Unschooling Ruminations

I have been happening into a lot of conversations lately that have cemented my belief in unschooling. These are normally centered about someone’s child and how they are doing in school. In one of these conversations, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

It was Sunday and I was in the church nursery. Two of the women were discussing their children in school. One had recently decided (Hallelujah!) to homeschool her daughter next year. The reason for this decision were things like her receiving a C- in reading and hating reading on her own. The little girl, who LOVES to see her friends at school and is very social, HATES school and has been begging her mom to homeschool her for months now. She understands that learning at her own pace would be more fun and benefitial, and that they will be able to focus on things that she loves, such as art and acting. Oh, and she’s 8. I’m so happy that this family has decided to homeschool (though, she will be using a more “school at home” approach, it is better than the traditional classroom), but it literally turned my stomach to hear that a 3rd grader can receive a C- on anything. I hate grades anyway, and in this case such a label has created a fear and dislike of reading that wouldn’t have been there in a self-directed situation. Not to mention, the school’s expectation that all kids should learn at the same pace and that she just wasn’t keeping up with her peers.

One other thing that was said was, “Third grade is really early to hate school.”  In other words, we expect kids to all hate school at some point, just hopefully a little later than eight years old. I’m always stunned when I hear something like this, without anyone thinking that there’s something wrong with that picture. Why should we force kids into a system that they hate, when we tell people to follow their passions and to find career that excites them, not one that just pays the bills. Mixed messages, no?

Then, the other mom started talking about her son. He’s five. He’s in kindergarten. In my mind, kindergarten should be like pre-school, just longer. There should be finger-painting, naps, playground time, story time, etc. Turns out, that’s a pipedream. This mom was saying that her son, her KINDERGARTNER, has homework every night. She said this offhandedly, more talking about how she has to be stricter with him so he can get his nightly homework done. That’s when I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Homework? In kindergarten?!?!” It seemed that she hadn’t thought about it before, but she agreed that it was ridiculous. At five years old (and any age, for that matter), if these kids are already subject to school for eight hours, they should at least spend their evenings playing and being with their families. If I were that mom, I’d refuse to make my son do his homework, and I would have a few words with that school. And then I’d start unschooling. But, that’s just me.

 Homework. At five. Ludicrous.

One more quick story. I was at the park today with Wes and there were two other boys there. One was 11 and the other 3. I think they were on Spring break. The park is near a little pre-school in our neighborhood and the boys’ mom told them that she was going to go up to the school to use the bathroom. She asked the 3-year old if he needed to go too.  Immediately, he started protesting, “I don’t want to go to school!” and throwing a little fit. She tried to make him understand that it was just to use the bathroom, but he couldn’t hear her. The 11-year old calmed him down and said, “Mom’s going, not you. You can stay with me.” The mom laughed nervously, looking at me and said, “That’s his school,” with a smile.

Yeah. I could tell. And, I could tell that at 3 years old, he already doesn’t like it that much. Now, I understand that 3-year olds might cry because they don’t want to stop doing something fun or they don’t want their moms to leave, so I do take his reaction with a grain of salt. But, what I’m not that happy with is the mom’s reaction. She seemed to feel that her son yelling that he didn’t want to go to school was expected, because it’s school. Who would want to go to school? Of course, he’d yell.

This is what troubles me. Adults KNOW that kids hate school. They EXPECT kids to hate school. And, yet, they STILL send them there and see nothing wrong with the whole arrangement.  Where’s the disconnect? Why don’t more people recognize this as a problem instead of accepting it as the way things are?

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adults, school

Since my last post about instilling the love of reading, something has been rattling around in my brain regarding having high expectations for our kids.  I kept squashing down the doubts, thinking, “No, that can’t be right. High expectations help kids live up to higher standards.”  But, the doubts kept coming. Then, in catching up on my blog reading, I got to this post by Adversarian in which she off-handedly mentions high expectations as something engendered by the school system, and something clicked.

We have been programmed to believe that if we have low expectations for kids, they won’t amount to anything. And if we expect much of them, they will excel. This is, I believe, true. In a sense.  If by “excel” you mean that they will play the school game well, will study hard, do as their told, etc., your best strategy is to expect this of your kids. In other words, our expectations do have a lot of power over our children. We just have been abusing that power and doing our kids a huge disadvantage.

Most parents’ expectations include high grades, rule obedience, a college degree, and a good paying job. We are disappointed in our children if they don’t live up to these expectations, and we never question the validity of expecting such things. But, these “high” expectations actually hamper our kids’ ability to truly excel.  They are handicapped by these heavy burdens, and may not find their true passions for years, if ever. As an example, my hubby attended 5 years of school and pursued engineering for years after graduating, because that was a “good job” and he felt as though his family expected him to be an engineer. It wasn’t until he was 28 that he realized he hated that path and wanted to go into video games. He was so frustrated at all of the time he had wasted pursuing a career that he never actually wanted. And, his story is far from unique.

So, I have one expectation for my son (and future children). That is that he follow his passion.  I don’t care if that passion is trash collecting, hair dressing, movie making, or even engineering.  But, more importantly, I have a ‘high’ expectation of myself. And that is to allow him the freedom to explore and learn organically. I still find myself thinking, “I hope he goes to college” or “Maybe he’ll be a writer/actor/athlete/scholar.”  I will be hugely disappointed in myself if my son grows up believing that I want a particular career or achievement for him.  His only concern should be finding what excites him – expectations be damned.

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expectations, parenting

I always think that holidays are excellent catalysts for unschoolers. The entire society is celebrating something, and kids are often curious about why. And, as a testament to our schooled society, many of us don’t know the answers to their questions.

This Easter, as you’re going about your holiday business, make sure to asking what it’s all about. And, then make an effort to find out. Here are some questions you might or might not know the answers to (and that your kids might want to learn about).

Why do we dye eggs?
Where did the tradition of the Easter bunny come from?
Why do secular people celebrate a Christian holiday?
What do Palm Sunday and Good Friday signify?
How do we come up with the date for Easter each year, and why does it change?
How does Easter relate to Passover? What is a Seder feast?  (I know this one little tidbit: the reason we know the time of year to celebrate Easter is because the last supper was a seder feast celebrating the Passover.)

And don’t forget to do something Easter-y this year: have brunch, make a big dinner, dye eggs, have an Easter egg hunt, make hot cross buns, or read the Biblical account of Easter.

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activities, Easter, holidays, questions

Disclaimer: Before launching into this post, let me state that I don’t believe that a person who loves reading is any more intelligent or thoughtful or successful than the person who doesn’t. This is a stigma in our school-loving society, and one I don’t agree with.  There are countless other ways to keep your brain active and to gain knowledge. However, it is still a trait that many of us posess and would hope to see in our children. That is what I will be addressing in this post.

When I was an English teacher (gasp!), I went to a very interesting English teacher conference with three of my colleagues. To be honest, I cannot remember what most of the workshops I went to were about, but I do remember a conversation I had with my friend and colleague on the drive back. We’ll call her Cindy…because that’s her name. 

As English teachers, Cindy and I both esteemed books and felt that instilling the love of reading into our students was a primary goal. However, when we both investigated the source of our own bibliophilia, we realized that it did not come from school, but from home. How, then as English teachers, were we supposed to help our kids love books? We really didn’t come up with any solutions during that drive, except that somehow we wanted parents to model reading for pleasure.

In my classroom, I tried to help my kids enjoy reading their assigned books. Most notably, at the beginning of Animal Farm, a pretty short and simple book, I encouraged my kids to get comfy, grab a snack and forget about taking notes when they read. I had scheduled twice the amount of time to read that book as I normally would so that they wouldn’t feel rushed to read a chapter each night. I told them that if they got tired while reading, they should just go to sleep. Chapter quizzes were infrequent and just covered basic, obvious information.  I wanted to take the pressure off so they could actually enjoy the book. Things went well at first, but the system kept creaping in. First, there were kids who really didn’t care about Orwell and his fictitious farm, yet they were required to participate. Second, I ended up running out of time at the end and had to rush to get back on schedule. And, third, I had to have some sort of assessment to show that these kids read the book and learned something from it.  With that, any freedom I had been able to grant had completely evaporated.

With unschooling, there’s really not that same stress about “instilling a love of reading” as there is in a schooled environment. We model to our kids what we want for them. My son sees my husband and I reading for pleasure and information on a near-daily basis.  Unschooled kids get absolute freedom to read what they want and when. They can stop a book halfway through or read it twice in a row. They don’t have to take comprehension quizzes or write book reports.  If they aren’t perfect readers by a certain age, that’s fine. If they hate Shakespeare, that’s fine. If they read comic books all day, that’s fine. And, if they dislike reading altogether, that’s fine too. Without the pressure to read, most kids do enjoy it. But, if they don’t, we need to trust their instincts and let them read, or not, in their own time.

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love of reading, reading, unschooling and reading

This blog is usually all serious and theoretical, but I do intend to steer more practical in the future (especially as my little one grows and starts having more unschooly experiences).

But, until then, I couldn’t help but share a couple of posts on two other blogs relating to Easter eggs. These projects would be really fun for anyone with kids.

The first comes from Our Best Bites, and shows you how to dye eggs using old silk ties. I was amazed at the outcomes and will definitey be trying it next year (why not this year? No kitchen. We’re remodeling.) The second post is from Young House Love, and is more basic egg dying, but tells you how to use natural ingredients like fruits, vegetables, and spices. Seems very native American – I love it.

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crafts, practical ideas

I live in California, and education funding is a hot topic right now. Teachers are being cut left and right, programs are getting slashed, and schools are closing.  And, maybe this is just because I’m in an ambivelant mood today, but I have a hard time caring. How do you even begin a conversation about what’s wrong with the educational system within the context of our culture? Where do you start when everyone is talking about new parcel taxes to cover teacher salaries or new schooling methods or something else that just misses the point? When your world view is unschooling, the whole educational system doesn’t make any sense. And, it’s hard to see how it makes sense to anyone else.

So, when a conversation turns toward the problems in the state budget or in public schooling, I find myself retreating. I usually stay in the background wearing a polite smile. I don’t have the answers for these problems; I just think the basic assumptions are all wrong.

Am I alone here? Does anyone else have the urge to zip it and gaze into the distance when schoolers start talking about how to fix the system?  How do you fight this urge? I don’t know how to reconcile this reaction with my belief that we need to be involved with our schooled culture and attempt to change it. Sometimes, I just don’t care about changing it and I don’t have the energy to try. Depressing.

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culture, education system

Thanks to Tara at The Organic Sister for sharing this great link to a video published by CNN. Excellent points on education made in the mainstream press!

Click here to view

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education system, video

I have wonderful mornings with my son, who will be turning one this Friday. He wakes up around 7:30am (a miracle for most nearly-one-year olds), and I get him from his crib and bring him back to our king-sized bed. After nursing and cuddling for a little while, he invariably pops his head up and wants to explore.  He starts to crawl around and usually gets very close to the edge. I have learned that if I grab him and pull him back, he gets frustrated and rushes right back to the edge. And, if I hold on tightly to his ankle, he pulls against me and strains harder to go over the edge. However, if I barely keep my hand on him, so he doesn’t even feel me, he carefully peers over and evaluates the edge. And then, he inches closer and closer until the top of his body is too far and his little body plunges over.  That’s when my hand closes around his chubby little leg and I slowly let him down to the floor.  

I pay attention to two things here. First, I want him to feel the lurch as he goes over. I make sure that he knows that feeling of falling and that he flails a little bit. I want him to learn about being careful on beds (or couches), without him having to actually fly head-first off of one — especially since we have wooden floors. Second, instead of pulling him away after the lurch, back into the middle of the bed, I make sure to ease him down to the floor, like a slower version of the fall he would have experienced.

The reason I am telling you about our morning ritual is that, as you may have guessed, it strikes me as a metaphor for a parent’s role in their child’s exploration of life.  Too many parents see themselves as gatekeepers or controllers of what their child experiences. But, these methods always lead to frustration, confusion, and rebellion on the part of the child. Conversely, we aren’t supposed to just step away and let our children do as they wish, allowing them to go feral or risking their own safey. We are still their protectors and providers. We still need to provide gentle nudges. Our hands should be lightly placed and ready to help ease the transition into a new experience, not pull them back from it.

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exploration, parenting

My son said his first word yesterday. No, it wasn’t “mommy.” It was “doggy.” In fact, he has been saying “dadoo” for weeks now, and we assumed he was talking about my husband. But, now it seems he’s always been referring to the dog.

The reason I mention this is that it caused me to think about the process of learning speach. Our society takes it for granted that kids will learn to speak by being surrounded by speach.  In other words, in this one area, we TRUST our kids to learn what they need for life. We don’t have speaking programs, and we certainly don’t break the words down into sounds. (Can you imagine the lunacy of that? “Can you say ‘da’? Now say ‘aw.’ Okay, now say ‘ghee.’ Now put it together… da aw ghee… doggy! Good!”)

Maybe, to make a point, I should come out with a video series that requires chilren to listen for 15 minutes every day while I sound out the alphabet. We could teach oral phonics.  Why learn something naturally, when you could call it “education” and learn it unnaturally?  All you have to do is take something out of its context, break it up into arbitrary pieces, and teach it completely separated from the rest of human knowledge and experience. 

So, if this “educational product” would be considered ridiculous by most, why are the myriad of reading programs and curricula (yes, actual worksheets and school-like lessons for 3 and 4 year olds) dominating the market? Parents have completely bought the propaganda that if they don’t force their child to read before school, they will be hopelessly behind for the rest of their lives. And you know what is kind of scary? There is some truth to that. But, that’s another topic. For a post that I’m not writing at midnight.

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early literacy, reading, speaking