In praise of audiobooks, with thanks to Ernestine Gilbreth

One of the books I loved as a kid was Cheaper by the Dozen, a book about a family of twelve and their efficiency-expert parents, written by Ernestine, one of the twelve. 

Lillian and Frank Gilbreth, the parents, are OG afterschoolers. Frank, ever the numbers guy, teaches the kids to do mental math, multiplying big numbers. He teaches them touch typing. And appreciating the value of acquiring a second language, he has the kids play foreign language records while they bathe. "You don't have to listen to them consciously," he says, "Just play them, and they'll finally make an impression." For ten years, every morning and every evening, you could hear French and German coming out of the bathroom. Whatever grumbling the kids might have done about it, all of them could speak French and German by the time they were grown. 

It's meant to be a funny story, like the rest of the book, but it occurs to me that much of what I do with my kids is very much in the spirit of the Gilbreths. 

The story illustrates a few values I try to incorporate into afterschooling:

• Use the wasted parts of the day. 
• Don't sweat learning everything perfectly, just learn every day.
• Technology can help!

This leads me of course to audiobooks. Frank Sr. would tell us that, no matter how busy we are, there is wasted time in the day. In the car, during bath time, as we do chores, etc. The down side to this wasted time is that it may not be amenable to more traditional learning (no desk, not amenable to writing, and so forth). 

But with audio, it's only a matter of turning on the sound. Frank and Lillian had to deal with unwieldy Victrolas for sound, and because of it, they got two, one for each bathroom. Today, the sound is built into many of our living spaces. It's there for your use.

So I would urge you, find audio resources you like. Listen to Spanish language recordings in the car. Listen to history podcasts during bath time. Give your kids an mp3 player filled with children's literature recordings or schoolhouse rocks songs or whatever you think they might enjoy. There are even podcasts around meant to pique children's interest in all sorts of things. 

Keep in mind that many of these things are available from your pubic library. Many podcasts are downloadable for free. 

I think the only "rules" you might think about might include:

• No screentime while the audio is on.
• Repetition may make sense for things like language acquisition. 
• You may want to use other things to support what is learned through audio. 

As to the latter, this is how my younger son is learning history. He enjoys the Story of the World history audiobooks, and when he finishes a chapter, he supports the information through either reading from Cartoon History of the Universe or doing a chapter on the same subject in IXL.com. We also do some of the activities suggested in Story of the World's activity books. 

But strictly speaking, it's not necessary. One of the wonderful things about audiobooks is that if you're taking a gentler approach to afterschooling, it's very friendly to that. In fact, Bauer, for her own series, suggests in the early grades merely asking your kid to summarize what he or she has learned in a few sentences. Which has the effect of being less about "Did you learn everything?" and more about "Tell me what jumped out at you?" It's a more relaxed notion of learning that nevertheless asks the child to pay attention.

And if even that is too much, then simple repetition should do the trick. For something like a language lesson, maybe that's playing the same recording every day for a week. For something like a history or literature chapter, it might mean playing through the book once, and then playing through it again. Or giving that book as an option during evening entertainment time. Or letting your kid pick a youtube video based on the same subject matter. 

Each kid is different, so what works may vary. The critical thing is to begin, and to continue as regularly as possible. 

Here are some podcasts and audiobooks you might like.