INTRODUCTION
An Italian idiom goes “ha preso tutto da sua madre”, which approximates the English “she took after her mother”, to say that someone is or acts very similarly to one of their family members. When you observe someone talking and moving just like their parents and you comment “Ecco da chi ha preso”, it can happen that someone else makes a joke specifying “Ecco da chi ha appreso”, with the stress on the first syllable. Indeed, appreso is the past participle of the verb “apprendere”, which corresponds to the English “to learn”. This joke can picture what family learning is, in its most natural and ancestral form.
Should we trace back the history of family learning, as anthropological and pedagogical studies suggest, we would have to go back to the beginning of time. Those times when the first “families” started to arise and group up to survive the dangers and threats our ancestors had to face in their daily life. This evidence brings us to a first and very-needed task about terminology: defining what family and learning will refer to in our talk.
IN ONE WORD, MANY FORMS
Defining these two words seems challenging and risky because it may be quite difficult to decide where to start and where to set the boundaries for their meaning. That’s why we will begin with an aspect that might be not so obvious but seems the easiest way.
These two beautiful and evoking nouns “family” and “learning” have in common a major characteristic: they both have in one word, many forms.
Looking at nowadays society, we will discover a surprisingly wide range of family types including stepfamilies, single-parent families, families headed by two unmarried partners, either of the opposite sex or the same sex; households that include one or more family members from a generation; adoptive families; foster families; and families where children are raised by their grandparents or other relatives, blended families.
Similarly, the word learning can refer to different types, ways, and styles to go through this cognitive process, such as formal, informal, and non-formal learning, active learning, experiential, visual, kinesthetic, and so on. Moreover, learning may differ also depending on the “object” of learning: we can learn to walk, swim, learn a foreign language, or learn social norms as well as recipes or mathematics operations. To preserve the richness of meanings and references of these two words, we will use broad definitions to define how “family” and “learning” are intended here.
Following Beverly Sheppard, we will define families as those special groups that are tied together by their unique relationships and defined by their multigenerational makeup. They may be parents and children, siblings of different ages, grandparents and grandchildren, or any configuration that forms a family.
Alternatively, we could borrow Hegarty and Feeley’s words to understand family as a unit of people bound by special affective relationships; these may be multi-generational, historic, and rooted in biological bonds or lifetime commitments of love, care, and solidarity.
When it comes to “learning”, we are habitually triggered to associate it with conceptual learning, which narrows this word to the acquisition of knowledge and facts. Conversely, learning should be pictured as a continuum made of different opportunities. Therefore, inspired by Lynn Dierking, we will intend learning as a cognitive process that leads to a change in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, skills, values, understanding, socio-cultural dimension, and all those aspects which are not easily expressible as conceptual knowledge[1]. In one word, many forms. Now, what happens when these two words are combined? We will discover it in the following sections.
THE LEARNING BOND – A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
As mentioned earlier, family learning is as old as humankind. As sociologist Hoff points out, for centuries family learning has been the informal vehicle within families for the systematic transfer of knowledge, skills, competencies, norms, and values between generations.[1]
Since the Stone Age, families have always had a special learning bond. Learning and knowledge transmission were the most powerful tools families had to survive in the prehistoric world. Stone Age parents, for example, used cave graffiti to teach their children how to hunt or fire to inform the family about danger. Over time, objects of learning, as well as tools and ways of their transmission, have changed accordingly to the evolution of society and technology. But the core mission of older people in a family stayed the same: they teach younger members indispensable knowledge and skills to “survive” existence, to act good in a society and a community, to prevent harm and avoid risks to live the longest and healthiest possible. Just think about a mother or grandfather or caretaker reminding their sibling, before they leave home “Watch out and drive carefully!”. This is the most innate act of expertise transmission for the sake of the sibling’s safety on the road.
Traditionally, elder family members have been acknowledged as primary educators of younger generations, in their role of transmitting their wisdom and perpetuating the values and culture of the family. Try to picture those times when nuclear families were bigger and included also grandparents living with their siblings and school was not accessible to everyone. Older people were the maximum authority in the familial environment and within the community, and family learning could be the only opportunity for young children to get prepared for life.
As the economy started to rapidly change and evolve, families too had to adapt to a new society and lifestyle. As NewMann and Hatton Yeo[2] observe, two key phenomena have affected the structure of the traditional family:
- shift in job availability and nature of the workforce
- family mobility towards communities with more job opportunities
With the changing economy, more families started to split geographically and happened to live in different neighborhoods, towns, regions, countries. Grandparents no longer lived in their siblings’ houses. At the same time, the number of families with two working parents and the number of single-parent families increased, affecting the involvement of adults in their children’s education.
These new family paradigms had a crucial impact on children’s education. Longer distances and reduced availability created the need for the families to delegate this task to extra-familial social groups, such as schools, community programs, educational institutions, and churches. Family learning had lost its privileged role as the primary source for younger generations’ education. The learning bond was still there, but opportunities to make it flourish had significantly decreased.
BRINGING THE LEARNING BOND BACK
Soon, researchers and experts realized that reductions in learning opportunities between the elderly and youth were damaging both generations. On one hand, in more traditional families older people were still acknowledged for their role as wisdom transmitters. On the other hand, the decrease in time spent together and of genuine educational contacts made both the young and the old more vulnerable. As intergenerational studies suggest, both groups lost the special, dependable support offered by the family member from the opposite end of the life continuum.[1]
Indeed, the young experienced limited contact with their elder family members, losing that “ancestral” support older people provided, sharing values, wisdom, and unqualified love and understanding. At the same time, parents, grandparents, and caretakers had reduced time to spend with the younger ones, who taught them how to open up to innovations and new perspectives and tune into contemporary society.
Interestingly, this family learning crisis brought a new awareness about the ancestral learning bond. Family learning was not a one-way process, as it had been pictured historically. While younger people were taught life knowledge and skills from older adults, adults too learned from and with young family members in a mutual process of exchange. In other words, the learning bond was reciprocal and adults and young people needed each other.
As a consequence, starting from the 70s schools and communities in countries like the USA, UK, Ireland, and Canada, started to create pilot family learning programs to bring the learning bond back into families’ daily lives. Back in the 70s and 80s, structured family learning initiatives were piloted to address adults and children’s needs for literacy development. Parents, grandparents, and caretakers were involved by local education and libraries in activities like reading clubs, family writing, and group storytelling to develop and improve their language skills together with their children.
During the late 90s, the focus shifted to home-schooling: many projects emerged to support parents and caretakers with their children in pre-scholar age as well as with their children’s homework. For example, in 1994 in Ireland, Clare Family Learning Project started, providing courses and resources to help adults develop parenting skills to support the emergent literacy and numeracy of their children. As family learning practitioners pointed out, parents and caretakers were the first and natural teachers, and restoring the learning bond had a positive impact both on adults and children, especially on their relationship with the school and the local community.
At the same time, these new awarenesses spread and a new broader perspective developed. Thanks to the provisions focused on family literacy and numeracy, experts and practitioners observed that family experiences of learning also helped adults and young participants foster soft skills, such as self-confidence, empathy, critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem-solving. The so-called “wide family learning” flourished, broadening the potential of the learning bond over the development of school literacy and numeracy. Family learning became an approach to designing learning activities addressing multiple areas such as community development, health, cooking, environment, gardening, and digital skills, in a wide range of familial contexts including asylum seekers, refugees, migrants, and travelers’ families.[2]
In recent years, bringing the learning bond back has become a crucial priority for communities and societies: several national and international policies, such as the Agenda 2030, support and encourage family learning initiatives with a special focus on intergenerational exchange and cohesion. Museums, libraries, organizations, cultural institutions, sports centers, health centers, and schools, provide diverse opportunities to involve families in interactive learning programs and experiences.
Family learning: lifting adult barriers in education, arises amid this context and aims to contribute to the history of family learning. Following the steps of the pioneers, our project intends to help families bring back their learning bond and have more opportunities to learn with and from each other, spending quality time together. So, now that we have traveled through the historical evolution of this approach, it’s time to tune into our present and start figuring out how to introduce family learning into our family daily life. But first, we need to answer this question: what does family learning look like?
FAMILY LEARNING IN A SNAPSHOT
Through our previous historical overview of family learning evolution, you may have approximated in your mind an idea of what family learning is. As you may have pictured, it takes different forms from school programs to home learning, from family literacy to visiting museums with your loved ones, and from transmitting values to developing digital skills.
Let’s think about common situations in your life such as showing your sibling how to do the laundry: you share your experience and knowledge with them. At the same time, they are acquiring new skills such as distinguishing colors, interacting with an electronic device, and learning that a washing soap has a different function from a softener.
Recall those moments when you asked your teenage sibling how to create an Instagram account or how to silence a WhatsApp group: they shared their digital native’s expertise with you and you improved your digital skills.
And what about when you had to introduce your child to the diaper-free life and explain to them that there is a thing called a “toilet” and they need to use it as they are growing up?
Last but not least, go back to your teens when you didn’t even know how a car could drive, and your parents patiently taught you all the basic things you needed to know to make the car move on the road (without hitting another car, of course).
Well, you might conclude that family learning happened in your life and still happens in your daily life, systematically.
Nonetheless, to get the best out of it and introduce quality family learning in our life, we need to look at it from a snapshot perspective and reflect on a quite simple question: what does family learning look like?
In the existing literature on the topic, there are plenty of definitions answering this question, and many of them are also partially in contrast since the investigation in this field is quite modern and continuously evolving, as we commented earlier. So there are no definitive answers, but we should note that most of the definitions are built on some essential characteristics of family learning. Let’s have a look at some of the most acknowledged definitions of family learning.
“Family Learning encourages family members to learn together as and within a family, with a focus on intergenerational learning. Family learning activities can also be specifically designed to enable parents to learn how to support their children’s learning. Family learning is a powerful method of engagement and learning which can foster positive attitudes towards life-long learning, promote socio-economic resilience and challenge educational disadvantage”. (Family Learning Network, 2016)[1]
“Taking this approach, family learning is the learning that family members engage in over their lifetimes. The processes involved include social interaction, collaboration, and sharing among members”.[2]
“Family learning’ represents an umbrella term under which a wide range of models are in operation, including family literacy practices and family literacy programs. It is generally understood to refer to learning approaches that engage parents and children jointly in learning.”[3]
As you may have noted, these definitions share many aspects. In particular, there are 8 key-features that resonate in the three of them and snapshot vividly what family learning looks like.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS INTERGENERATIONAL
As we commented in the previous section, the first undeniable fact is that family learning is intergenerational, namely a learning process that occurs among people of different ages. Parents- children, grandparents- grandchildren, children-caretakers: family learning always involves a multigenerational group that cooperates, learns together and exchanges experiences. Within family learning, generational gaps become an opportunity to grow by learning and supporting each other in the process of growing. Moreover, family learning is intergenerational because it is influenced by the ages of the people: a learning experience involving a caretaker aged 75 and a child aged 14 is completely different from one involving a mother aged 30 and a baby aged 3 years. We will go more in depth into this topic in the next section.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS SOCIAL
Since the learning process takes place among people, family learning is social. The focus on social interaction was first highlighted by family learning programs designed to develop family literacy, as we mentioned earlier. Indeed, the first family learning activity children are naturally involved in is language development: parents, grandparents, and caretakers support newborns in developing the language skills they need to achieve their communicative goals. Through social interaction in family literacy activities, language learning is fostered and encouraged: children learn how to use it effectively for social purposes, while adults improve and grow their communicative skills. Therefore, family learning is social both for its nature and its outcome, because it helps family members develop and improve their social skills, including emotional intelligence, interpersonal and relational skills, collaboration, empathy, and parenting.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS FAMILIAL
Taking into account the definition of family we explored at the very beginning, family learning is any learning located in a familial environment, that is among people tied by affective bonds. Family is the very first group a person belongs to and its role is so crucial in human development that anthropologists, sociologists, and social psychologists refer to the family as an educational institution, just like a school or a museum. However, the learning family members engage in over their lifetimes can be direct or indirect.
Indirect family learning– any situation in which a family member shares and discusses an experience they have had elsewhere, in an extra-familial context: through conversations and observations family members build their knowledge and understanding creating a set of shared meanings.
Direct family learning – anytime family members engage in an activity or experience together: through interaction in a common hic et nunc they make meaning of what is going on, exchange ideas, develop conceptual and practical knowledge together, supporting each other.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS ACTIVE
As we noted earlier, when we were defining learning at the very beginning, the process of learning is commonly associated with schools, educational institutions, and formal settings, and is pictured as a receptive activity, based on the transmission model. Conversely, family learning originates from a dynamic-participative model, even though it was first piloted by schools, in formal settings. Indeed, in family learning activities all the members participate actively in the learning, contributing with their talents, skills, and wisdom. Family learning is much more than mere transmission of knowledge: learning in and with your family means being involved in an engaging process that encourages you and your siblings to shape and reverse the process itself while learning through experiences. Family learning is active and learner-centered because it develops from the family members’ needs to meet the family’s needs.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS MUTUAL
Following the lifelong learning model, family learning challenges the traditional belief that older people should teach while younger should learn. Family learning involves members of any age in a collaborative process of teaching-learning built on mutuality and cooperation among younger and older members. As Beverly Sheppard underlines, family learning is where each can feel competent and contributing.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS SELF-REFLECTIVE
Family learning motivates family members to stay active and reflective towards the experience they are sharing. Before, during and after the activity family members can engage in evaluation session, which allows all the participants to share the personal and group experience, challenges arised and the learnings developed. Through familial learning, family members are encouraged to express emotions, challenge their limits, take risks; experience the sense of discomfort. Families learn to share failures with each other and celebrate common achievements. From the youngest to the oldest, each one has the opportunity to receive constructive feedbacks and build personal insights.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS LIFE-LONG
This feature has a double meaning. On one hand, family learning is life-long because anything we learn with and from our families will stay with us over a lifetime. On the other hand, family learning is life-long because it encourages older members to go back to learning, develop new knowledge and new competencies, discover new talents and abilities with no age limits. Family learning is where families can build the foundations of lifelong learning for their children. As Sheppard notes, within our families we are introduced to the world and we learn everything, most of all we learn dispositions. And how disposed we are to be open and to learn will have an impact through all our life.
- FAMILY LEARNING IS FUN!
Last but not least, family learning is fun! Age doesn’t matter. Family learning is quality time you spend with your loved ones collecting memorable experiences that make you better people. Family learning is about staying playful, trying new exciting activities, laughing and being joyful together, engaging in creativity, problem solving, games or life-changing experiences. Family learning is fun because when you learn with and from the people you love the intangible outcomes are countless. There is plenty of activities you and your family can engage in, such as creative writing, storytelling, math and science labs, gardening, and collecting memories. In the following sections, you will find a practical toolkit to create quality learning experiences for your family.
For now, let’s conclude our snapshot with a powerful quote that sums up vividly all the aspects we have explored so far.
“Learning in the unique context of family is fueled by emotion, family history, bias, specific expertise, innate skills, genetics, and the world views that we will be aware of all of our lives—and it is powerful indeed”[1]
LEARNING WITH AND FROM THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE
Now that we have clarified what family learning looks like, there is another question to answer “Why should you introduce family learning into your daily life?”. We will start taking into account two facts:
- Our modern world needs adults to be lifelong learners: the steady and rapid evolution of work, technology, and society require us to be up-to-date with knowledge, skills, and tools in order to adapt to the changes around us. Consequently, adults, working parents, grandparents, and caregivers are asked to go back to education and training.
- According to the OECD statistics[1], in Mediterranean countries childcare and family responsibilities are the most significant barrier to adult education and learning participation.
As we observed earlier, modern family structure has changed significantly in the last decades, affecting both young and older. In addition, adults struggle to find the time to enroll in lifelong learning activities without sacrificing other time with their families. Sometimes, the choice to renounce lifelong learning is also related to cultural beliefs about child upbringing and family up-keeping such as preferring to leave children with the grandparents or a parent over a “stranger”.
As a modern parent, grandparent, or caregiver you might find it challenging to find the time, motivation, and energy to start learning for yourself, take that course you always wanted, boost your professional skills, complete your studies, and try a new learning experience. At the same time, work-life balance too, might be difficult for you as you work and parent, and struggle to spend quality time with your children, support them in their growth, and be there for them. Family learning provides the answers to all the challenges modern families have to cope with. Introducing family learning to your daily life can help you make the time to learn for yourself and help your loved ones learn while being supportive of your children and being present for your family. As we will see in the next session, learning from and with the people you love is beneficial for you and your family on multiple levels. And, as Sheppard advises “We need to be conscious of the power of family learning environment”[2]
A BETTER YOU, A BETTER MODEL
“Find out who you are. When you find you enjoy something, it develops you as a person as well, I think.” (Parent practicing family learning, LCETB)[1]
Engaging in learning activities and going back to education, empowers a better version of you as a parent, as a carer, and as a person, as it helps you develop new skills, new knowledge, and new attitudes. Indeed, parents, grandparents, and caregivers who have engaged in family learning activities share that they have experienced countless benefits on the individual level, including
- increased self-esteem and self-confidence both in parenting and in their professional and societal life
- boosted literacy, numeracy, and digital skills
- improved well-being and mental health
- reduced parental stress
- re-gained confidence in their personal power and sense of agency
- enhanced literacy and numeracy skills
- higher motivation and predisposition to re-engage in learning
- boosted employability
- increased personal responsibilities and aspiration
- a better understanding of their children development[2]
“I have two children here and they love school. I tell them that they go to school to learn and to be good human beings and to learn values … parents are the first teachers, but the teachers are there to reinforce those. I tell them I am going to school to learn too and to do new things and that’s important and I tell them there is no age to stop learning. I tell them you have to keep learning because it’s a new world every day and I want to make sure they are reading and thinking and I want to be a good example to them in that.” (ETB, Family Literacy Learner)[3]
Besides this, when you learn with and from your family you make an impact on your children’s education and motivation to learn. As you learn with them, you act as a model, showing that learning is powerful, no matter what age you are. You inspire the younger generations to become lifelong learners.
As experts Dierking and Falk note:
“During childhood people develop a foundation for lifelong learning … family members play a vital role in helping children develop a joy for learning and an understanding that learning is a process, something that all children and adults do, all their lives.”[4]
BETTER FAMILIES, A BETTER COMMUNITY
“It is a lovely concentrated time with my daughter, a special time. It has made me
bond more with her.” (Parent practicing Family Learning – Education Scotland)[1]
“It was about disciplining your child in a positive way. I learned strategies that
have helped me as a parent … like sitting down with him and giving him individual time, instead of saying ‘There’s the television, I have to go and prepare the dinner’ where now I can say to myself that can wait, the dishes can wait. Sitting at the table and giving your child that time is important … twenty minutes of reading with him or making a jigsaw or that. That’s what they want and you can build from that. I am his primary carer, and it is a lot of work on a mum’s shoulders (…) I understood him more, and we’re building on that relationship and we’re growing as a family.” (ETB – Family Literacy Learner – Solas)[2]
Family learning creates opportunities for the family to come together, enjoy a purposeful time, and shape collective memorable experiences. Research shows that this benefits the familial environment on multiple levels as it helps children and adults, younger and older:
- communicate better and develop skills for mutual understanding and empathy
- improve their interpersonal competencies
- exchange knowledge and skills across generations
- create meaningful bonds
- strengthen reciprocal trust, collaboration, and mutual support
- celebrate success and take risks together
- create a safe inclusive environment, where each generation can feel contributing and participating
- shape and explore family identity, values, and beliefs
- value multigenerational diversity and connect across differences
- transfer the learnings to daily life situations[3]
As a result, the whole family benefits from a more supportive and enriching environment where older and younger feel competent and empowered as family members and as persons.
The greatest outcome for you and your family is building a common ground of reciprocality, where you can support your children in the learning process, and at the same time stay open and willing to let your children teach and inspire you.
On a greater dimension, family learning has a positive impact on community life, since bonding with your loved ones helps you create significant bonds with your community, too.
Both younger and older experience wider benefits of family learning such as greater social confidence, higher involvement in local activities and institutions, increased social networks with improved or newly formed relationships, and enhanced active citizenship. Parents, grandparents, and carers feel more connected and more participating in school life and activities, while children and younger are more motivated to attend school and engage in educational activities.
These are just some of the reasons why you should start practicing family learning with your loved ones, and as you practice it you will experience and enjoy even more positive changes and benefits.
Family learning is the way you can make a difference for yourself, your children, your family, and your community, starting from your home with and from the people you love.
REFERENCES
AGE:WISE Across Generations at Eye Level: Ways to Integrate Seniors by Education, Research Report of Project N . 2 0 2 0 – 1 – A T 0 1 – K A 2 0 4 – 0 7 8 0 8 8, 2021.
BROOKS G., CARA O., Evidence of the Wider Benefits of Family Learning: A Scoping Review, 2012.
CLARE FAMILY LEARNING PROJECT, Family Learning Resource Guide, 2000.
EDUCATION SCOTLAND, Engaging families in learning- A thematic inspection of family learning, 2021.
ELDRED J., HAGGART J., SPACEY R., The Family Learning Approach: The contribution of family learning to the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals, 2008, UK National Commission for UNESCO.
MARANDET E., WAINWRGHT E., The social geographies of family learning, British Educational Research Journal, vol 43, No.2, 213-229, 2017.
NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILY LEARNING, Learning outside the school, 2021.
NEWMAN S., HATTAN-YEO A., Intergenerational Learning and the Contributions of Older People, in Aging Horizons,8, 31-39, 2008.
SHEPPARD B., A Family Learning Roundtable Presentation, Engage Families, 2005.
SOLAS, Family Literacy Practices in ETBs – Guidelines, Case studies and Recommendations, 2020.
ONLINE REFERENCES
[1] EDUCATION SCOTLAND, Engaging families in learning- A thematic inspection of family learning, 2021.
[2] SOLAS, Family Literacy Practices in ETBs – Guidelines, Case studies and Recommendations, 2020
[3] See note n.13.
[1] SOLAS, Family Literacy Practices in ETBs – Guidelines, Case studies and Recommendations, 2020
[2]BROOKS G., CARA O., Evidence of the Wider Benefits of Family Learning: A Scoping Review, 2012. //.EDUCATION SCOTLAND, Engaging families in learning- A thematic inspection of family learning, 2021. //CLARE FAMILY LEARNING PROJECT, Family Learning Resource Guide, 2000.
[3] SOLAS, Family Literacy Practices in ETBs – Guidelines, Case studies and Recommendations, 2020
[4] J.H. Falk & L.D. Dierking, Lessons without limit; How free-choice learning is transforming education, 2005.
[1] https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?QueryId=11
[2] SHEPPARD B., A Family Learning Roundtable Presentation
[1] SHEPPARD B., A Family Learning Roundtable Presentation
[1] Engaging families in learning, pg 9.
[2] https://engagefamilies.org/family-learning-101/what-is-family-learning/
[3] Family Learning Approach, p.7
[1] Hoff, 2007 in Igl Learning and the Contributions of older people
[2] For an extensive review of all the initiatives and programs: “The Family Learning Approach: The contribution of family learning to the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals” by Rachel Sapcey
[1] Hoff, 2007 in Igl Learning and the Contributions of older people
[2] Hoff, 2007 in Igl Learning and the Contributions of older people
[1] https://engagefamilies.org/family-learning-101/what-is-family-learning/
