Quality Willed Learning and Teachers, Parents, and Learners

Abstract

The chapters in this third section offers examples of what quality willed learning looks like in practice. In what follows the authors will look at what quality willed learning can mean for teachers and then what it can mean for the learners themselves. Often people confuse unschooling or some self-determined approaches as a model that rejects teachers and teaching. The authors believe that this cannot be further from the truth. What it does mean is that the learner needs to be empowered and they need to have a substantive voice in their learning. If a learner wants to learn by listening to a lecture then she should have the trust and respect to do that, or if she would rather learn by reading a book, or watching a video, or by any other means then she should learn in the way she feels would work best for her. There are many ways to learn and no one should prevent a learner from learning what, where, when, and how they choose. The chapter then asks, what does quality willed learning mean for learners? It means that they are trusted, respected, cared for, treated with compassion, and loved. It is often said that teachers teach their students the way they have been taught, and children when they become adults become their parents. If we believe that trust, respect, care, compassion, and love are important, there is no greater gift we can give to the world than to ensure that our child rearing practices and our interactions with young people reflect that.