Ten Ways to Make Your Children Hate Learning

Ten Ways to Make Your Children Hate Learning — by Victoria Botkin

1. Exasperate them with bureaucratic micro-management (ie. Insist that they do everything just the way the Teacher’s Guide told you they have to do it) making them wait while you re-read the Teacher’s Guide to figure out exactly what it is you’re supposed to do next.

2. Teach them that their worth or intelligence is tied to how fast they get schoolwork over with, and how they perform on standardized tests.

3. Interrupt them when they are reading something interesting and useful, and insist that they follow the lesson plan for the day.

4. Complain that you have always found the subject being studied boring or hard.

5. Harangue them about how burdensome their education is to you and whine about impending homeschool burnout.

6. Waste their time with fill-in-the-blanks workbooks designed solely to keep pupils busy.

7. Insult their intelligence by choosing badly written, badly illustrated, or blatantly politically correct books. Assume that they have vulgar, puerile tastes and are unable to process pictures of actual people, choosing instead books illustrated with demeaning cartoon characters.

8. Reinforce the message that learning itself is not rewarding by bribing them with computer games, TV time, and movies as a reward for finishing their schoolwork for the day.

9. Encourage them frequently with reminders that they will graduate some day and never have to learn anything again, ever.

10. Express your longing for that day often and fervently.

What would you add to this list?

Used with permission

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