Reignite the Love for Learning

Go to school, study the core subjects, take tests, and get good grades. Stripping the love of learning, one requirement at a time.

Reigniting the love for learning has to come from within. 

In the first consulting conversation with families and students, I use this simple analogy to introduce self-directed education. 

Think of it this way, your parents are giving you the key to drive your own car of education. You are now in control of your learning decisions, and we are in the passenger seat to support and empower you.

I meet with Kaitlin at the beginning and end of every week as her learning coach. Seventeen years old and preparing to transition to self-directed learning. Fed up with a lack of inspiration and forced subjects only intended for test regurgitation. 

I explained it like this in our most recent call. 

Visualize this, you are sitting in your classroom and the walls are now removed, the teacher puts on a t-shirt and sits across from you at the table and you are working and learning together, with friends or learning coaches, in a partnership. The books turn into your own chosen courses either online or in-person. The world becomes your classroom. 

Ultimately, in search of a better way of learning and preparing for real-life living. While finishing the remainder of the public school year, we start with small steps. Beginning the first few weeks, explorings her interests, forgotten hobbies, seemingly impossible projects, and potential courses on how we learn. Building new habits and goals to rekindle the momentum and motivation. Besides, there is little time to think for yourself outside of a typical high school day. 

Together, we set up progress points, celebrate wins, and work through challenges. She establishes her top three priorities during our Monday check-in, continuous async support through WhatsApp, and closing the week with a reflection call on Friday.

During our family discovery call, I started with Kaitlin and her family to discuss the options for next year. We explore opportunities that self-directed learning presents at this age and how this transformation could work. At the end of the call, I asked her to bring a list of 20 interesting things. A puzzled look reached me across the zoom screen.

We’ll start with that list and go from there, see you Monday. 

So we set off on our learning coach journey, using the list of 20 interests and various goal-setting and executive functioning exercises. But it’s not all about high hopes and accomplishing them from the start. Considering the current school environment, this transition begins with the mindset shift to student-led learning.

Our goal is to rekindle the love for learning because we know learning never stops. In Spanish, brio or the inner fire for learning. 

And the choice of how you spend your time is also yours.

The motivation shifts from extrinsic test grades and external teacher approval to intrinsic motivation. I want to do this because it’s important and interesting to me.

Self-directed learning or unschooling, or however you want to call it, often happens in a non-typical school setting.

I emphasize that she can spend time on things she is interested in and find out what is important. 

And imagine this new way of learning (life). Learning happens everywhere. It could be at the not-so-unbelievably-early-for-a-teen Monday morning meeting with your peer learning group at the self-directed learning hub or the typical adult-driven dinner conversations with parents and other adults, and not to forget the unpredictable Saturday outings with friends in the city. 

“Wait, so I will start the hobbies now so I can continue them when I actually have time for things other than school.”

I felt my body exhale on the chair beneath me from her reply. 

She GETS it. 

“Yes, Kaitlin!” I fight back the urge to get overly excited. Pinching myself, and for a second, I imagine how my 17-year-old self would have been ignited to hear these words. 

‘So when I actually have time for things other than school.’ is not something easy to imagine coming out of her eleventh year of an institutionalized way of thinking.

Become your own Learning Agent

Self-directed learning is the cheat code for agency. To be self-directed means to choose the learning you are interested in and pursue it as long as you desire, determined by your own measurements of success.

Designing and choosing your own learning allows you to incorporate what is interesting and important to you. Allow the inspirations and seemingly-impossible-project-ideas spark new interests and hobbies. And perhaps Kaitlin isn’t too far from finding the connection between her interests in philosophy, the ocean, and makeup. This will all become possible within the new headspace she is creating. 

Why does this transition feel clunky and uncomfortable? Because subjects come in square boxes that do not bend or flex. 

When was the last time someone said science was their hobby? 

I was not interested in all things science, but I could call the Solar System a hobby since Apollo 13 came out right around the time I was spray painting the styrofoam sun for my space diorama in third grade. I was an undercover nerd crushing hard on Ms. Frizzle, even daring to sport an outer space hoodie in middle school.

We need to redefine subjects as hobbies and let students be self-directed in choosing those hobbies so their intrinsic love of learning is rekindled.