…on unschooling, mostly, and the way we learn around here in general.
A couple of weeks ago, many of my favorite bloggers began discussing the ins and outs and merits and such of unschooling and child-led learning. They were joined by others new to me who also spoke up about the topic. Here are several of the posts that I read. A few more. And just a few more. I read it all with great interest, as it’s been a direction we seem to be moving towards lately. At first it seemed that it was merely “tidal” or seasonal, this move towards less mom-directed activity and more kid-directed. Then I began to wonder if in fact this might be better for us, or at least for some of us. I noted with a bit of “aha!” my experiences with “strewing” and how my expectations sometimes change the outcome of that. Then I let it all simmer for a while, intending to get back to it and write more. Now I’ve let it simmer too long (life and all getting in the way of blogging about it), and it seems that I have come to some conclusions, but still have many questions. I’m just going to start putting them all here in no particular order and see where this takes me. And it might take a day or two to write this post, so I may come back in and add as I remember things I wanted to note. Bear with me…
- I’ve begun to ponder the possibility (as I read this post) that unschooling might not really be so very different from homeschooling where there is lots of parental involvement and lots of consideration about the children’s learning styles and interests. I too wonder then if it’s really necessary to decide if we are “unschooling” or simply paying attention to how each of our child learns best and what that child is most interested in learning and how best to help the child achieve that learning.
- So then is it possible, workable, practical for two different children in the same house to learn in drastically different ways? And be okay with that? And not make the mom insane? Case in point, my oldest two. Ben needs structure, loves having a set plan for how he’s going to accomplish something, loves sameness and order. He works very well with a step by step outline of what to do each day. He’s already doing this on his own with his Math-U-See work. He decides how much he wants to accomplish each week, does it daily on his own first thing each morning, and reminds me to check it for him and give him the tests. I think we could collaboratively do this with every subject for him, although we are just now getting to this point with him (age-wise). And he’s getting independent enough to pull it off, I think. Madeline, on the other hand, needs much more variety in her days/weeks. She does not like to have a schedule, still needs lots of play in her days, likes to have choices and options. However, she’s not the “unschooling posterchild” that Superboy at Lapaz HomeLearning is:) She isn’t that motivated, doesn’t have those obsessive, all-consuming interests, doesn’t have the independence yet or the drive to stick with a topic for that long. So she needs something much more “unschooly” but I’m not convinced that true, total unschooling is really for her (plus there’s the math thing…ugh). I’ve been reading about “Choice Time” at Angela’s house and thinking that this might be a good option for her and possibly for Ellie at this point.
- What do you do when one of your children shows an interest in a topic so that you can help them learn more about it without causing their interest to shut down? This has happened to us more times than I can count. They express an interest in something (from just a simple question to wanting to know more about a whole topic), I offer to help them look it up on the Internet or find books on the topic or whatever, they suddenly lose interest. I think I just have a tendency to turn all “teachery” on them and they get scared off or something. How do unschooling parents facillitate without taking over?
- Are some personalities just going to make better unschoolers (both parents and children)? Theresa’s Superboy seems to be the ultimate unschooler, self-motivated and with many and varied interests that he’s ready and willing to pursue with help from a willing facilitator. But what if the nearest possible facilitator (usually the homeschooling mom) is driven crazy by this type of learning (fortunately this does not seem to be a problem for the patient and wise Theresa
). What if the mom needs structure, order, schedules, plans, etc.? Can a more “unschoolish” approach still work for that child? How? - The biggest challenges, it has seemed to me, for us when we have gone down the road of unschooling (ie. no mom-directed activities or learning plans) is that we have such things as boredom (ie. moping around with no interest in anything at all), more bickering among the kids (I think… this is not a scientifically-determined conclusion), more requests for me to entertain them (when I can’t always do this due to having a one year old to be responsible for/keep up with), more requests for computer time/video game time (I know that many unschoolers would not see this as a problem, but I do), and finally me having to constantly fight the urge to make sure they are “doing something productive” (whatever that means…).
*** I’m going to stop there for now… it’s taken me long enough to put these thoughts together. I know that I’ve had more thoughts and revelations about this (and related) topics over the last week or so, and I’ll add them as I remember them. But for now, I do see that I’m drifting towards finding a way to make a more structured collaborative approach work for Ben and a less structured more unschooling (maybe also collaborative, I suppose?) approach work for Madeline (freedom within limits as Angela of Three Plus Two calls it - thanks for that term, Angela). What I really wish some days is that each of my children came with a complete instruction manual (or that someone would create one for me) which would fully explain his or her learning style, what type of instruction to use with the child, and finally a complete list of curricula which could successfully be used with that child. Hmm… some days something like that would be so convenient. I suppose, though, that it would take much of the joy of discovery out of this journey. I think that’s half of my problem (at least)… I’m looking at this not as a joyful discovery about each child, but as a difficult and not-very-fun drudgery, trying to find the elusive one way that will work best and achieve optimal results. I need to remember that they are people and that I want to get to know them. Really, that is the joy. Not the achievement of a “successful homeschooling year.” More food for thought. Look for the joy of discovering…