TEACH: Creating Independently Responsible Learners by Dennis DiNoia (book review)
One of the most significant goals of homeschooling in our family is finding and pursuing purpose in our lives, including the educational experience. It means encouraging a lifelong love of learning and critical thinking skills, as well as individual gifts and interests.
I recently had the opportunity to read TEACH: Creating Independently Responsible Learners by Dennis DiNoia, M.A.Ed, and found that his philosophy of education (and life!) aligns with these ideals, too.
What is an Independently Responsible Learner?
As I’ve mentioned many times, our family takes a delight-directed approach to learning. It can also be referred to as interest-led, self-directed, autodidactic (self-taught), or child-led learning. It emphasizes the child’s natural curiosity, talents, creativity, and whole-child development as a person of good character who connects to others and ideas throughout their lifetime.
Dennis DiNoia writes about these concepts in the terms of independently responsible learners. He explains how this applies not just in an academic sense, but in practical ways to live an intentional life.
In TEACH, he encourages a Socratic approach — asking meaningful questions, discovering each individual’s best learning style, thinking independently on a deeper level, self-discovery, and applying these principles to goal setting and life skills as well.
This not only serves students well for their educational endeavors, but in all of life’s most important pursuits!
TEACH also covers one of my favorite topics — beginning with the end in mind. I call this reverse engineering your homeschool goals. When you get to the end of your homeschool journey, what will success look like? Use this homeschool vision to design your educational plans and goals.
(In Purposeful Homeschooling, I provide the tools to help you do that as you create your homeschool mission statement.)
TEACH is written in a very conversational tone, making it feel like really good advice from a friend. I can just imagine discussing these ideas with Dennis over a cup of coffee.
Through stories from his personal experience, the reader gets a clear picture of exactly how being a self-taught person taking ownership of their education can help them live a more successful life overall.
The book isn’t too long or stuffy or full of eductional jargon. He has purposely made the information easy to digest and apply right away. It’s a quick read.
It can be read by parents, educators, and teens alike. Each will have something practical to take away from the book when they’re done reading.
About the Author
Dennis DiNoia, M.A.Ed, is the founder of Mr. D Math online courses. With 30 years of experience, he is an enthusiastic teacher who believes in the potential of every individual student.
It’s obvious in TEACH that he has a passion for this message and that he practices what he preaches. Reading this book is great encouragement and motivation for living an intentional life.
We’ve enjoyed taking several of Mr. D’s self-paced online classes, which you can read about here:
Mr. D also has a podcast, A+ Parents, where he discusses many of these ideas. I had the privilege of being a guest on the podcast and I can tell you that Mr. D is the real deal. He is genuine about his educational beliefs and practices.
If you want to create an eager student who approaches life with a positive attitude and a growth mindset, reading TEACH is a good place to start.
You can purchase TEACH on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and audiobook formats. As of this writing, the Kindle version is only 99 cents, so check it out today!
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