How to Raise Lifelong Learners

By: Donna Baer, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Professor Donna Baer

Length: 2 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

How can parents create a culture of curiosity for their children? How can they ensure that their budding learners have the tools to ask important questions, solve complex problems, and think for themselves? And how can they do these things in interesting ways that engage instead of exhaust their child’s desire to learn? 

Look no further than How to Raise Lifelong Learners. In just nine comprehensive lessons, discover how you can become a better, more inspiring teacher for your kids. Kick off the course by discovering a range of educational philosophies and schooling methods. In the lessons that follow, acquire the knowledge, tools, and tips you need to raise intellectually curious and engaged lifelong learners, regardless of whether you intend to teach at home or send them to school. Explore the key instructional role that parents play throughout their children’s lives. Find out how to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic to very young children in creative ways. Expand your definition of learning to include non-academic learning, character, and emotional intelligence, and see how you can encourage scientific exploration and artistic development at home. Learn how to communicate with teens and motivate struggling students. Understand how carefully designed chores can teach collaboration. Learn why smart room design will enhance learning, which strategies you can use to combat bullying in your child’s life, and more.

Your course instructor, Donna Baer, is a former elite boarding schoolteacher-turned-homeschooler who raised eight sons and two daughters. She knows better than anybody: Adaptability is the name of the game. In How to Raise Lifelong Learners, understand how to accommodate your kids and their unique styles of learning, personalities, and temperaments, from a mother of 10 who did it herself. Engage with late bloomers and stimulate underachievers. Develop lectures and songs for auditory learners and experiments for sensory learners. Unearth how a comprehensive, flexible approach to teaching in the home can enhance your own life. 

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 The Great Courses (P)2021 The Teaching Company, LLC

Loved it!

This offered very helpful information and provided much encouragement! I truly loved it, thank you!

Lifelong learners 101

The story reads as an intro to long life learning and it touches on different learning techniques but it doesn’t give out a detail explanation. This course also mentions, at length, other great courses offerings and why you should read them. At times it feels like a paid advertisement

Great for parents

I have two young children and this gave me so many good ideas to try and start implementing with them so we can make the most out of their crucial learning years.

Most valuable book for parents

As a mother, and one that did not go through the American educational system, I find this is the most valuable book I’ve listened to date. I wish I had this information with my two older children - one a high school graduate, the other entering 8th grade. My youngest one entering kindergarten will benefit.

awesome book

Loved it. I did as the mother in this story did. Listen as I did household chores and it made the chores more relaxing.

Absolutely Worth it

loved it. so easy to listen to..on the drive..getting ready...watering plants...Im not a mom but I am a teacher and a dedicated lifelong learner. I love the suggestions and pointers given. I hope to implement them so that I may better reach and inspire my little learners for years to come. thank you so much.

Great

Wonderful. Fantastic. I have learned how to raise great learners. Priceless. Easy to listen. Thanks

You can trust what she says!

I'm a veteran teacher of private (2 years), public (17 years) and homeschool (25 years), ican confirm that everything she says is excellent advice for any parent making educational decisions in any school setting. her advice is virtually identical to my advice as either a professional or volunteer consultant in many settings. what she says is achievable and will proficiency the results she promises

Who is this for?

The professor seems to make a lot of assumptions about what's possible for most parents these days. It must be nice to homeschool double digit children with only the father working and somehow support such an enormous family, but these days it's hard enough to raise a family with dual incomes! It's clear that she lives in a bubble and assumes that we're all clearly able to provide all of the resources to fully homeschool our kids.

Not to even get into the argument about the mixed data about homeschooling and how well it prepares kids for the future, as especially in the early grades, socialization is more important than the academic content. She does briefly go over some negatives of homeschooling, but each one is followed by a "but" and tries to minimize it. Well, I guess if you're a super-parent like her and have unlimited resources, then it's easy!

There is some general information for childhood learning which is useful to know, she doesn't go into any real deep details but they're still good starting points and you can get the general ideas from it. The course is also so short that it's not much of a commitment to listen to. When included with the Plus catalog then it's worth a listen, but I'm not sure if I would recommend using a credit on it normally. The professor also recommends the "Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive" course, which I've also listened to and agree that it's a must listen for parents. Use your credit on that instead!

Unless you're a rich super-parent, you'll probably just be rolling your eyes during a good chunk of this. The title is almost misleading. It should be more like "how to homeschool", and not present itself as a general parenting course!

What credentials does she have? Science? Facts?

She has no professional qualifications. She cites no studies. This isn't a great course. This is a Ted talk that should be entitled "Words of advice from a well spoken intelligent woman who has home schooled ten children and probably has some pretty decent advice but does not have any qualifications besides mother and will cite no studies or other scientific evidence, just anecdotes."

I really like the great courses because generally the quality control is good. The lecturers are usually university professors. Do university professors know everything? Of course not. Do they almost always have more knowledge on a subject than an interested amateur? Yes. These lecturers are by an entertaining, well spoken, intelligent, interested amateur. They are not by an expert. They do not cite any evidence except anecdotes.

I expect better from the great courses.