Explaining what I've learned thus far

"This unschooling thing is just too unstructured for my comfort level." Rowan's father said something to this effect tonight.

I said this same thing about a month ago. Maybe it was the local unschooling group I found on Yahoo Groups that really sparked my interest, but I joined a few other unschooling discussion groups. It has taken me an entire month of reading the boards to learn what the word "unschool" means. I thought I'd write a post just to explain what I've learned these last few weeks, for the benefit of my family. I feel I still have a long way to go practice-wise, but I think I understand the theory.

For me, unschooling is a light at the end of the tunnel-- the tunnel being a very long and harsh period of being a complete control freak. It is the opposite end of the spectrum of traditional parenting. As many people find when they first start learning about unschooling, it is not just an educational philosophy-- it's a life that is built around choices, which leads to problem solving, decision making, an inner trust in the Self. It is a method that tosses out things like workbooks, traditional textbooks, or even "school at home."

I think about my strong-willed child, Rowan. She is 4, and already displaying serious rebellion to things that she finds unimportant. Recently I've come to find that the daily battles are really not worth it. Battling with her does not make her respect me. It makes her rebel stronger. I have also come to rid myself of my expectations of her, present and future. She is her own person; maybe one day she will want to go to college, maybe she will want to stay home and raise a family, maybe she will decide to live on the river and play music all day. I don't know who she will become, but I do know that I want her to be able to feel strong in her choices, and feel good about the decisions she makes.

I sat down with Rowan once with a letters workbook. I wanted her to learn to write, as she had displayed a lot of interest in it. I tried to show her how to trace the letters in the book, how to write her own on the lines. She didn't understand those lines. She didn't understand that she was supposed to write AAAAAA all in a row, in between those two solid lines, centering them in the middle of the dotted line. It drove her crazy, it drove me even crazier. We both left the table in tears, and I proclaimed that I was never going to try to teach her again.



A few months later, Rowan is now writing for fun. "Mommy, how do you spell horse?" she asks me one day while we're in the car. With a pen and a stray envelope that I found on the floorboard she writes "H. O. R. S. E." She hands it to the front seat to me. "Wow," I say, "That's really great. But your E has about 8 lines sticking off of it, it only needs 3."

"It's a super-E," she says. I laughed until I thought I'd die and showed everyone I knew the results, and told the story over the next few days. She is full of these fabulous comebacks.

She writes for fun. She asks me how to spell everything. Her writing is chaotically beautiful. She's passionately interested in it, I can feel how much she desires to learn. She shows far more interest in writing and spelling than she does in actual reading. And I'm fine with that. This will lead to reading. But I know that if I were to insist that she fit the letters in the lines, that she would resist me. She would say, "I don't want to do that." She would put down the pencil, and be completely discouraged from writing for a long time. I don't want to kill that fire, that beautiful interest, that freeform handwriting.

Perhaps in school they could put my little one in a box, show her how to conform. But why would I want that?

I want her to have choices. Some ask me if I'll let her go to school if she wants to. Of course I will. But I feel confident that after this Head Start business is over, and she spends a summer at home in our new direction, that she'll see how different it can all be. If not, then I feel confident that she will ask to come home once she sees how boring it is, and how happy her little brother is. I feel confident that Boo Bear will never ask to go to school. I have a gut feeling about that one.

As for the unstructured-ness... that's one thing that repelled me about unschooling when I first started reading about it. But I've come to realize that unschooling does not mean entirely unstructured. Some unschooled children crave structure, much to the dismay of their parents. In the interest of "child-led learning" the parents accomadate that need. Structure also implies a daily routine, an order to things, which is possible to an unschooling life. I personally do not agree with a set bedtime (anymore). I find that Rowan sleeps much better when she is allowed to go to bed when she is tired. So what if it's after midnight? Her mother and her father are both night owls, and there have been studies lately saying that can be hereditary. (By the way, she knows all about nocturnal. Tonight when I was telling her to get sleepy by thinking of the owls in the trees burying their little heads in their wings, she says, "Mom. Owls are nocturnal." To which I replied, "Why, yes they are, and you are a super genius.")

Okay, so if we're discussing structure in educational terms, and not just robotic person terms... I have some pretty strong views on the subject.

After reading an interview with John Holt, I have come to this conclusion (and this is really what he said, but it just really resonated with me.): To say that kids need to learn something that isn't interesting, that they'll never use, to teach them to think, implies very harshly to the child that they are not trusted with already knowing how to think. And after reading an article by one of the guys from Car Talk (the radio show on NPR), I realize that this is wrong, because it implies that subjects that kids ARE interested in are NOT making them think, or teaching them to think better.

Force-fed learning (i.e. grades, testing, being held back a grade as a sort of penance) is not the best way to educate a small child. To test a child implies that the child is not to be trusted with retaining knowledge. Testing kills the retaining of knowledge; they learn it for the test and it is soon forgotten. Testing and homework are ways for teachers to keep tabs on large groups of children. It is not effective when you spend a lot of one-on-one time with your child, and witness for yourself what your child is learning.

I feel that there will always be the questions, "What has she been learning?" I will ask myself that question, I will hear it from countless other people. To minimize the feeling that my children are not learning anything, I can keep a detailed journal. I can strew learning materials such as library books that may spark an interest, I can take them out to see the world and experience real things, I can have a plan, but not (as my pal Jessica says) "get my ego all wrapped up in it." I can answer Rowan's countless questions, which are already directed toward arithmetic ("Mommy, what's 2 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1?"), science (she tells me all about the meaning of nocturnal, lists a huge list of nocturnal animals, and then challenges ME to add to the list), the arts (visual art so beautiful it moves me to tears, songwriting, the invention of instruments), and the spelling/writing that I've already mentioned. The subjects that I'm not so fresh on, I can always look up with her. This will give her the knowledge of how to learn things on her own. The subjects that she's not asked questions about, such as history, I can volunteer that information while we're visiting historic sites, telling her how people used to live.

I think that the whole "getting kids ready for college" thing is a complete load. That's a really heavy burden for a child, when you think about it. I have read countless articles lately about how some kids never get involved in math until they hit the teenage years and then are doing algebra within a week. Even the Waldorf schools teach kids to read at a later age (7 or 8) because the kids pick it up faster and with more gusto. There is no evidence that children who learn to read at an earlier age are smarter than children who read later. With all the spelling my girl is doing, I assume it won't be long before she's reading The Cat In The Hat. Shoving a bunch of boring busy work in a child's face and demanding that they do it is detrimental to the natural drive of learning that ALL children have. At a later age, when their brains are much more developed, they are able to figure it out quicker and it seems to stick longer.

And if Rowan decides she wants to go to college? She can start taking classes at the community college at age 16 if she wants, to get ready for the entry exams. She may pick it up fast and not have any problems. Perhaps she'll take awhile and not take the exams until she's 22. What harm is there in that? Why are we so hung up on ages in this country? Just because 18 is the legal adult age does not mean that we should be tossing our kids out on the streets, or badgering them to get a real job. Insanity.

My point to this college rant is that traditional school, and even this "school at home" is like some sort of strange boot camp that lasts throughout the entire childhood. It's supposed to ingrain respect (which cannot be demanded any more than love can) and self-discipline (which cannot be taught, as it comes from within), but it fails. Children who are not allowed to make choices will grow up to be adults who are unsure in every decision.

Unschool does not mean "uneducation."

Unschool does not mean unstructured.

Unschool does not mean unplanned.

Do not pay attention to the word, the label. Call it self-led learning if you want. And know that parents have the job of sparking the fires of interest, of ensuring the needs are met with arms full of materials, of always encouraging and answering questions.

And please. Do. Some. Research.

Stay tuned for my upcoming rant and comeback to the Socialization Epidemic.