When My Son Asked Why He Needs School, I Realized My Own Educational Philosophy Was Changing
The science worksheet sat between us on the kitchen table. Nine questions about plants and photosynthesis, fill-in-the-blank style. My eight-year-old, Sam, had his chin in his hand, pencil untouched.
“I don’t want to do this,” he said.
I gave the usual answer. “It’s due tomorrow, so…”
He picked up the pencil, wrote one word, then stopped. “But why do plants need sunlight? Why do I need to know this?”
I could have explained photosynthesis again. I could have said “because it’s in your curriculum” or “because your teacher asked for it.” Instead, I sat there, genuinely stuck. It wasn’t the question that got me. It was the fact that I had just spent three minutes thinking about dinner, a work email, and whether we had enough laundry detergent, and I couldn’t remember the last time I actually wondered why plants need sunlight.
That night, after the homework was done, I started paying attention to my own habits. What was my actual educational philosophy? I had a vague memory of writing something about “curiosity” and “lifelong learning” in a college paper years ago. But my daily behavior told a different story. When Sam showed me a drawing, I said “good job.” When he brought home a graded test, I asked “what did you get?” When he struggled, I said “try harder.”
None of that is bad. It’s just that I had no idea what it was adding up to.
A few days later, I picked Sam up from school and asked, as I always did, “How was your day?”
“Fine,” he said.
I knew better than to push. We walked in silence for a bit. Then he said, “Kevin said my volcano was ugly.”
Kevin was wrong, but Sam’s volcano had been a last-minute shoebox with a plastic cup glued unevenly to the top. We had rushed it the night before. I had told Sam we would research the volcano together online. Instead, I had scrolled on my phone between glances.
“I didn’t really like the volcano either,” Sam said.
I looked at him. “What would you have done differently?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if I had more time.”
That was the moment I realized my educational philosophy—if I could even call it that—was mostly unintentional. I wanted Sam to be creative, but I didn’t protect time for creativity. I wanted him to be persistent, but I praised his results, not his attempts. I wanted him to love school, but I spent most of our homework time correcting his pencil grip and pointing out letters he had reversed.
I started reading articles about educational philosophy, which felt incredibly heavy. Some seemed to argue for discipline, others for freedom. Then I realized I didn’t need a system. I needed to pay attention to what I was actually doing, not what I intended.
The change was gradual and small. Instead of grading Sam’s worksheet when he finished, I started asking him to tell me which question was hardest. Sometimes he knew. Sometimes he just said “the third one.” But it got him thinking about his own thinking, which is a fancy way of saying he had to reflect.
When Sam read to me at night, I stopped correcting every word. We would pause at a page and I would ask, “What do you think happens next?” That was something his teacher had suggested, but oddly, I needed the reminder. It took a lot more effort than I expected. For a while, I kept wanting to jump in with the answers.
There were a few concrete changes we made. The homework table, which used to be the kitchen table with music and snacks and general chaos, became the kitchen table without music or snacks, but with me sitting nearby reading a book. Sam had said he felt better with me close. I think he actually wanted company, not just supervision. When we did homework, the hardest thing for me was to not say anything until he asked for help. It felt like holding my breath.
A friend of mine who teaches fifth grade gave me a more practical tip. She said, “Just ask open questions. Don’t ask ‘do you understand.’ Ask ‘what’s tripping you up.'”
That one worked really well. Sam is more likely to say “I don’t get the fraction thing” than “I don’t understand,” partly because the wording feels less like a test.
The philosophy didn’t announce itself. It came out in small moments. One evening, Sam started explaining to his younger brother why he needed to water the plant. He actually said “plants breathe through their roots,” which is wrong, but he was thinking about it and his little brother was listening. I didn’t correct him. We looked it up together and found out that water travels up the stem, and that plants mostly “breathe” through tiny holes in their leaves. I quietly felt proud of that moment—even more than the times he got a high score on spelling tests.
What I’m trying to say is that I have a philosophy now that can be stated simply, though not in neat bullet points. I believe a kid’s education should leave room for them to say interesting things, no matter how small. It should tolerate wrong guesses, and it should not always have to end in a right answer. That’s not an original thought, but it took me years to let it guide how I talk to a child at seven in the morning when he is looking for his shoes.
I’m not writing this to say I’ve solved it. A few days ago, Sam came home with a book report and I asked, “What was your favorite part?” instead of, “How many pages did you read?” He said, “I don’t know,” and then we talked about other things. It’s not a smooth process. I still find myself saying “good job” when he shows me a picture, and I still catch myself wanting to point out that he wrote “because” with the “c” and “a” backwards.
But the educational philosophy in our house is no longer just a memory of a college essay. It’s the way I sit with him at the table, the way I wait a few extra seconds after he says “I don’t get it,” the way I sometimes deliberately leave a question unanswered and let him sit with it. There’s no certificate that tells me that’s right. But when Sam, unprompted, walks over to me and asks, “Hey, do you know why the moon is bright?”—I don’t know the answer, and he doesn’t either, and it’s one of the best moments of my day.
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