they take primary responsibility for their child’s schooling. These may be moral stances or religious values, but parents also impart to their children the things they cherish in life - for example time spent with the family, the importance of our natural environment, or the worth of a good education.
6. Do all these things on a regular basis? Yes all parents do, but a homeschooling parent makes this a primary occupation whether or not they work at some other job. Teaching one’s child is not something that gets switched on and off at certain hours, rather as we remind our girls often, we are always “doing” school because we are always finding opportunities to teach them - and often to learn from them as well!

Parent educators do all the things associated with teaching. We are the first to give these gifts to our children, and we are the adults who have the closest relationship with our children over the longest period of time. If anything, we provide a more consistent experience and are not constrained by a school day or calendar when it comes to completing what we begin.

Someone associated with the education field (not a teacher, according to her note) recently expressed disdain for parents who call themselves “home educators.” This person claimed that most homeschooling parents had no post-secondary training, but in her mind even those who did were rarely if ever as knowledgeable as a public school teacher. That should have made me angry, but it actually made me want to laugh.

What did she mean by knowledgeable? Well, seeing as she works with teachers but isn’t herself one, she probably means that a home educator doesn’t usually talk like a teacher. We don’t use the teacher jargon, mostly because we don’t need it. Jargon is not a language at all, but rather a collection of specialized terms that are associated with a given group - often a profession. If you go look up jargon in the dictionary you will learn that it can also be defined as confused, unintelligible and outlandish. When my autistic son was younger he had no real speech although he made certain sounds that could have been words to him. These unintelligible utterances are known as jargon. When jargon applies to a limited group of people it often serves the purpose of identifying a fellow group member, and of impressing outsiders with the fact that they do not belong. Use of jargon is a matter of being exclusionary, not knowledgeable. The most accomplished and memorable public school teachers I have known in my life were those who made an effort to make knowledge more accessible to everyone - not the protectionists who jealously guarded what they knew and only spooned out as much as they were required and no more.

The other thing that comes to mind when I read a comment like that - other than being grateful that I am teaching my children, and not the supposedly educated person who feels it is their right to make such an unqualified generalization - is a question. Just how knowledgeable do I have to be to teach a 6 year old to read, spell, and do simple arithmetic? I have a public school education, and in fact I excelled in school. If the public school education that is held up as the standard for my homeschooled children is such a fine and complete one, why would there be any doubt at all but that I could teach my children everything they need to learn in order to finish high school?

The reality of home education is that there is a greater proportion of homeschooling parents with a post-secondary education than one would find in a group of public school parents. My own experience and discussions I have had with other homeschoolers suggests that as a group we tend to know where our limits are, and when we feel we are not competent to teach a given subject we will mobilize resources to see that someone else does the job for us. Do public schooled children have the benefit of a similar policy? No. In fact because of issues around funding, availability of teachers, and seniority many public school teachers are currently teaching in an area for which they were not trained.

I hope that my fellow parent-educators will take heart in reviewing these thoughts. I also hope that those who think to speak about homeschooling will think at least to justify what they say with some verifiable data, if they can’t respect that we too are teachers.

This work was created by Ruby of Freehold 2, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.

Excerpts copyright quoted authors. Please visit their sites to read more, and respect the terms of their copyrights. Thanks!

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