I had a baby and wanted to stay home. Around the time my son was one, I began homeschooling my step-son. I had already decided I wanted to homeschool my son before he was even born, so it was an interesting challenge to take on. We were trying to get him back on track, and I tried to replicate school as much as I could while trying to use the type of learning style that suited him best with the subjects he had to take. We did this for a little over a year. It was quite an experience. I walked away believing I had three goals for my little boy: read well, write well and get the basics of math down solid. If kids knew these things really well at an early age, then school would be a lot better. If they could not move on until they had these skills, they would be more successful in school.
While my son was still preschool age, I did a lot of reading and research. I did not want to push anything too early. We did not do preschool except for a fun once-a-week homeschool co-op. He also had access to lots of educational shows and computer/internet games. When kindergarten came, my only goals were for him to learn how to write his letters and learn to read. He already knew how to count to 100. I discovered he had already learned to write his letters by games he had played. And his reading came fairly easy (although forced) because he had learned reading readiness skills through the games he had played and all the books I had read over the years. When first grade was about to begin, I did not go out and buy a curriculum. I bought a few workbooks, used the library, stocked up my art supplies, and found some useful websites and computer programs. I laid out a schedule that we followed every day no matter what fighting occurred or how many tears fell. I thought he just needed time to get used to it...until he didn't. Then I changed the routine, and I changed it again, and then again. I was at my wits end! How was my son going to learn everything he needed to if I could not even get him to write his name without a battle? What was I missing?
Of course, this is when I really began to learn about unschooling. It was like a relief when I first read about it. I spent a month letting my son be while I read and read and read about unschooling and other types of eclectic and relaxed homeschooling. Then I decided to take the plunge after talking to my husband. I would give it six months to a year to continue learning and to give my son time and space to see what would happen. Two years later, I am still at it. I have my days of doubt because of the pressures of the world, but I went through a paradigm shift and have a hard time imagining doing things any other way. In fact, I feel like I would be doing my children a disservice to do school again.
March will be the two year mark of my unschooling journey. It is hard to believe that much time has passed. It has had some challenges. My husband and I don't always agree on the results. Those are the times I lose my confidence and question what I am doing. Those are the times I pull out some more schoolish stuff and see what the result is. Those are the times I require book reading or find a reason for my son to write something...anything. Men are so much more results oriented, and it is often a challenge for homeschooling moms who unschool. Their husbands tend to be OK with it as long as progress can be seen and results are evident. But that can be hard to do because you don't always see obvious results. Day in and day out, you see the learning take place, but it does not look like school learning. It looks like life learning.
It truly takes a paradigm shift when choosing to unschool. I can't look at unschooling and expect the same results as I might see in a public school or even a more "traditional" homeschool approach. I can't unschool because I want my kids to have freedom in their learning, but then expect them to cover all the subjects or meet expectations or learning goals. I have to change the way I see learning. When most people say getting a good education is important, they are thinking in terms of public schools. And when public schools fail, they seek alternatives, but they still have the same end goals. Better students...not necessarily better people who are more passionate about their lives.
Unschooling is different. It is a different way of looking at learning. It is about discovering ourselves and becoming passionate individuals about whatever it is that speaks to us. It is about having dreams and figuring out ways to make them a reality. It is about living life without following an arbitrary set of rules or expectations...because that is what everyone else is doing. It is about honoring ourselves and developing our strong skills along with the weak ones as the apply along the journey. There is not a set age to learn to read, write, or even do math. They are skills acquired in order to feed our passions, interests, and needs--not the end goal, like they are in public school. After all, it is almost impossible to get through our world without having a need to read, write, and work with numbers in some form or fashion.
When unschoolers develop an interest in history, it is not to learn a bunch of facts. It can be for any number of reasons, but they will walk away more fulfilled by their experience than most students who learn it in a classroom and get tested on it. As an adult, I appreciate history I learn now way more than I ever did in school, even though I did think it was interesting at the time. I also have a much better idea why anyone should or would even want to study history. The same goes for social studies, government, foreign languages, literature, and so on. But I don't think we are all called to know all these subjects. That becomes apparent when you ask people what they remember from a particular class or what they did learn that they still use. And information we do need is so readily available now that knowing it is not necessary. The concepts may still be important to some but not the details.
Why is it that we all have to be exposed to the exact same information? Even then, it depends on the textbook, the teacher, the school, the state, the decade. My dad may have learned some things I did, but he did not learn everything I learned, nor did I learn everything he did. Education already looks different for every individual. What they take away from it, what they struggle with, how supportive their family is, how busy they are at other things, what their friends do, etc. No one's experience is the same. No one is good at everything, and everyone is good at something. Unschooling capitalizes on that individuality. My brother would have spent all day in shop class if it had been up to him. And he would not have felt he had a wasted education all through high school. Yet, as an adult, he finds history and science he sees on television interesting. And he discovered he needed to know some math when he went into the electronics field, which he learned. But in high school, the learning did not fit an immediate need, so he felt it was a waste. And he walked away from school with a bad taste in his mouth. How sad is it that any kid walks away hating the opportunity to learn new things?
Many parents fear the idea of unschooling because they fear their kids not being able to read. Even if they learn to read because of a video game, they still learn to read. Even if they never pick up a novel and read it, they will still know how to read enough to get them the information they want. Reading and comprehension is not the only way to develop critical thinking skills. Parents also fear they will not learn math. Many kids hate math at an early age. What would happen if they were able to explore it at their leisure, and when they thought they were ready, they dove in? We might have more people interested in STEM fields because they would not have been intimidated by the math component. I never took chemistry or physics in high school because of how hard the teacher was. What would have happened if I or any number of students could have taken it in an exploratory way? Maybe nothing would have changed, but maybe more kids would have sought out more scientific fields rather than following a different path. Maybe they needed a taste of it without fearing math. I know algebra and calculus were a breeze in college compared to when I took them in high school, and not because I had already taken them. Somewhere along the way, my brain was ready for it. But not in high school.
Of course, most states have homeschool standards, and some require testing or portfolios or interviews with approved teachers (mine does not). As an unschooler, I can't throw everything out the window and let my kids do what they want all day without some lead or direction from me. But I can have a completely different attitude and perspective about learning. That, however, takes a change in ideology, at least to a point. I have to find value in the act of learning itself. I have to see how school subjects are learned through everyday learning and life. I have to stop believing what I learned in school is important for my kids to learn. I have to see that living an abundant life is enough to learn what is needed until they seek out careers and know what they will need to know to pursue those careers. If I can keep a child curious and seeking more, as long as it is not harmful or truly addictive (many people think things are an addiction when it is not really the case), then they will learn how to learn. They will find a need to read. They will eventually learn to manage money, pay bills, and follow a recipe in the kitchen. They may one day have to pull out a tape measure so they can figure out how much paint is needed for a room. Because they know how to learn, they will know how to learn these things too, and a lot more quickly because there will be an immediate need.
Is unschooling a perfect fix for all things educational? Maybe. At the same time, what it takes to successfully unschool is for parents to be involved and partner with their kids. Because of that and seeing the dynamics of the modern family, it would not likely work in many households. It requires trusting the process. It requires trusting our kids. It requires our kids trusting us. It requires a change in the way we parent. But in an ideal world, it is the ideal solution. In our current world, it would make a difference for many because so many do not fit into the mold of what the education system has deemed to be right. In our current world, it may be what keeps curiosity about learning alive. Learning should not be so complicated. After all, it comes naturally. We are wired to be curious, to try, to learn. When it becomes complicated, we have to consider what we might be doing wrong.
I watch my kids every day, and I see no dread in their eyes. They have full lives that are just busy enough. They are fascinated by new things they learn, and they don't see everything they learn through the lense of school subjects. It does not mean they don't have a well rounded education. In fact, they may have a more rounded education because they are more open new experiences. They don't see learning as something done in school. They see it as something natural...a normal part of life.
