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Erica Wixon
English 111
Lucia Elden
11 December 2014
Learning as a Parent
As a parent and adult learner, I know that I view school very differently now than I did
almost ten years ago when I graduated high school. Fresh out of high school I started the
enrollment process because that is what I first thought I should do. However, I never finished
enrolling and didnt go to college until eight years later. I didnt have the drive or a good enough
reason to go to college right out of high school. In high school I would go to each class and not
really care if it was going to help me or not later in life. Now that I am an adult and a parent, I
know how important an education is. I decided to further my education because I wanted to gain
independence in my thinking and form my own beliefs. As a parent, my children are a great
motivation for me. When they see me reading or doing homework, they sit at the table and read
and do homework also. I also notice that I try to be more optimistic about tough assignments
when they are around because I dont want them to get into the habit of complaining about work
and giving up when its difficult. Coming into college as a parent, there are going to be struggles
at home and at school. Parents who become students need to learn to reinvent themselves
through critical reflection.
Feeling a sense of wanting to learn, grow and change is one reason parent learners decide
to further their education. To expand further on this reason, a person decides to further their
education because they want to think for themselves and form their own ideas and beliefs. Jack
Mezirow, a professor at Columbia University, says it best: Adult learners view learning to think
as autonomous, responsible persons as an important educational objective (271). Being an
autonomous, or independent, thinker is essential to being a parent as well as a student. A parent

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who is an autonomous thinker has the ability to shape their own ideas and beliefs. That is a very
powerful thing for a parent. The parents are the ones who dictate the rules and roles in their
families at the beginning. Being an independent thinker, they are able to research and decide
what is right for their family. Autonomous thinkers break out of the mold of this is how one
should think because that is how their parents thought. Autonomous thinkers who critically
reflect on their past frames of reference are constantly learning and growing. Jack Mezirow goes
on further about the reason parents become students again: Their goal is to become
autonomous, responsible thinker(s) (271). Parents are already responsible. They are
responsible for their families and their wellbeing. Wanting to be an independent, responsible
thinker is what parenting is all about. By asking questions before reacting to situations, unlike
they had before, will improve their parenting but can also improve their learning as well. While
attending college, a parent learner will have difficulties and struggles. Before the student was a
parent they only had to worry about themselves. Now that the student is a parent, the parent
learner seeks help with assignments they are struggling with, instead of just pushing it aside and
not trying to figure it out. Parents want to set the best examples for their children as they can,
making how well they do in college and how well they handle it even more important to them.
Anyone who is attending college or has attended college will exclaim: a persons college
journey can be quite an amazing experience, riddled with struggles, changes, failures and
triumphs. How a person was taught and their learning style before college will set their
experience apart from others. That statement is true for all students; especially for students who
are also parents. One struggle a college student who is also a parent faces is not being able to
always focus fully on the task at hand. Their minds will sometimes trail off to their
children. According to Catherine Marienau, PhD, Even after children leave home and become

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adults, they often are still fully present in a parents psyche (Marienau 3). This can be seen as a
problem for a parent who is also a student. However, David Boud, Rosemary Keogh and David
Walker would argue that it does not have to be a problem. It can be viewed as a learning
experience instead. When a parent learner reflects on their experience, they can change their
behavior, or commit to different action (Boud, Keogh, & Walker). A parent learner who
reflects on the events throughout their day can make changes where changes are needed and
work towards enacting different actions. By doing occasional or daily reflection, the parent
learner could learn a better way of handling certain argumentative situations. I dont mean
arguing in a negative sense. Its meant more in a normal everyday struggle, argument. Perhaps
the child doesnt want to complete an assignment because they do not find it interesting. Before
reflecting the parent might have instantly went straight to bribing or bartering with the child to
complete the assignment. However, after reflecting on an event similar in nature that happened
earlier in class, the parent could have observed a better tactic to use. Instead of bartering with
the child to do the assignment, the parent could calmly explain why it is important and work
through it together. Jack Mezirow says it best, To become meaningful, learning requires that
new information be incorporated by the learner into an already well-developed symbolic frame
of reference, an active process involving thought, feelings, and disposition (272). Talking about
ways to change a thought process is only the beginning of transforming to a new frame of
reference. In order to know that the changes that were thought about are reasonable and
obtainable, the parent learner must put them into action. Connecting what a student learns in
class with what happens in their everyday life is essential to learning and growing. Real world
application is the only way to form a new habit and then be able to reflect later on about the
changes that have been made.

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There are many resources to turn to for help when help is needed. However, when a
college student who is also a parent needs guidance on an issue, they often turn to other parents
in the same situation. When a child is falling behind in school, the parent will turn to the teacher
and the school first for guidance, but they also seek real world guidance from another parent who
is or has been in the same situation. The helping parent reflects on how they handled the
situation in order to help the other parent with their questions and concerns. Both parents may
not even realize, but they are helping each other to transform their frames of
reference. Something that parents need to know is that classroom learning isnt always
enough. For a college student who is a parent that is valuable knowledge to have. A parent who
is a college student has to open their mind up to continue to learn from their experiences. Paulo
Freire, who was an educator and philosopher in the twentieth-century, believes, Knowledge
emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing,
hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other (Freire
1). Freire mentions invention and re-invention as a way of saying students must discover
and re-discover ways of learning to keep growing in education. In order to gain knowledge,
students and parents must discover and rediscover their ideas and beliefs by not stopping; but
actively and zealously questioning everything in their current reality, with the people close to
them and with others that may not go about things the same way as they do. Jack Mezirow
builds on this idea: the learner may also have to be helped to transform his or her frame of
reference to fully understand the experience (272). By seeking help from other parents or
students, the parent learner opens themselves up to transformative opportunities they would not
have if they kept to themselves and didnt seek help from others. Students of all ages learn
differently and understand material given differently. Also, every parent has had a different

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experiences with their childs education and have rectified the pitfalls differently. Seeking out
these other sources give the parent learner a support system to help them learn from experiences
and further their frame of reference transformation.
A person, a parent or a college student cannot get by on the hope to learn and become
knowledgeable. They must work towards their futures by critically reflecting on their current
frames of reference so they can grow and so can the people they influence throughout their lives,
like their children and spouse. Learning is not something that stops happening as a person
ages. It is something that progresses with life. Through persistence the lifetime student
continues to reinvent themselves and their thinking.

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Works Cited
Freire, Paulo. Chapter 2. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Penguin, 1993. Continuum
Books. October 28, 2014. Web.
Mezirow, Jack. Transformative Learning: From Theory to Practice. Exploring Relationships:
Globalizing and Learning in the 21st Century. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2013. 272. Print.
Marienau, Catherine. Parents as Developing Adult Learners. Child Welfare. Washington,
USA: Child
Welfare League of America Inc., 2006. November 2, 2014. Web.