When Academic Parents Teach Their Own Children?

An article based only on the experiences of three atypically overqualified parents, is always going to be of limited value. It does, however, raise some interesting issues (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/feb/20/im-a-maths-lecturer-and-i-had-to-get-my-children-to-teach-me). The article is based on the experiences of two university academics (a Mathematician and an Environmental Microbiologist) and a Novelist. As a result of the Covid-19 lockdowns, these individuals found themselves having to teach Mathematics, Science and English to their own primary-aged children. I suspect that, until this point, all three had had only had a vague idea of the curricula being followed by their children. The Mathematician was (as am I), unfamiliar with terms like 'bar model' and 'part-whole model' and had to get his children to explain. He was also dismayed by the number of 'different intimidating methods and models' primary school children were expected to use (often, with no later relevance to mathematics). He was also unhappy about the 'lies' (probably presented as simplifications) to which children are exposed. For example, at an early stage, they are categorically told there are 'no numbers between zero and one'. They later have to do a complete volte face to deal with fractions (although they already knew an orange could be cut in half). The very idea of negative numbers does not get an airing. I think he now has a better idea why he has had to correct the thinking of undergraduates, when they start Mathematics at University. The experience of the Scientist was much more positive. This may, however, have reflected the fact that her children's work, at this time, was on basic environmental issues. It would be interesting to see how other areas of science are dealt with later in the curriculum. The Novelist was much less impressed by the English curriculum. She claimed to have learned lots about grammar but found 'nothing of value in it'. Her impression was, that children were being taught 'writing by numbers', rather than being guided to write effectively and convincingly. The experiences of these three are obviously very different from the majority of parents forced into home schooling roles. Perhaps, however, we should all take more interest in what our young people are exposed to by ever-mutating curricula. Few of us understand how rapidly things change (not always for the better), in early education. We can only rarely rely on our own experiences (and jargon) that we acquired at a similar age.