Creating an Autodidact, Teaching a Child to Be Self-Taught

An autodidact is a person who is mostly self taught, with a strong curiosity that compels him to answer all of his or her own questions. When homeschooling, it is important that a child becomes an autodidact. This will help them to become natural learners and empower them to learn or do anything they want in life.

When I started homeschooling, I had never heard of the word, autodidact. Still, my mother had given me this gift. It took a more experienced homeschooler to point out to me what I was doing and give it a name. One day I was telling her about how I read about 30 books on homeschooling before I started and she exclaimed "you're and autodidact!" I replied, thinking I'd just been insulted, "I'm a what"? She explained, and I realized that I was not only a self taught person, but I was already teaching my kids to be self taught too.

When my kids were small, and started asking those questions. "why is the sky blue?" "Why is the grass green." "Why can't the cat talk?" You know-- those crazy questions kids wear you out with. Instead of trying to answer or saying "I don't know", I would say, "gee, let's write that down, and we can look it up when we get home." When we got home, I would sit at the computer with the kids, look up the answers, and we would discuss what we found, even going as far as to discuss whether or not we had found a good source and looking for a second opinion.

As they got older, I began doing what my mom did to me. As a teacher, my mom rarely helped me with my homework, and she never answered a question. Instead she would gesture toward our wall of encyclopedias and say "look it up". Likewise, no matter how easy it was to answer a question for my kids, I would tell them to look it up.

There came a time when they would just as soon not have their question answered then to look it up, so I began playing games with them. They would ask me a question, and I would make up a couple of random answers. One answer would be close to what the correct answer should be, other would be funny. This helped to stimulate their curiosity and it would kill them to not know the correct answer.

While I don't have methods to help you create an autodidact child, I do have basic rules. First, never answer questions for your kids. Second, set an example by looking up things with them. Third, give them ways to look up things themselves. Finally, discuss valid sources and second opinions.