Unschooling can mean a lot of things. It's also been called child-led learning. The biggest part of it, to me, is that you don't force or manipulate your children into learning. They should be free to say no to things they don't want to do, and they should be in charge of their own learning.
We have been slowly easing into this for years. The first year Taryn and I did hard core curriculum, she cried a lot, I cried a lot, and it was so frustrating. Add to that, she didn't really learn anything because it was so stressful. So the next few years we scaled back a lot to relieve the stress, but it still wasn't enjoyable for her, which is one of my goals as a homeschooler.
I read a lot about unschooling but was too afraid to commit. I was afraid of them turning into idiots, and afraid of all the judgement from everyone else.
But I really have seen that the things my kids learn and retain, are the things they have done on their own. They read a lot and we have lots of conversations about the things that are important to them. And they learn a lot from the nature around us. The lessons that I have spent hours preparing, they find interesting, but the information is soon forgotten.
So with Taryn going into fifth grade, I decided that now was the time to jump in. My heart wasn't into trying to find new and exciting ways to get them to do the school that they're not interested in, so I'm giving up.
Part of what makes this work for us is the structure of our days. My kids don't watch a lot of TV. They have to have their rooms and the playroom cleaned before they can even watch tv, and then it's only for about 2 hours. So they have a lot of the day to themselves. They play tons of imagination games and they play outside a lot. We spend time together talking, going on walks, and reading.
I feel very comfortable now with this idea. It makes so much sense to me and I finally decided that not doing something out of fear was plain stupid.
So that's the long of it.
5 comments:
i really like that idea. it sounds like it fits your kids' personalities really well. seems less stressful for everyone. I think that your kids are really smart. they pick up on the little things and kind of devour information. that's just my opinion.
I admire that, as well. I think it would be an incredibly scary thing to do...unfortunately, I'm still at that stage of being too afraid of being judged. And, my kids are total TV crazy. And that's completely genetic. So I really wonder if it could work for us.
Mom ended up doing that with me. And I graduated from high school when I was 22. I wish we had deer by my house. But not too much, because big dog would cry and cry about it. Little dog used to chase them around when we lived with Rich until one stomped at her.
Unschooling will probably work really well with Erik. Plus they'll feel like they have alot of control over their lives. Justin pretty much does his own version of it now. If he is not interested in it, he refuses to learn it or do the homework. When he is interested he goes all out. (However, he will do the minimum to pass each class, but no more.)
I love the worry that you listed: that they would "turn into idiots." I can just picture it. Drooool. Ha!
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