When I first heard this term unschooled about three years
ago, I thought that is CRAZY! Parents actually NOT schooling their children,
that is just awful! Well the more I read about it and learned the more I
realized my initial perception of what unschooling is was nothing like what I
thought. It may make up the 1%, but it has nothing to do with the other 90% -
plus. Basically speaking unschooled is just a style of homeschooling. If you
spend anytime surfing online you will find, what feels like, a zillion
different homeschooling styles. All of it can be a little overwhelming and
confusing when you start researching if you let it. I have even found there are
different types of unschoolers as well.
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| (Above, mom and son playing Indians) |
So what is an unschooler? Well it varies from one family to
the next so I can only speak from our family. A general definition IMO is: An
unschooler is a student of life that learns from ones environment, things of
interest and persons surrounding them and ones they may meet. Instead of having
a teacher a parent is more of a facilitator. Unschoolers are not typically
anti-school or anti-education, but just the opposite. They desire for each
child to take an active role in their own education and pursue the styles of
learning they best relate to and apply them to their interest of study. They do
not force or manipulate the student to learn, but help the student to identify
his/her love of learning and help them achieve their learning goals.
I have heard many times that unschoolers do not use a curriculum
and if that is the case than our family is NOT an unschooled family. Why do I
say that? First of all, I hate labels and much prefer to be called Life
Learners or learning from home. I like it better than the term unschoolers, but
that is just me. I hate the stereotypes labels put on things. Just like my misconception
I had in what an unschooler was at the beginning. In general, when someone asks
us “oh where does your son go to school?” I reply “we do learning at home. So
back to the curriculum. Some of you unschoolers reading this blog post, I hope
you are still breathing while you are waiting for my response about the
curriculum. (BREATH!) Yes we use a curriculum. My child loves books and loves a
lot of hands on activities and learning new things so I do use a curriculum,
although (there’s the but) unlike maybe, a traditional school or homeschool
there is no force or manipulation to use the curriculum. If my child said I
don’t want to read that or do that, then we don’t, simple as that. There is
always something else to learn so why teach them something they’re not ready
for yet or have no interest in and will never use? I can see some mouths drop
off here and saying: But you have to teach IT, what if they are at their job
someday and need it? I can answer that, but first I have to ask you a question.
Can you remember a time in school when you had to learn something because it
was required to pass the class or test and you had no interest in learning it?
Do you still remember it? Some of you may answer yes, but I can almost
guarantee that the majority of us at on more than one occasion forgot that
concept shortly after that class or test was over because it held no importance
to us beyond that point. Yes there is some thought in the fact that it may
stick, but if they really don’t like it what is the point of making it stick?
Just because they know it, they should choose to follow a career to do
something they dislike or should they follow their interests and passion and
follow a career in that pathway? There may be an argument there to be had, but
that is my thoughts on the topic.
(Above chemistry experiments, left: Density Right: solids verses liquids)
I can remember taking Algebra in middle school for advance
credit. In order to pass I had to make an A or a B. I really tried hard to
learn the concepts as the overachiever that I was. My teacher told me “you’re
just not working hard enough”. That was just not true. She offered me
after school tutoring, which I jumped at. I brought my score from a D to a C,
which was not enough to get credit for. I was proud of my efforts despite still
not understanding what I had learned. With the advantage of the tutoring she
gave me the skills to pass the test. Did that mean that I finally got it? Far
from it! As soon as that test was over my Algebra skills left the building.
Years later while in college learning something I was interested in learning I
saw an Algebra concept in action and saw a real life example of it. I learned
that algebra equation, although I have never put it to use as my interest have
changed, the point is if it’s something of interest to you that you desire to
know you will learn it when you need it. There is no cut off for learning. My
mother is 56 years old and is a college student. She has been in classes ever
since I have known her. She is known for breaking electronic devices until they
are not even repairable. She took her computer in to a computer repair shop a
few months ago and they said “throw it away”. She took a computer class and
repaired the computer herself. Why? Because it interest her and she wanted it
fixed. We are all natural learners are we not? At least we were until education
and test got in our way.
(Below, Five in A Row, Study of Paris, France, Madeline)
So our little natural learning, unschooling-homeschooling
family uses Five in a Row and
additional curriculum as well. My child loves it at this point keeps asking for
more and more. We also do a lot of Charlotte Mason style learning like nature
walks and nature journals and collecting and natural reading. My son loves
doing workbooks sometimes too, so you will often see us working in a school
workbook. My child LOVES anything hands-on. Last week he was really into
volcanoes so I checked out a bunch of books from the library on volcanoes and
we learned all about them and built our own volcano. This week I found a chemistry
set and every day we have been a different chemistry experiment. Today we read
a book about Japan, located Japan on the map, talked about the geography of
Japan and the culture and distance from Japan to us here in the USA. He doesn’t
recognize that he is doing “school” like most traditionally schooled children
because there is not division between our life and school. He is learning every
day from the things we call “life” and the intentional persons, places and
things we put into our environment as well.
Sometimes, because I am have to retrain my thinking as well, I will say
this is for school and our son will ask “that was school?” Ha-ha! He really has
no idea what is school and what is not because he is a natural learner and
whether he realizes it or not everything is a learning experience and we are
all being “schooled” every day, intentionally or unintentional.
(Below, Study on Volcanoes)
The hubby tilled up
our first phase summer garden spot Sunday afternoon, which I thought was never
going to happen because the tiller was giving trouble, but after about four
hours of labor hubby finally got it run. Could you imagine the days before with
had motorized equipment. No wonder those generations were so fit looking, they
worked their tails off for sure. I just can’t imagine things like cutting a
thick tree down with a handsaw or ax and then the task of actually cutting it
into logs and then splitting the logs
and having to do it to survive all winter long, keeping the fire going.
Makes me remember the time we got iced in at my sister-n-laws. The power went
out, but thankfully she had a fireplace. We dragged the mattress into the
living room to sleep. My hubby got the fire going and all night long every time
he would get almost to sleep his sister would get cold and he was off outside
to get wood. He kept that fire going all night and was so exhausted the next
day. We still laugh about that night. I don’t know if too many of us could now
adapt to the days without electric, running water, motor powered equipment.
Which raises the question would we want to? I know I enjoy it when we go
camping, but not sure if I would like it permanently or not.
(Left, Bug Hunting with Snoopy)