Unschooling Speech

On Tuesday I had the chance to talk a little about Unschooling at a homeschool meeting - the topic was on different methods of Catholic homeschooling. We were told to plan a 5-10 minute talk about the strengths, weaknesses and why our homeschool method works for our family. I planned the below talk, then the speakers before me talked about their method and how it fit in their family without any kind of speech. I decided last minute to ditch my talk and just wing it (pulling bits of my printed talk in), and it worked out well I think - at least I had a few compliments at the end. I didn't want all my hard work to go to waste, so here is my little speech that I may yet get to give someday:

The term Unschooling brings to mind different images for different people. Some see it as unparenting: allowing kids to do whatever they want whenever they want while parents are uninvolved or stand helplessly on the side. Others see it as a retaliation against any kind of learning or education. Many worry that kids can never learn what they will need to know or will never learn the discipline needed to succeed in life unless they are forced to “Do school.” When John Holt coined the phrase in the 70s he called it unschooling because it was exactly that: the opposite of school. Now “school” is not education, nor learning, nor it is discipline. School is an institution where children are sent for 6 hour a day, 180 days a year to be taught by a professional, not based upon their abilities or needs, but based upon what a group of professional educators have decided all kids born in the same year “should” know. Whereas Unschooling is learning everywhere, all the time by everyone a child meets based upon their abilities, needs and interests. God created us to be curious about the world and to learn from every experience. This is most evident in babies and toddlers who are fascinated by everything and gain new abilities almost daily as they imitate what they see around them, however it is also true for the 40 year old who finds a new faster way to work or the 70 year old who just started using a computer. We are always learning because that is what God made us to do – whether we like it or not.

How does a parent fit into unschooling? First, by observing and talking with each child to see what their needs and interests are and then by finding resources, whether that be modeling an example, discussion, books, classes, tutoring, and so on to meet those needs and interests. How exactly Unschooling looks in any family differs day to day, year to year and child to child. I have heard it called Organic Learning and in many ways that is a great description. One day it may be breaking out a textbook, watching a documentary or having a three hour discussion; another day it may be playing Risk or other computer or board games, or going on a field trip to the zoo or OMSI. There is learning to be had in all these activities and unschooling allows the freedom to do whatever works best for that particular moment.

One of the wonders of homeschooling is we can pick and choose what works for our families. With all homeschool methods, including unschooling, it is never all or nothing. You can unschool, but do Math or use a curriculum but unschool science or history or various electives your kids are interested in. We do what works best and change as we need to, so that we can keep going.

First a few weaknesses of Unschooling. Choosing to unschool is so different from what people are familiar with, it is hard to deal with the assumptions, concerns and accusations that people make about unschooling. Homeschooling is becoming better accepted in the main stream, but you will still get comments, funny looks and outright shock or indignation at choosing to “unschool” or at least admitting that you unschool, for all the reasons I already mentioned.

Also, since unschoolers focus more on mastery of a subject rather than grades, it can be hard to prove where a child is academically – which just gives fuel to those who believe academic progress is the way to discern success or failure in one’s education.

Since Unschooling parents don’t have worksheets or grades to discern where their kids are, they have to use other methods to gauge progress. This means observing what a child does with their day, having regular discussions and trying to provide resources for interests that can last anywhere from a few minutes to years. From experience I can tell you, it is frustrating to have one of the kids express interest in a topic which leads to hours finding the best resources or information and then have them spend 5 minutes looking at what was put together and never touch it again. Being available to observe without interfering and time to have discussions as well as find resources can also be hard with all the other responsibilities around the house, but it is critical to successful unschooling.

As a parent it is hard to see your child’s academic weaknesses and yet allow them to continue to steer their own course. I don’t mean to stand back and do nothing, but to have discussions on the value of the skill, set an example using that skill, lay out resources that offer different approaches to the skill and then back off and Let Go. My experience is eventually unschooled children recognize their weaknesses (though it may take years) and they will develop all the skills they need to be successful. God made us inquisitive creatures who learn throughout our entire lives for a reason.

For me, however the benefits of Unschooling far outweigh the challenges. By allowing a child to explore topics as they are ready and for the length of time they are interested, they retain the knowledge faster and with the same joy that you see in young children. The tangible world is right there, ripe for them to touch, taste, handle and sometimes break. Once a new skill is mastered, it is incredibly gratifying to watch even my 12 year old excitedly share that skill with siblings, family and friends. Because a curriculum is not set out step by step, telling my kids what they ‘should’ be doing, they are free to talk about what interests them and ask for instruction or help when they want to learn something new. Unschooled children know they need to seek knowledge rather than passively wait for topics to be presented to them.

My family life generally is unpredictable between having a new baby every couple years and dealing with crises like unemployment, extended family problems as well as illnesses, allergies, etc. Unschooling allows us to be as flexible as we need to get through year to year. No matter how tired I am, I can always talk to the kids about whatever their current interests are, encourage them to tap into the many resources we have around the house and someone can take them to the library. More importantly, unschooling allows my kids to be aware of and involved in Life. They learned how to cut spending and the importance of a budget when my husband was out of work for 8 months; how to care for my mom who is disabled when she stayed with us; the dangers of addiction and the importance of Faith as we support extended family members who struggle; how to be your own advocate while dealing with the medical community and how to forgive and love unconditionally.

One of my favorite things about unschooling is No Burnout. Every year I try to be supportive as I hear stories of frustration, tears and stress that peak around Spring while it is business as usual in my house. It breaks my heart to hear of families who become so overwhelmed that they put their kids back in school because they can’t keep up or get too burnt out – not because they feel it is the best choice but because they just can’t take any more. I do have homeschool related stress, but it is a different kind of stress and I rarely feel like enrolling my kids in school because of being overwhelmed.

A huge part of not burning out is that there are no academic deadlines. We don’t covet summer break as a time to stop academics and recharge for the new school year, in fact we usually do more academic work in the summer because there is less running around to different classes and activities. Without those deadlines we get to skip out on the guilt associated with meeting school-like benchmarks, and we are free year-round to use classes, co-ops, tutors, etc for specific interests because there isn’t a huge pile of school work to get through daily.

Unschooling works best for my family for many reasons. Between our very limited school budget, several of the kids’ learning disabilities, strong personalities, diverse interests and the unpredictability of our lives, unschooling allows us to explore things at times and in ways that are different than the norm.

For example my oldest has dyslexia and is a perfectionist. By backing off and allowing her to work on reading in her own time, she unlike many dyslexics loves to read and does so regularly. She also discovered a talent for art and a love of literature because she was not forced to work on subjects based upon someone else’s time table. Right now with no pushing from me, she is working her way through history using the Modern Scholar series of college lectures from the library, continuing to explore new mediums of art, is listening to or reading several book series as well as the Taming of the Shrew (her 2^nd Shakespeare play) and designed and built a simple wood end table. In Math she loves puzzles and has been working her way through several seek-and-find and puzzle games on the computer and DS, and she has started working through her first text book because she recognizes this is an area of weakness for her. She can also competently care for her 6 younger siblings, wash laundry, clean and plan and cook meals. This is just the tip of the iceberg, she also takes various classes, goes out with friends and is in many ways your average teenager.

I could go on and on through all of my kids’ diverse interests, but there isn’t time.

Through unschooling my kids are constantly observing and exploring the world. As they have gotten older, due to their freedom to explore they know what they like and they have been able to strengthen those skills. They are also able to see where their weaknesses are and through discussion are aware of how those weaknesses affect their lives. It all comes down to remembering why I am homeschooling in the first place. For me, that reason is I want my children to love learning, be able to find any answer they seek and above all get to heaven. I am preparing them first and foremost for Life and I trust that through prayer God will guide us where they need to go whether that is college prep, a life of holy orders, entrepreneurship or something else.

A quote from Suzie Andres’ A Little Way of Homeschooling that wraps my talk up nicely:

“As far as homeschooling goes, I have stopped trying to find the perfect method (there isn't one), and I've stopped thinking I must produce perfect children by the time they reach the age of 18. Can you believe that I thought it was possible to send my children out into the world as adults perfectly educated, perfectly brought up, perfectly ready to do whatever God wants them to do? And here am I many years older than 18 and I am still struggling along that pathway to perfection with a long way to go. I have learnt to be patient and accepting with myself and I am trying to do the same with my children.”

Update: I honestly could not remember where I got the above quote from, and I am happy to correct it as a quote from one of Sue's emails on an unschool forum. That explains why I couldn't find the quote for verification when I went back through A Little Way of Homeschooling!  It is still a beautiful quote and one that all the mom's at the Homeschool meeting liked and agreed with.

Happy Mother’s Day: On Being a Mother

I found this article at Brave Writer (don't remember the link that got me there), and it is so true. Being a Mom is a privilege because I get to love, teach and help grow little souls that God put in my care. These wonderful little people are here with me for now and their presence has taught me so very much about life and what is truly important. Also, it was a great reminder why I have no desire to watch shows like Oprah, Dr Phil or whatever else is on these days.

Happy Mother’s Day: On Being a Mother

In April of 2009, Oprah featured an episode on mothering that ran so counter to my personal experience, I felt the need to write about how I understood mothering. Today, as we celebrate our mothers and are thankful for the chance to be mothers, I share it again with you. (The original posting of this blog entry yielded 73 comments! Clearly the most popular blog entry in our history.)

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From April 27, 2009

Oprah featured moms on her show a couple weeks ago. The two “experts” who “wrote the book” were bubbly, sharp, blond business-type women who wore chic outfits that had never seen spit up or spaghetti sauce stains. They rallied the audience into a frenzy of confessions about motherhood which variously decried the hardships of this “first order of creation” occupations.

“I hate the fluids of babies: pee, spit up, spilt milk, snot.”

“I cried the day I drove to the car dealership to buy a mini-van.”

“There were days I wanted to ’send them back to the hell from whence they came’.”

On and on the tales of woe pored from the mouths of devoted parents. Video clips of small kids on bikes, disastrous laundry rooms, “stuffed to the gills” cars with seats and sippy cups floated by, making one wonder why anyone would sign up for the task of mothering, let alone sustain it for decades. Moms confessed things, too, like the one who said she didn’t want to wake the sleeping baby by stopping the car for a potty break, but she needed to pee so badly, she took a Pampers diaper, stuck it between her legs and let it “go” as she drove. Yeah, I thought that was way more information than I needed to know about her, too.

There was a surprising lack of joy represented in the discussion of mothering. Mostly being a mom was held up as the hardest job on earth, the most demanding, the most self-sacrificing, the most misunderstood and overlooked work on the planet. A kind of shared martyrdom, underdog status united everyone and Oprah, never having mothered anyone, had to declare that indeed, they were right. Mothering equalled sainthood (which we all know implies burning at the stake and smiling through it!).

With my kids in the room, listening to the pain of childbirth and engorged breasts, the relentlessness of little voices, the demandingness of the small child’s need for food, sleep and comfort, the annihilation of a woman’s identity and sense of self, I couldn’t take it any more. After all, far from being the hardest job in the world, mothering has been the happiest, most satisfying, life-giving, joyful, rewarding, fulfilling and (dare I admit it?) easiest job I’ve ever had. Oh sure, the hours suck, there are anguishes deeper than the ocean, there are seasons (years!) of such utter exhaustion you can’t imagine ever being rested again… but all those discomforts are easily and unequivocally overturned by my children, themselves.

I punched pause on the DVR to set the record straight:

“Being your mother has been the single greatest joy and privilege of my life: not a burden, not a perennial unrelenting source of emotional and physical agony, not the ‘hardest job in the world’, not the knee-capping blow to my ‘adult individuality’ nor has it been the thankless, under-appreciated, most overlooked profession these mothers would have you believe. In fact, my sense of personhood, identity and self-knowledge has grown more through mothering than any business I’ve started, any degree I’ve earned, any relationship I’ve pursued. I thank YOU for being the best people to ever happen to me.”

Then I spewed in bullet style the privileges and unique joys that came with mothering them (all five of them, each one popping into my life like a fresh daisy, every two years for 10 years).

Cuddling: Being your mom means I got to have someone to cuddle non-stop for 12 years while sleeping with at least one of you at a time, nursing you, carrying you, holding you, helping you in and out of car seats, and backpacking you.

Sleeping together: There is nothing more divine than a baby who falls asleep on your chest while you fall asleep and the whole world stops while mother and tiny child become fused as one content, quiet, shared being. No meditation, yoga, prayer circle, private retreat has ever come close to providing me with the depth of peace, pleasure and abiding hope that sleeping with a baby has given me.

Playing: Board games and hopscotch, dress-ups, face paint, finger paint, walks in the woods, trips to the zoo, picking up bugs, rolling down hills, blowing bubbles, eating too many cookies, watching Arthur on PBS, rewatching Disney movies, cards, chasing a dog in the backyard, trampoline jumping, creek splashing, snowman building, skiing, middle of the night slumber parties, bike rides, soccer in the backyard, soccer on the official fields, ultimate frisbee… What adult gets to do any of this on his or her 9-5 job? Talk about luxury!

Conversation: Oh it starts off good - Why do bubbles float? How did I get red hair? Why doesn’t Santa Claus visit Moroccans, too? But boy does it keep getting better!? I’ve learned about human rights, veganism, Role Playing Games, Shakespeare, Klingon, fashion, exercise, lacrosse, birds, fantasy novels, conspiracy theories, atheism, feminism, linguistics, alternative monetary systems for world peace (seriously!) and more by talking to my kids.

Mothering is the job that means taking the dog and kids for a walk in the woods is on task. It’s the one where teatimes and picnics are considered achievements worth trumpeting to friends and family. It’s the job where even on bad days, someone tells you “Hey, I love you Mom” and then hugs you so tightly, you believe it.

There is no comparison to the jobs I’ve had in business and writing. Sure, affirmation and personal achievement are nice… but they are nothing like the bond that comes from the devotion of loving people who live every day looking for you to see them for who they are. I’ve found that the easiest thing in the world is to love my kids. All it takes is entering into their lives on their terms and giving all I’ve got. I get it all back and more.

Yes, there have been nights where I cried myself to sleep over a non-stop crying toddler or a teenager’s emotional pain. There are times when I feel out of control and invisible and fearful for my child’s future or welfare. But the rewards of mothering so far outweigh any of its challenges, I can’t relate to the repeated refrains of “how hard I have it” simply because I chose to have five kids. Instead, I just feel perennially lucky that my lifestyle has included such richness, tenderness and connection to immortality through my children.

I think it’s time we blew the whistle. Mothering isn’t a job. It’s a privilege.