The Myth of Forced Determination

One argument that comes up over and over in defense of institutionalized education is the belief that children need to learn to buckle down and complete a task, even if it’s onorous to them. It’s even something that my very unschooling-supportive husband still struggles with.  I’ve heard it from every one of my friends when I discuss my educational viewpoint. Many of us labor under the assumption that life is full of being forced to dothings that you hate, and kids must go through this experience time and again in order to hammer that it. They call it “stick-to-itiveness” or “determination.”

Here’s the thing, though: in life outside of school, when you do something you dislike, you often see the REASON for it. Say, for example, that I hate camping.  My friends all decide to do a big camping trip and I know that if I don’t go, I’ll miss out on great bonding time. I may dislike the actually camping part, but I see the value in going. Or, to bring in a largely used example, if you had a job that you hated or that included tasks that you disliked. If you aren’t taught to struggle through the hard stuff by an institution such as school, how will you ever be able to do it in your job? Well, first, you’re being paid to do it. That’s a motivation. Second, to a certain degree, you chose to be in that job. And, third, in the situation where you generally like the job but dislike certain portions, you see the benefit of getting through the hard stuff in order to keep a job you generally enjoy, and to further your career.

This isn’t something that needs to be taught to you by giving you a difficult task that has no meaning to you. Forcing a math-lover to read and analyze Romeo and Juliet accomplishes nothing, save to make that person dislike Shakespeare.  They didn’t learn to stick it out and get something completed, even if they didn’t like it. Instead, they learned to game the system and do as little as possible to get the task over with.

Unschooled kids complete tasks that they find difficult all the time. But, they do them because they see the reason for it and have a larger goal. They might want to create their own video game, so they go through the laborious process of learning a programing language. They may want to write a novel, so they spend hours and hours at the computer. They may want to win a Lego competition, so they learn about geometry and physics. If forced to do any of these tasks, they would find them pointless and frustrating. But, because they have set their own goals and have the freedom to pursue their own interests, they amaze us with their stick-to-itivenss and determination.

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Prodigies

This morning I heard a story about the Iraqi orchestra. Off-handedly, the reporter mentioned a 13-year old boy (Llewellyn Kingman Sanchez Werner) who has been invited to play piano with the orchestra. The boy, as they say, is a prodigy. The news story wasn’t about Werner, so there wasn’t much information on him, but I turned to my husband and said, “What if his parents said, ‘No, you can’t play piano all day – you have to go to school?’” Wouldn’t that be a tragedy? Wouldn’t we all agree that he is wasting his talent?  We don’t question for a minute when a “prodigy” is pulled out of school to travel the world performing.  In fact, we’d probably be upset if that child wasn’t given those opportunities.

But, here’s the thing: every child is amazing at something. Okay, maybe we can’t place every child on the prodigy pedestal because that’s really reserved for kids who are better at something than most adults will ever be. But, isn’t it possible that we are hindering every child in his pursuit of his gift by forcing him to go to school? We are trying to make all of our kids mediocre in everything, instead of excellent in one thing.  We are doing the same to them as we would be doing to Werner by forbidding him the ability to play the piano so that he could focus on American Literature or Physics. It’s ludicrous.

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Happy Memorial Day – Muppets Style

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

 

(RSS Readers, you may need to click “View article” to see the 2 min embedded video.)

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Mindful Parenting

If you’re a reader of this blog, and you’re a parent, it’s highly likely that you don’t need to read this post.  But, humor me. Just in case you need reminding.

As parents, our job is more than to make sure that our babies turn into adults. It’s more than making it through the day, the week, or the year. Let this short post be a reminder to you to question yourself. Don’t just do things because that’s the way you’ve always done them. Don’t make parenting decisions based solely on the way you were parented or on what society expects of you. 

We should be asking ourselves on a daily basis WHY we do things. Why is it a rule that your child can’t touch certain things? Are these arbitrary things? Why do you discipline him or her in a particular way? Is it working? Is there a better option? Why do you watch more television than your child is allowed? Is that modeling good behavior?  Why do you get frustrated that your child is questioning you? Is it because you don’t have a real reason for what you’re doing in the first place?

It’s easy to get into a rote routine, and at times it is necessary. But, don’t stay there long. For your sake and your child’s sake, question yourself.  Make sure you have actual, legitimate reasons for your actions, reactions, habits, discipline, and rules (or principles).  And make sure your child knows those reasons.

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Calvin and Hobbes

calvin school

 

I like to think that Bill Watterson is an unschooler at heart.

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The Discipline Question

I’ve been thinking a lot about a truism. Every parent knows, in their head anyway, that kids learn by modeling them. We hear our kids use the same words and phrases we use. We see them make the same gestures we make. We watch, sometimes in horror, as they react to someone in a similar way that we might. Kids model adults. This isn’t news.

But, one thing I want to add to that truism is that kids don’t just model how we treat other people, but also how we treat them. If you want your child to learn respect, respect him. If you want her to be truthful, don’t lie to her. If you want him to be peaceful, don’t hit him.

I gather I may have lost a few people on that last one. Yes, I’m talking about spanking. My son, Little W, is 13 months old.  I don’t know many parents who would spank a 13-month old. But, he’s nearing that age where we will need to decide how we’re going to discipline.  My husband and I are working through our thoughts on this. This post represents my current feelings on the subject. We were both raised with spanking in our lives, and have, mostly, turned out okay. Most of our friends spank their children and I respect their decision. I do believe that it can be used judiciously and thoughtfully. But, I also believe even the most loving spank sends mixed messages.

To me, spanking is the ultimate “do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do” form of discipline. We don’t want our children to hit, yet we smack their behinds. It’s confusing and it shouldn’t be too surprising to see them model that behavior by spanking their baby dolls, little siblings and peers.  

It’s also a meaningless gesture. A spank isn’t a logical consequence to an inappropriate action. It’s disconnected from the offense and makes little sense to our kids. If you’ve ever heard, “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” you have to understand how non-sensical that is. As a child, that was a preposterous statement. I saw my parent hitting me – if it hurt them so badly, why didn’t they stop?

My one experience with anything close to physical punishment toward my son drove these points home. When Little W was a few months younger, I found myself having to corral his little hands. They grabbed everything in sight and were magnetically drawn toward electrical cords and toilet bowls. Advice from friends was to flick or smack his hand and sharply say, “No.”

I tried this. Once. You know what he did? He hit my hand right back.

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In Defense of: Video Games

I can’t remember, I may have written about video games already, but I just read an amazing post I want to, no NEED to, share. After the whole hullabaloo recently, many people are pointing to unschoolers as lazy, tv-watching, video-game-playing hoodlums.  And, we unschoolers become very accustomed to defending our non-traditional concept of the world and what is educational. I have been meaning to write about the good side of tv and video games (after all, most adults watch tv and play games. It’s just when children do it that we start to demean the practice and blame the parents). But, SwissArmyWife said it better than I ever could. This entire blog post is great, but the first part about the games is especially well-researched and well-argued. And, if you don’t already subscribe to her blog, now’s the time to do it.

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Concrete Details

As I’ve mentioned before, I belong to an unschooling Yahoo group, and am often impressed and inspired by the other members. Recently, one of these wonderful members replied with some details about what her unschooled children do during the day. I asked her permission to post it here because I love to read about this, and many who are researching unschooling always wonder what a free child would actually do with their time. So, without further ado, here are Michelle’s notes:

This is how today looks: My kids have various projects they are working on - my eldest plays the piano, reads, uses the internet, helps plan and prepare meals, she wanted to learn algebra so worked at her own pace through math-u-see workbooks and video (she completed the entire course in a couple weeks..), she read-up on Greek mythology and created a report, she researched global warming creating charts and a report, she created a health/wellness pamphlet for teens, she wants to try out dissection – we have the kit for her to try, she went to many theatrical performances – and much much more… my youngest made a mobile of the human body detailing the organs, she did various scientific experiments (some were even edible), she created a 10 pound chocolate sculpture – with story and CSI-like investigation regarding who dug into and ate it, she reads, we visit museums, she loves to swim and bike, we often go to various natural places for her to explore, she is learning how to rock climb and repel, and much much more… They have friends and still watch a good deal of TV and play on the Wii too :) Every day looks different – but looking back I can see general patterns and vast amounts of learning.

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A New FAQ

With all of the attention brought upon unschooling lately, I decided to write an unschooling FAQ page for this blog. I thought, “If someone is researching unschooling and, against all odds, stumbles onto my blog, I’d want them to get some answers.” So, that’s why I wrote it. I’d love any feedback. Any questions I should add? What do you think of my questions posed to schoolers? 

(Oh, if you don’t know about the firestorm, here’s the list of places to see/read about Good Morning America’s piece and the attention it has brought onto our quiet little community:
GMA’s first segment
GMA’s second segment
Rebuttal on Child’s Play
Rebuttal on Huffington Post
Unschooling family on Joy Behar
Rebuttal on Organic Sister
Rebuttal on Swiss Army Wife

There are many more responses, but those are some that I have found.)

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Listen

If you have 8 free minutes, please watch this video from the TED 2010 conference. This is Adora Svitak, a 12-year old author who does public speaking to educators and kids around the country. She exhibits just a little of the wisdom our kids can share, if we’re willing to listen to them.

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