Teacher vs Parent

What Was I So Afraid Of?

If you had told me a few years ago that I’d be responsible for my kids’ education, I would’ve laughed in your face.

Me? Teaching?

Wasn’t that what trained professionals did?

The ones with degrees, lesson plans, and classrooms full of resources?

I was wrong.

And I was scared for all the wrong reasons.

What Is a Teacher, Anyway?

Before we started this whole accidental homeschooling saga, I thought teaching was about lessons, routines, and managing a room full of kids.

I didn't understand the full weight they carried, the balancing act between individual needs, system demands, and their own passion for actually reaching kids.

We had some incredible teachers who pulled out all the stops.

And we had others who ticked the boxes because that’s what the system demanded of them.

Back then, I was ignorant to just how hard it really was.

I thought teachers had more freedom than they actually do.

Now? I see it differently.

A teacher is someone who helps you make sense of the world. Someone who sees you.

Someone who knows when to push, when to back off, when to spark curiosity, and when to just let you be.

It’s not about standing at the front of a room delivering instructions.

It’s about connection, engagement and trust.

Funny enough, none of that comes from a textbook.

How Much Do Teachers Actually Learn About Learning?

This bit floored me when I started digging.

Not because teachers aren’t capable or passionate, they absolutely are. But because the system doesn’t give them what they really need either.

Most primary teaching degrees spend more time teaching future teachers how to write a lesson plan, manage behaviour, and tick curriculum boxes than learning how kids actually learn.

There’s a crash course in child development. A few units on "differentiation" (translation: tweak the lesson a bit and hope it helps). Maybe an elective on special education if you choose it.

But the heavy lifting? Admin. Documentation. Behaviour management. Cover-your-back paperwork, not understanding the complex inner world of a neurodivergent kid.

Training in things like executive function, sensory profiles, demand avoidance, the reality of trauma responses in kids? Optional. Surface level. Sometimes barely touched at all.

And then we expect one teacher to meet thirty completely different humans exactly where they are, every day, with minimal support.

The problem isn’t the teachers. It’s the system setting them up to fail.

Maybe I wasn’t the one who didn’t measure up.

Maybe the whole idea of who’s “qualified” and what counts as education is the thing that’s not working.

Aren’t Parents the First Teachers?

We teach our kids to walk. Talk. Use the toilet. Say please and thank you (or at least grunt politely at strangers).

We teach them how to navigate friendships, how to ride a bike, how to say sorry, how to stand up for themselves.

And we did it without lesson plans. We did it with instinct, connection, and a hell of a lot of trial and error.

When you zoom out, education isn’t about ticking boxes. It’s about building skills to survive, adapt, and thrive in the world.

That’s what parents have always done. We just forgot to give ourselves credit for it.

Learning Styles, Connection, and Engagement

Turns out, you can’t force a kid to learn.

You can make them comply. You can make them memorise. But deep, sticky, joyful learning? That only happens when there’s interest. When there’s connection. When the person helping them actually gives a damn about how they learn best.

Chalk needs movement and games. Cheese needs space and autonomy. Neither of them learns because I designed a fancy worksheet. They learn because I paid attention to what lit them up, and built from there.

That’s not a lesson plan. That’s a relationship.

Remember Your Favourite Teacher?

I bet you can.

The one who saw you. The one who didn’t just teach content, but lit a spark.

Maybe it was the teacher who stayed back after class to tell you, "You’re good at this." Maybe it was the one who got your weird jokes, or the one who made you feel safe enough to have a go without worrying about getting it wrong.

Some kids’ entire lives are built on a spark lit by a great teacher. A word of encouragement at the right time. A look that said, "I see you." A project that made you think, "Maybe I’m not useless after all."

That’s what real teaching is. Not sticking to the script. Not ticking the standard. Lighting the spark.

That’s what I’m aiming for now, messy and imperfect as it is.

Real teaching isn’t about delivering content. It’s about seeing the kid in front of you and lighting the spark that makes them believe they can learn.

The Part I Didn’t Understand About Great Teaching

There’s something else I didn’t know when I started this. It wasn’t just about lesson plans and good intentions.

The great teachers know how to ask the right questions.

Not the kind that feel like a pop quiz.

Not "What's the capital of France?"

Or "Who can name a verb?"

The kind that crack your brain open a little bit:

"Why do you think that happened?"

"What would you do differently?"

"Can you imagine another way?"

"How would you explain it to someone who’s never heard of it?"

They don’t test you. They invite you to think.

When I first started homeschooling, I thought I needed to have all the answers.

But actually?

It’s way more powerful to have the right questions.

It’s the same skill that matters most when you’re a parent guiding learning too.

If you can be curious with them, genuinely curious?

If you can leave space for wondering, even if it doesn’t tie up neatly?

If you can connect ideas without stepping in to fix everything?

That’s where the magic happens.

(And yes, it feels wildly unnatural at first when your whole brain is screaming "Jump in! Fix it! Correct them!" Hi there, fellow control freaks!)

What Else Makes a Great Teacher?

When I really sat with it, a few more things became obvious:

They model curiosity.

They don’t fake being know-it-alls.

They wonder out loud and show you it’s okay not to know yet.

They know when to shut up.

They don’t fill every silence.

They give you time to puzzle it out yourself.

They understand learning isn’t a straight line.

It’s loops and spirals and sudden sideways leaps. And that’s normal.

They tap into intrinsic motivation.

They don’t rely on external gold stars. They find the spark inside you.

They build relationship first.

Because real learning needs safety first, always.

So…What Was I So Afraid Of?

I thought teaching meant being an expert. I thought it meant colour coded planners and tidy learning spaces.

I was afraid of getting it wrong.

But the real secret? Getting it wrong sometimes is the job.

Learning is messy. Teaching is messy. Parenting is messy.

When you stop worrying about ticking boxes and start focusing on building connection? That’s when the real magic happens.

I’m not saying every day is some beautiful Instagram moment with handmade felt letters and organic apple slices. Some days, learning looks like a meltdown over a misplaced sock. Some days, learning looks like Minecraft at 8am.

But every day, learning is happening.

Because I’m not standing at the front of a classroom barking orders. I’m standing with them, figuring it out together.

And it turns out, that’s what the best teachers do too.