Transforming Learning | The Learning Code Institute
Homeschooling - Where Do I Start Tips & Advantages
“Genes Change Slowly, Your Brain Changes Quickly”
Homeschooling can be a great way to enhance your child’s education while also giving you as a parent the chance to focus on their needs. But with so many different options available—and so much information out there about what works and what doesn’t—it can be hard to know where to start. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the essential things you need to know about homeschooling, including how to plan for your child’s success, why it’s important for parents and children alike to stay motivated throughout the process, and how technology can help make things easier! No matter which path you choose, the most important factor to assure yours and your child’s success is understanding the latest scientific research on how how we and our children most naturally and easily learn and remember.
The Learning Code Institute has spent over 30 years and millions of dollars researching the intricate biological mechanisms that dictate how your child’s brain actually learns and changes behaviors. Without comprehending how the brain naturally and effortlessly learns, the whole education process becomes much more stressful and painful than it ever needs to be… for you and our children! So either now, or at the end of this article please visit ___________ and discover the most important learning information of the 21st century.
Ensuring a successful homeschool experience is all about doing your research., Once you understand the critical factors in facilitating effective long-term learning you can then begin your research to find out as much as you can about homeschooling curriculums from other parents and educators. You may want to talk to school officials in your area to find out what requirements are necessary in order for a child to be considered “homeschooled” (some states require attendance at a certain number of hours per week or credit hours per year).
You might also want to explore different types of homeschooling, such as:
- Traditional: where the parent teaches using their own curriculum.
- Unschooling: which means children learn by following their interests.
- Unit Studies: organized around specific topics like nature, art and science. and
- Combination methods that mix elements from different typesfor example, having lessons on one topic while completing unit studies on another.
Once you’ve found an approach that works for you and your child, research the different types of curriculums available online as well as any resources that could be helpful when it comes time to teach. It’s important to remember that homeschooling doesn’t have to be expensive! Many public libraries offer free access to books and other educational materials for students.
Homeschooling is a family business
To create successful learning and behavioral change systems, we must embrace three scientific observations regarding brain diversity.
- Your Individual Variation Must Be Nurtured
Variation is Nature’s way of assuring the survival of our species. It’s the variation in our individual adaptations to similar environmental pressures that affords our species such a high Adaptability/ Intelligence Factor. The practical goal of any learning system must be to nurture, not ignore, the neurological diversity that has led to humankind’s technological, spiritual, and social advances. Any effort that limits variation in the way our species responds to changing environments, whether conscious or unconscious like traditional educational systems, inhibits our overall Species Adaptability/Intelligence Factor and the individual’s ability to survive and flourish.
- Unique Brains Create Unique Differences in What We Find Meaningful
- Our Educational System Can Crush Personal Meaning
In effect, learning systems that treat all brains the same are in danger of limiting your ability to develop and strengthen the very networks upon which personal meaning is built. This redirection of energy away from your unique neural networks may be one reason that when many of us leave learning institutions, we are not energized and confident, but exhausted and confused.
Exploring our Biological Preferences gives you a different perspective, clearly showing that we do all learn differently. Please understand that to provide learning environments that naturally create profound learning, knowing that each of us learns in a different manner, is only one piece of the puzzle. It is not “the total answer.” The rest of the pieces of the puzzle are presented in the other chapters of our book that describe in detail the other elements of The Learning Code science.
Research on these biological predispositions is in its relative infancy. However, we’ve found that discussing the Biological Preferences and discovering which ones resonate for you and your children in homeschool will provide greater clarity. If you or your children are predisposed to learning visually, is it any wonder that you would prefer and learn more effectively (and enjoyably) through reading words and viewing graphs rather than listening to a lecture?
Understanding these preferences can help to create an environment that is most conducive to producing profound learning and behavioral change in ourselves and others. The diagram below is based on our research to date and what has been shown to work to accelerate and deepen the understanding of the learning process. Remember, because of genetic variation, there are actually 7.5 billion types of intelligence.
The survival of our species depends on our different individual biological predispositions. It’s important to recognize that no single general brain design is superior to other preferences. Working together as one we support the survival of the whole human species. However, as a species we can only reach our maximum potential when we learn to work with, rather than against, others in our species with different Biological Preferences.
Your Brain’s Two-stage Learning Process: How It Works
Like your immune system, your brain has a two-stage selective learning process. The first stage, at the level of genes, took eons to acquire; the second, at the level of the neural tissue, takes only seconds to days.
Each of us comes into the world with genes that are packed full of relevant survival information that has been previously selected by our ancestors’ successful interactions with their world. These genes build the part of our brains which houses instinctual information including bonding, imitating, and mating, but also emotional concepts such as anger, joy, and fear. Your upper, more-evolved neocortex enters the world prewired by your genes with rough networks that deal with visual, smell, touch, taste, sound, language, math, motor, musical, spatial, and social concepts (please see Chapter 9 of our book for more scientific detail). To improve on this information, the second stage of learning takes place as your environmental interactions help you to add more and more synapses and dendritic branches to these existing structures. Your personal experiences then allow refinement of the neural networks that have been prewired by your genes.
You entered the world with a set of neural networks preset by your genes, which allowed you to immediately recognize a wealth of stimuli including auditory, visual, taste, smell, and touch. Environmental encounters then help you select new information that resonates with the existing networks and, through experience, refines this information. This increases your Individual Adaptability/ Intelligence Factor and makes it easier for you to exist in your world.
When you were born, your genes already possessed visual networks that aided you to focus on your mother’s face. As environmental interactions with other people occurred, your initial visual “mother’s face network” was dramatically adapted by adding synapses to existing branches; eventually, that network allowed you, to recognize thousands of faces later in life. Harvard neuroscientist Jerome Kagan says: “No act, idea, image, or word is learned in isolation or ever becomes completely isolated. Every mind consists of nests of interconnected elements that are continually being reorganized with use.” He goes on to say, “Learning consists of being reminded of what is already in the brain.”
The instructionist approaches the brain as an empty vessel to be filled by authorities’ directives, while information that you’ve previously acquired and deemed personally meaningful is given little relevance in this approach. This view essentially says if we just force someone to memorize enough facts—even if they aren’t meaningful to the individual—they’ll remember them.
Today science has proven that this isn’t true at all. We dive much deeper into the value of personal meaning and why it is the Holy Grail of learning, motivation and behavioral change in other chapters of our book. Please visit to discover “the rest of the story”.
"Most of the problems in our world start with our outdated and inefficient learning systems. The Learning Code opens our eyes to what went wrong and how to use the latest science to fix things. This research is a game changer for our world." Robert Kiyosaki Best Selling Author Rich Dad Poor Dad