A Lesson in Flight: The Danger of Helicopter Teaching & Parenting
It was day 2 of summer vacation, and I was ready to go back to work. It’s not that I don’t love my kids. Or holidays. I love both dearly. But the first two days of being at home with my 1.5 year-old and 4.5 year-old were tough.
Tantrums, whining, clinging, cooking, cleaning — It was all too much and I felt raw, angry, depleted.
By 5:30pm, I was willing my husband to walk through the door.
On day 3, I decided we needed a schedule and clear expectations for our summer routine. I made a calendar and drew pictures for what would happen on each day. I went over our daily routine with my son and set some boundaries around when and how much educational Netflix he could watch.
As I set up these routines and expectations, I began to think about my teaching practice. Students, like kids, need structure. But how much structure is too much structure?
In the words of Kittle and Gallagher, “How do we release them? How do we shift our practices to support independence rather than dependence?” (Kittle and Gallagher, St. Lawrence College, July 8th, 2019).
The routines I implemented at home were working — less tantrums, less whining, more compliance — but were they helping my son to grow? Were they helping him to move from a state of dependence to independence?
Kittle and Gallagher (2019) discuss a helicopter teacher as someone who makes the majority of decisions for their students about how and what they are learning. It is someone who determines the text to be studied, the prompt to be responded to, the sequence of ideas in a narrative or essay, the way a student should organize their ideas when brainstorming. A helicopter teacher is someone who teaches writing so students will learn how to write a five-paragraph essay, instead of “using writing as a tool for students to explore their thinking” (Kittle and Gallagher, St. Lawrence College, July 9th, 2019). When we take control over their learning (fly the helicopter), they take a backseat and never
How many activities should I be organizing for my son (and students)? How many choices should I be making about their learning?
Kittle and Gallagher (2019) suggest trading in our task-oriented approach for a generative one. What does that mean? It means empowering students to make choices about how and what they learn. It means providing them with a space to take risks, to think, to write, to explore, to analyze, to reflect. It means focusing on the process rather than the product. It means creating a safe space where students can find their voice as writers and their identity as readers. They put forth a detailed account of how to do so in their book 180 days of Teaching.
So after 2 days of hearing Kittle and Gallagher speak (and 6 days of summer vacation), I am feeling more confident about how to survive the summer at home with my kids. I need to shift my focus away from task-oriented activities and towards generative ones. I need to focus on fostering independence, self-regulation, persistence, and decision-making. I need to help my son find his voice and his identity apart from my own. And then… I need to watch him take flight.
