Pam Laricchia's Blog, page 53

“What Will I Do Today?”

This month I’ve been writing about unschooling days. I talked about some of the goals that guide unschooling parents as we choose our day-to-day interactions with our children: being available to talk, willing to help, and supportive of their goals. I also looked at ways some typical activities and conversations can look rather unconventional in an unschooling family, both at home and out and about (you can find them here).

This week, let’s switch up our perspective. What about our children? What drives their unschooling days?

One of the refreshing traits of unschooling children is their enthusiasm for life. From the youngest age, all children are driven to explore the world around them and learn how it works. Parents marvel at their single-minded determination: their obvious joy when they finally figure out how to communicate that they want something; the countless times they’ll try to pick up that Cheerio; the tenacity with which they practice standing up and taking those first couple of steps.

That insatiable curiosity does not fade with age unless the adults in the child’s life work pretty hard to temper it. But that they often do—apparently there’s a UCLA study that found the average toddler hears the word “no” over 400 times a day. Damn, the average toddler is determined!

Why do many parents want to discourage their child’s exploration? It’s time-consuming (even one typically adorned room can keep them busy for hours—needing supervision all the while). It’s boring (what’s in the cupboard, what’s behind the curtain, what does this toy taste like—the parent already knows the answer so they’d rather just tell the kid than wait for them). It’s dangerous (they don’t want to spend their time standing by the stairs spotting their toddler, or catching them at the bottom of the slide over and over and over, or watching closely to make sure they don’t find the chemicals stored on the bottom shelf of the closet). An emphatic “no” will suffice in all those cases.

Then, once a child reaches school age and enters the educational system, teachers attempt to channel that curiosity down the curriculum path. Good teachers try valiantly to catch their students attention and spark learning by relating it to their real lives, with character-driven worksheets (Spongebob math worksheets, anyone?) and field trips and mock activities (pretend money, pre-determined experiments, mock trials, model UN). But that fundamental separation of learning and life is a significant disadvantage that the educational system cannot overcome while children are isolated in buildings filled with classrooms.

The curriculum path also restricts teachers’ freedom to dive more deeply into topics their students are actually curious about: “you’ll cover that next year.” Or to stray very far beyond the course outline: “you can look that up at home.” Yet a students’ definition of learning quickly becomes inextricably linked with school hours: “you have to go to school to learn.” With this narrow and rigid definition of learning hammered home, many students become loathe to learning outside of school. Their curiosity has become a faded echo of their toddler years.

But what if a child’s curiosity isn’t constantly stifled?

Humans are driven to explore their environment and if adults aren’t constantly trying to dampen or redirect their enthusiasm, that curiosity can drive their learning over a lifetime. In an unschooling family it’s that curiosity that drives learning, instead of a curriculum. But what does life with inquisitive children look like?

It often looks busy, even on days when you don’t leave the house, or even the family room!

It can look like large cardboard boxes lined up, enough for everyone, with the child up front wearing a train conductor’s cap as they travel from imaginary place to imaginary place, you lifting the littlest one in and out, in and out. A tower of blocks stands in the corner as a destination, a pile of stuffed animals tag along as traveling companions, and the couch is an island to keep us dry each time it floods.

It can look like a huge Lego town, days or weeks spent building a contemporary community with stores and parks and homes and citizens, or a futuristic base with a control room and sleeping quarters and spaceships and aliens, or a medieval castle with an armory and a mill and dragons and townsfolk.

It can look like one child concentrating hard on playing a video game, while you read the guide for tips and tricks in between playing a board game with the others, everyone taking a moment to cheer when a boss is beat, or someone rolls a six or lands on the longest ladder.

It can look like a puppet show, put on from behind the couch, full of dialog and sound effects and giggles, with you recording it to watch immediately after; and as you end up watching the other videos on the memory card an impromptu dance party breaks out.

It can look like a weekday afternoon at the park, winding the tire swing up countless times, with its passengers laughing maniacally as you release it, eventually their boundless energy spurring them to explore the play structure and escape down the tunnel slide.

It can look like each child in their room, one reading and writing on an online forum, one setting up props for a photoshoot, one playing a computer game. Each wandering out once in a while to chat and grab a snack, you calling down the hallway to ask if anyone would like a cup of the tea you’re brewing.

In each of those little vignettes, can you envision what is happening beneath the surface? The learning is rampant in each. Because the child is following their own curiosity, they dive into their interests as deeply as they want—maybe the Lego town lasts a day, or a week, or a month; maybe they take 100 photos, or they play with perspective and take 200 more, or they rearrange the set and take another 300. Because their time is their own, they let their questions roam as far and wide as their inquisitiveness takes them—maybe the train becomes a bus, then becomes a plane, then becomes an ocean liner; maybe the forum thread leads to a video, which leads to a website, which leads to a new forum: another piece of the world to explore filled with people as keen to discuss their passions as they are.

The days themselves can look very different but the curiosity driving them is the same: What do they love? What questions do they ask? What would they like to try? Who do they want to become?

Unschooling is about helping them find answers to the questions that drive them, and helping them discover both the person they are and the one they strive to be, no matter their age—I have questions that drive me, experiences to process, and a vision of the person I want to be. Living and learning each and every day. For life.

 

Unschooling Days: Outside in the World

What does out and about in the world look like in an unschooling family?

One of the especially lovely bits of unschooling is being free to head out and explore places when they are significantly less busy—meaning, while the vast majority of kids are in school. But timing isn’t the only thing that often looks different. Have you ever shared a museum visit with kids on a school trip? What a different experience, yes? An unschooling family’s trip to a museum doesn’t look like kids spending X minutes at an exhibit and then being told to move on. Or kneeling on the floor to scribble answers on a worksheet full of only those questions that align with their grade-level curriculum. For unschooling families, going to the museum isn’t called a “field trip” and it looks more like spending as much, or as little, time at each display as wanted—questions that cross their mind blurted out in quick succession, or maybe their face a study in quiet contemplation as they take it all in. To each their own style.

I also notice conventional parents pushing and pulling their kids this way and that, trying earnestly to keep their kids on their adult schedule. “Don’t touch that.” “Come here.” “We have to leave.” “No, you can’t have that.” “Stop whining or we’re going home right now.” “I’m gonna count to three.” You can sympathize with their frustration even while you question the usefulness of their demands.

The difference in family dynamics in unschooling and conventional families can be quite stark. That’s because there are different priorities at work. Unschooling parents work with their children when they are out and about in the world. Let’s look at three less conventional ways we work together as a family.

Briefing and Debriefing

I believe Anne Ohman first introduced me to the idea of briefing and debriefing in this context. The terms don’t describe any particular process, they remind us to talk with our kids. Before going places, let them know what to expect—brief them. Like you would ask your spouse to do before accompanying them to a business dinner. Or a friend to do before meeting up with their extended social group for the first time. Be considerate.

Take a moment to think about the kind of information your children would find useful. Will there be lots of people wherever you’re going or are you guys on your own? Will there be certain scheduled activities (like dinner time at Grandma’s) or are you guys following your own timetable? How negotiable are the scheduled things? If you’re exploring say, a museum, are the exhibits mostly hands off or are kids invited to touch? Is it a place where running is frowned upon or encouraged? Is there a certain time you need to leave and why? And don’t expect that they will remember what you told them last time you visited. Happily and matter-of-factly let them know what’s up today.

The point of helping them understand what’s expected and why in different situations is to help them learn the ins and outs of the world around them. It’s not for parents to have rules to hold up and scold their children when they fall short. You’re sharing good information with them. And while you’re out, help them as best you can to figure out ways they can be comfortable within the environment.

How might you do that? How about an example. I remember trips to the library when my daughter was still looking at books while her younger brother was done and getting antsy. I recall sometimes saying “Your brother’s done, are you okay looking at books on your own while I take him outside to run around? We’ll check back in with you in ten minutes.” If yes, that’s what we did. If no, we’d try come up with another path forward. Maybe she only needed five more minutes and I’d try keeping her brother occupied with a couple more books, or chatting about the posters on the wall etc. Maybe she wanted longer but wanted me close by so we’d keep thinking. Maybe I’d see if her brother wanted to use a library computer for a while, or suggest checking out what we had now, taking her brother home, and then coming back later just the two of us so we could stay as long as she liked—maybe after dinner that night or on the weekend. If we did do that, I’d remember to thank her for leaving earlier than she’d wished. And I’d do my very best to make sure we went back ourselves as soon as possible: follow through on your plans to build and keep their trust in you, or else next time they’ll understandably be less inclined to accommodate others’ needs in the moment.

Then on the drive home, or maybe sometime later that day when things have settled down, check in with them: debrief. Did they have fun? What did they enjoy? What didn’t they like? Leave a quiet and comfortable space in the conversation for them to bring up things they found challenging so you can process them together. If things went awry at any point, chat about what you guys might do next time a similar situation arises. Which leads to my next point.

Match Activities and Personalities

If you let them know what the expectations are for a particular place or event and your child finds them too much, that’s not a failure on anyone’s part. It is what it is for now. Things change over time—this moment doesn’t define forever.

And remember to think outside the box: we’re an inventive bunch and there are all sorts of ways to accomplish things. Let’s say you love eating out but your children find restaurants challenging—maybe the noise or activity level is too much, or they can’t sit still very long at the table and start running around and disturbing other patrons, or maybe they’re louder than the ambient noise level. Yet giving up restaurant dining isn’t your only option; there are so many ways you might accommodate them. Let’s brainstorm a few:

bring quieter activities to keep them busy—we were never big restaurant people but the odd time we went we’d bring handheld video games to pass the time, I’d keep paper and pencils in my purse to play tic tac toe or hangman, and our mainstay was to play twenty questions while we waited for our food to arrive (we adults would play with them—don’t expect them to occupy themselves);
choose family-style restaurants so they are less formal and much more accommodating to children, like handing out crayons and activity pages and having a fun kids’ menu;
during other seasons we’d choose take out so we could eat in the comfort of our own home, maybe setting out a “picnic” with paper plates, or a more formal setup with candles, to make it an event;
arrange for grandparents or a family friend to stay with the kids (or the kids to visit!) while we dine out.

And I’m sure you can keep going. The point is, there are so many options that we don’t need to put our kids in situations beyond what they can do. Beyond what they want to do—just because they happened to sit quietly through your last restaurant visit doesn’t mean it’s fair for you to now expect them to do it again and again.

Staying Home is Okay Too

With unschooling we talk a lot about exploring the world. But if any of your kids just aren’t interested in going out very often, that’s okay too! That’s another difference with unschooling families. Many conventional parents expect their kids to just tag along and do what they’re told: their children’s chance to explore the world on their terms is when they move out. But unschooling parents want to help their kids figure out the world and how they fit into it now—before they start navigating it on their own. So we work with them to accommodate their wishes as much as we can. Why is that important? Because if that’s what’s on their mind now, that’s what their brain is itching to explore and learn about. If they’d prefer to stay home to continue digging into their activities of choice, more power to them!

What if one wants to go somewhere and another doesn’t? Brainstorm! Can it wait for a time when both parents are available to split up, one home and one out? Or can multiple destinations be combined into one trip to satisfy multiple wishes? If you’d like to explore this further, I wrote in some detail about our brainstorming around visits to the science centre, including when one child wasn’t interested in going, in my post Unschooling and the Power Paradigm.

Remember, staying home is not synonymous with being sheltered—you can bring the world to your kids. It’s even easier now with the internet at your fingertips. Use your google-fu skills to find websites, games, and videos that you think your child would find interesting and share them. Browse library shelves yourself and bring home new books and movies. Hit clearance sales and thrift stores for treasures to share. Just remember to do so without expectations. Even if they don’t dive in for any length of time, you’ve introduced them to another bit of the world that they can explore if and when they become interested. And maybe it’s just a season. Don’t be tempted to permanently define them by their current wish to stay close to home.

And last, but not least, don’t forget to search for things in the world that excite you! Like that really old atlas or dictionary or Candyland game you found at the thrift store. Or that clearance sale popcorn maker. Let them see that engaging with and exploring the world isn’t just for kids.

Live life joyfully together.

 

 

Unschooling Days: Inside the Nest

Playing video games and watching TV.

Did you just tense up a bit?

These activities are often part of the typical days of an unschooling family. Yet they are so maligned by conventional society that this week I want to talk about them directly. Ask a friend or acquaintance why they don’t like TV and you’ll probably hear answers along the lines of too much violence, obesity fears, or their kids and/or their spouse just seems to zone out in front of the TV (or YouTube etc.) like they’re doing nothing at all. “They should be more active, more alive!” And interestingly, it often looks true in their lives: their kids, their spouse, and maybe themselves, plop down on the couch and take on that zombie look, decompressing after a long day or week.

But what if you don’t live a life of conventional work and school that you feel the overwhelming need to escape or recover from?

That’s right up our alley! So let’s explore what these activities might look like in an unschooling family. There is so much fun and learning and connecting and life swirling through them. And it often looks very different than it does in the more conventional lives typically being studied.

Let’s look at TV first

The enjoyment of learning about topics you find interesting through beautiful documentaries and information-packed shows is pretty easy to imagine, yes? Maybe you and your child love the ocean and are captivated by underwater life, but the idea of getting scuba certified and transporting yourselves to the Great Barrier Reef is incredibly daunting. Watching a documentary produced by people also passionate about life on the reef overcomes that quite nicely—certainly in the short-term.

Alongside the value of gathering knowledge is the value of sharing stories. Over the years, TV shows have inspired umpteen discussions in our lives, ranging from how to treat friends and being true to yourself to ethics and religion and sex; from storytelling cliches to how to create a suspenseful atmosphere. We’ve let out shouts of shock, jumped for joy, paused the show for conversations that couldn’t wait, waited for conversations until the show was over so we didn’t break the mood, and dashed to the computer to research facts more deeply (or lately have an iPad within reach). To me, that’s one of the major differences between typical viewers and unschooling viewers: active participation. We take it in, we roll it around in our minds, we weigh it against what we already know, and we make choices about what connects and what we let drift away. We fully experience it. We enjoy it.

And yes, sometimes we watch reruns of our favourite shows and/or movies to decompress and re-energize. It’s a fun tool for that too! Maybe you’ve had a busy day or a week where you’ve been more out than in and you want to relax and rejuvenate. Maybe it’s the tool of choice for your introverted child to recover after a group activity—even if they thoroughly enjoyed it, they need some down time to recoup their energy. In those times, take a moment to mention that connection between activity and recovery so they notice it too. They’re learning. Understanding themselves and their personal needs will help them be mindful about scheduling in down time so they are less likely to become so overwhelmed that it affects them negatively.

With unschooling, the important thing to support both their learning and your relationship, is having the choice.

If you’ve told them flat out “No, you’re not allowed to watch that show,” you’ve likely just made them very curious! “Why not??” they wonder. And curiosity is an incredibly strong motivator. So now they either have to either suppress their budding curiosity, or sneak around you to satisfy it. And if they do manage to find some time when you are otherwise occupied, or they are visiting friends with access (which will happen more and more as they get older), they’ll be watching it without being able to chat with you about what they discover: less learning. They’ll also be more likely to continue watching even if at some point their inclination is to stop: their curiosity about the source of your denial, or just plain rebelliousness to flex their power against your rules, pushes them beyond their own boundaries. That’s where more harm than good can happen.

Imagine your child is watching a scary movie you’ve banned at a friend’s house. If she starts to get scared halfway through the movie there’s a good chance she’ll stick it out to prove you wrong, or to avoid admitting her fear to her friend. Then maybe she has nightmares for a couple nights. Result? You’re now even more determined to make sure she doesn’t watch scary movies because you believe she’s just proved she can’t make good movie choices on her own. But really, you took the choice out of her hands up front—all her actions from that point were mired in reactions to your denial, not her own motivations.

With choice, and having a parent willing to watch with them, to support them by reacting to their needs in the moment—maybe pausing the show to discuss what’s happening, or lowering the volume during scary or emotional scenes, or warning them when they might want to cover their eyes, or changing the channel when asked—they are free to follow their curiosity until it has been sated, exploring the world and themselves, in a safe environment. Lots of learning. Alongside, it’s also a great opportunity for you to learn more about them. What sparked their interest? How was it satisfied? Do they seem to want more?

Does all that sound like mindless zombie TV watching?

Now let’s look at video game playing

What might gaming look like in an unschooling home? With available, willing, and supportive parents, gaming with younger children can often include reading the game text for them as they play: more stories shared, more conversations initiated, more strategies batted about. Thinking out loud can be a really fun way to sort through ideas, and a great way for parents to see their child’s beautiful mind at work—while they’re at play!

Parents may find themselves reading game guides, aloud to their child or silently to themselves, to help their child figure out how to beat that boss, or find all the gold skulltulas. When my kids were younger we had a computer in the same room where they usually played so we could look things up quickly. Sometimes we printed out a section of the guide to have handy on the couch. I have wonderful memories of working together with Michael to reach his goal of beating Luigi’s Mansion. And of watching Joseph play for hours, deeply fascinated by the artistic style of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Shadow of the Colossus. He’ll still call me to come see beautiful scenes and characters.

One thing that can be challenging is when our children become frustrated while playing. Our first reaction may be to shy away from it, insist they stop playing for a while. And sometimes a break can be a great strategy—if they’re willing to try it. Helping them explore ways to work through frustration while they’re figuring out new things is a great life skill. Beyond video games, there will be many situations where things are new and challenging and understanding how they best move through that is invaluable.

Another way parents can support their kids while they play is to bring food and drinks to keep their minds alert and reaction time at its peak while they’re deep in their work. More learning, not only about the game strategies themselves, but again, about the physical ways their brains and bodies are supported. Be with them. Be available. Anticipate their needs, not only to support them in the moment, but to help them learn what their needs are.

Thinking back now, I remember when we first started unschooling. Joseph was almost ten years old and he dove deeply into playing video games. At first I was uncomfortable, unsure he was learning much of anything. But when I realized my only other choice was to implement time restrictions and be stuck with the resulting power struggle, I decided to dive in with him and see what all the fun was about! One of the best choices I’ve ever made. A couple years later, in 2004, I wrote a conference talk and article about what I discovered. If you haven’t read it yet, you might want to click on over: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Video Games. And here’s an illustration I drew up at one point—a snapshot of the learning connections I’d seen related to his passion for video games.

Does playing video games and watching TV look a bit different to you now? Can you see all the learning that is woven into the fabric of these activities? All the loving support that is made concrete by celebrating the joy found in them? Exploring them together with my children has not only put my mind at ease, but strengthened and solidified our relationships. And those will last a lifetime.

 

What’s Behind a Typical Unschooling Day?

It’s kind of funny to think in terms of “typical” when talking about what unschooling days look like. I mean, one of the things I often emphasize is how different unschooling in action can look from family to family, even from child to child. Yet there is a basic motif that underscores our actions with our children, even when those actions vary widely:

Being Available, Willing, and Supportive

Being available to talk, willing to help, and supportive of their goals. Not just with words, but with our actions.

Here’s a little story. Last fall when I decided I wanted to write on this blog more consistently and I was working on Free to Live, I thought it would be helpful to set up a writing area out of the way to minimize distractions so I set up a desk in the basement. It was a nice area: under a window, lots of wall space to tack up my notes, power for my laptop and a desk lamp. I had fun setting it up!

I think I lasted about a week and a half. I felt too out-of-the-loop, too unavailable. I wasn’t nearby for a quick chat or a question, or to notice if something was starting to go off the rails and I could tweak something else to help our day flow more smoothly. So I moved back up to the desk in the library, smack dab in the middle of the house—the hub whose spokes lead to the kitchen, the bedrooms, the family room and more. Okay, I just counted how many doorways lead out of this seemingly small room: six. LOL! It is the crossroads of our home!

This is where I feel comfortable writing. I sometimes use headphones to keep random and distracting sounds at bay—usually gentle ocean waves breaking on a beach, or right now, coffee shop sounds! Everyone that passes by can see I’m writing, or working away at something. Yet they know if they need me for anything I am happy to stop and help them out (and I mean it—I am mindful not to carelessly react with frustration at an interruption). I peripherally notice the comings and goings: snacks being grabbed, someone going outside for a walk, another going downstairs for something. I can sense frustration through body language and check in to see what’s up. I am available and willing to help.

Not surprisingly, when my kids were younger being available and willing to help looked a lot different! That’s a much more physical phase of parenting, yet very important for their emotional development: when you support their physical needs, from food to sleep to play, you are building the loving and supportive foundation from which their lives will branch out. Playing board games and video games and watching Blue’s Clues and drawing clues and reading stories and grabbing drinks and changing diapers and building Lego cities and making snowmen and helping work through frustrations and disagreements: your children aren’t yet able to do many things and you are their more experienced hands. Just remember, this isn’t a time to push beyond your limits—be honest with yourself and your family. Yet it’s also a wonderful time to explore those limits, to discover what you are capable of.

Nowadays it’s driving places and text chats and sharing interesting information and earnest conversations and and trying new recipes and organizing activities and looking up US tax info and reorganizing rooms and “good morning!” and clinic visits and snow shoveling and Mario Party 9. Seeing the world through my children’s eyes gives meaning and purpose to every one of these activities. Supporting our children as they explore the world, at every age, is a great way for all of us to learn.

And as unschooling goes, your days may look very different from my days. Not only will our family’s interests and personalities differ, our circumstances are surely different as well. Maybe you work part-time outside the home, or are a single parent working from home, or you and your spouse both work from home, or you live in a multi-family home, or your children spend some time being cared for by others. The possibilities for what your particular unschooling days look like are vast, but the motif stays the same: being available, willing, and supportive. Having some fixed parameters in your lives like work hours or one car to share or whatever realities are part of your landscape doesn’t mean unschooling can’t flourish. It means what it has meant for all of us: working together as a family to find ways to support each other’s needs and dreams; being creative and open to unconventional ideas.

Is it working? The key is to look to your children. Do they feel that you are available for them? That you are willing to help them reach their goals? That you are supportive of their interests and activities? Are they happy? Let those answers guide you to create and maintain a supportive unschooling atmosphere that values them as individuals and supports their learning, no matter your circumstances. It’s not about trying to ignore reality and pretend our lives are “perfect”, but about living our real lives.

Our typical days.

Don’t Get Complacent About Unschooling

We learn so much about unschooling and how it works while we’re deschooling. I mean, that’s the point, isn’t it? Yet in my experience, that learning is never “done”. As a parent, I am always learning: learning about myself and my children as we change and grow, contemplating how our unschooling lifestyle flows and adapts to our growing experience; learning about new topics I or my children are curious about and exploring ways I can support and expand upon them. The philosophy of unschooling is consistent—yet its implementation looks different in every family, with every child, and over time. I know I’ve said that before, but each time you read it, I think it will mean just a little bit more.

If you have more than one child, have you discovered that your interactions are a bit different with each? It’s not that you change, but how you interact becomes tailored to each child, to each friend, to your spouse.

Beyond the different topics of conversation based on their individual interests, in what ways might your interactions with the people in your family differ?

Do you use different vocabularies? (What words and phrases are unique to each of your relationships? Different topics from which to draw analogies and comparisons in conversation? More or less colourful language?);
Are some more receptive to, and appreciative of, physical contact? (Are they a hugger? Not at all? Sometimes? Do they appreciate rough and tumble play?);
Do some respond to you initiating conversations more often than others (And conversely, with some do you wait more to respond to their prompts?);
Do some like to be helped as soon as they hit a roadblock while others prefer to spend some time trying to figure things out themselves?

As you grow to know and understand your children more deeply, you can adapt yourself to their learning and communication styles to better connect with them individually. It’s about building stronger relationships. And from stronger relationships comes deeper learning.

Why is that?

Because with a strong and supportive relationship your child is comfortable approaching you to talk about things—and vice versa. With a strong relationship they aren’t worried about looking “stupid” in front of you so they’ll ask that basic question about something: more learning. They aren’t worried about feeling judged so they’ll share their thoughts about a situation so they can talk through it with you: more learning. They aren’t worried about being punished as a result of their actions so they’ll come to you to analyze situations that went awry, or, if possible, before they go awry without worrying about being threatened with punishment: more learning.

With unschooling you want to support your children’s learning as seamlessly as possible so they stay in the flow: that’s where the best learning is. How you do that is unique to each child, and may change over time. Keep learning. And don’t worry about how “life isn’t perfect and they should learn that so maybe I shouldn’t try to help so much.” Believe me, life isn’t perfect, and no matter how hard you try you won’t be able to make everything work out perfectly. Do your best. Show your love and support through your actions. Show, don’t tell.

And there’s another piece to this “don’t stop exploring unschooling” puzzle. Not only do we all grow and change over time as individuals, but each year they are a year older. Is that a bit too obvious? Probably, but I know I sometimes had to remind myself that even if I’d been unschooling for ten years, I’d never been the unschooling parent of a 15 year-old before, a 16 year-old, a 17 year-old. A 17 year-old girl. This particular 15 year-old boy. It is a different experience with each child because each child is different. The ways I connect with them are different, the ways I support their learning are different, the ways I help them process and analyze situations are different. As they get older some of the situations that arise are new to us as a family. I need to pay attention, always. To stay connected, to keep learning. About them and about myself. It keeps me from getting complacent with life. It’s living fully. Living joyfully.

 

 

What To Do Instead of School – Part 2

Let’s pick up where we left off last week and dive right in! More stuff to do instead of school when you’re deschooling.

Don’t Rush

The key right now is building strong relationships with your children. Getting to know them well. Being open and allowing them to better understand you as well. Try to consistently move forward towards unschooling, while being careful not to make so many changes in quick succession than your family loses its footing—you don’t want to pull the rug out from underneath them.

If you’ve just pulled your kids from school, or decided to stop pushing your school-at-home schedule, it’s likely that your priority right now will be exploring how they will learn without being told what to learn and how to learn it. For unschooling to work well in your family, you need to understand and become comfortable with how people learn outside school.

A tip: during this season of Saturdays, beyond not pulling out workbooks or sitting them in front of an online video lesson, be careful not to take a natural moment and turn it into a “lesson”.

Why?

Because it interrupts their brain, the way they are thinking and connecting pieces together in that moment, and makes it about the way your brain is processing what’s happening. What they are getting out of a moment may be very different from what you are getting out of it. And that’s okay. Perfectly okay. So instead of jumping in and risking taking over, focus on your children. Try to notice the clues they are giving you—often by observing what their next action or comment is, you can discover what they are taking in and focusing on. Figure what they are seeing and learning. This is what I mean when I say “see through their eyes”—which I say pretty often. By doing this over and over and over you will begin to see how people learn without coercion and outside direction. Observe your children carefully. Not only will you begin to see unschooling learning in action, you will also get to know your children better. Lovely!

And remember, this process takes as long as it takes. Stop as soon as you catch yourself trying to direct their activities, or trying to entice them into an hour a day of reading or writing in a journal. The key word here is entice. If you offer to read to them and they happily join you, great! If you think they really might enjoy a journal of their own to write or draw in, take them out to choose one, or surprise them by bringing one home the next time you go out. Deschooling is about discovering your motivations and expectations, and then being careful not to put them on your children; help them discover their own. It’s not the end of the world if you catch yourself slipping into the role of teacher—just stop, regroup, and start again. Observe instead of direct. I did warn you that you’ll have most of the deschooling to do, yes? Haha. But I promise there is so much fun in the observation! Children are amazing learners when they are immersed in their interests and passions. And so are we.

Embrace Passions

One thing that can often trip up a parent during this season is how passionately a child can dive into an interest that has been restricted up to this point. Most often I see parents worry about “too much” TV or movies or video games. The key here is that whatever the activity, it has been restricted. Once it is no longer restricted, there’s a good chance they will take advantage and indulge to their heart’s content: and that may take some catching up! Another consideration is that they may worry that this reprieve is only temporary and try to fill as many hours with it as possible in anticipation of losing that freedom when you eventually change your mind. Especially if you’ve been back and forth about it before. It will take time to build trust with them that this freedom won’t be revoked. As they begin to trust that they are free to choose to play or watch any time, and they fill up on what they felt they were missing while the activity was restricted, they will begin to feel safe and free to make other choices.

If you find yourself in this situation, maybe ask yourself some questions surrounding the issue. Would I be worried if their passion was reading? Or sports? Is it the time spent that concerns me the most? Might this be their life’s passion and they’re happily putting in their 10,000 hours? Might readers become writers? Gamers become programmers? Movie watchers become directors? Do I only feel comfortable if I think of this time as training for a career? What did you put many hours into as a child? Did it become your career? If not, was that time wasted? (I put countless hours a year over thirteen years into ballet and dance yet I didn’t become a professional ballerina in the end. Time wasted? No way. It was my window to learning about myself.) Are your children engaged and happy and challenged? Do they work hard to figure things out and progress? Even through frustration? Isn’t that pretty cool?

There’s also the possibility that this is their learning tool of choice for now and you won’t see their passion wane over time, maybe for a long time. But the great thing is, alongside their playing or watching, you’ll be spending lots of time with them, observing them, chatting with them, helping them explore their interest. So if it doesn’t begin to fade with time, it’s very likely that you’ll get to a point where you’re comfortable with it as a learning tool. Anything can be a window to the world. And to learning about themselves.

Explore Routines

As you examine your motivations, your expectations, your understanding of learning and living, it’s conceivable that you, and your children, will start to question the myriad of rules that surround us every day. This can be a great source of questions to ponder yet, if the process gets tiring, it can be tempting to throw your hands up in defeat and declare your family rules null and void. Please try to avoid that. I think there’s a good chance it would be akin to the abrupt removal of the rug underfoot I mentioned earlier. That won’t be fun either. It will likely be messier.

Yet hard and fast rules are better examined—at least once somebody balks. Dinner at 6pm? Bedtime at 9pm? Why? What purpose does it serve? Is there another way to accomplish that purpose? Talk about the rules, share your thoughts, listen intently and respectfully to theirs (in relaxed moments, not when the energy of power struggles is in the air).

One thing that might help is to shift your perspective from rules to routines. Let’s peek at bedtime. People get tired. Is the goal getting to sleep when tired? Might circumstances change day-to-day? Do they for you? Are you sometimes really tired at 8pm? Other nights not until 10pm? 12am? What would be different if you thought of bedtime as more of a routine to help your children get to sleep when they are tired, rather than a fixed rule regarding the time on the clock? Does it seem reasonable to you to help them listen to their bodies and follow its cues, rather than try to control their bodies based on outside factors? No matter your answers it’s better to know what you think and act from that place rather than to blindly follow rules.

Another helpful aspect of thinking in terms of routines rather than rules is that for many kids (and adults!) there’s comfort in routines, in knowing what to expect. Routines help with transitions: a relaxing routine to get ready to go to bed when they’re tired; a routine to get ready to go out the door so things aren’t forgotten; a calming routine to move through frustration etc. It’s all about getting to know and understand your children. And yourself.

You might also want to check out my blog posts from last October when the topic was “How is unschooling different than school?”. There’s one post in particular that I won’t regurgitate here about why it’s helpful to avoid lessons during deschooling. There’s also posts about how kids learn reading, writing, and math outside school if you’re curious about what unschooling learning might look like.

Be patient. Deschooling is a time of stretching and growing and analyzing and playing and learning and observing and exploring and being together with your family. It’s challenging and it’s beautiful. It’s work and it’s play. Remember to enjoy the moments.

 

What To Do Instead of School – Part 1

You’re feeling an incredible swirl of both excitement and trepidation: you’ve decided to try unschooling! You understand that you, and anyone else in your family who has been in school, will be deschooling for a while.

But without school, what will you actually do all day??

Great question! And now we have some seriously fun stuff to talk about!

A Season of Saturdays

To help get you in a relaxed and open mindset (better for your learning!), try thinking of your days over the next while as a season of Saturdays. If you find yourself waking up and thinking, “It’s Monday, time to get back to work and learning,” try to catch yourself before you put that filter firmly in place: “Oops, I forgot, it’s Saturday!”

What would you do with your children if it was Saturday? Weekends are typically a time to relax and follow the flow of the day rather than an imposed schedule. Would your kids enjoy sleeping in? What a wonderful part of the transition away from imposed schedules: sleeping as much as their bodies would like. Or are they early risers? Now they can savour the beauty of early morning without the pressure of getting dressed, fed, and out the door. Or are they a mishmash of both? Now they can learn about themselves, discovering their own unique patterns for sleep, figuring out how to better support their own needs.

Are there places you and your kids have always wanted to visit (or visit more often) but you haven’t had the time? Now you do! The museum? The science centre? The art gallery? Cool! But remember, you don’t need to lead your children through them, making sure they see all the exhibits. (If you’re tempted, take a moment to think about what it really means to “get your money’s worth”—is it quantity or quality?) Instead, follow their curiosity. Look at the map with them, chat about what they’d like to see and do, let them navigate you guys around—if they want to. If they are engaged and excited at a particular exhibit, let them stay as long as they want. (Hint: the best learning is happening there!) If you only hit three exhibits that day, great! It’s not a competition. If you breeze through them all in a couple of hours, that’s fine too! You hit breadth instead of depth. Both are perfectly appropriate: you are following their interests, seeing their minds in action. For me, the fun over time is in seeing how each visit is uniquely its own. And as I got to know my kids better, I started seeing connections between how a visit played out and the other things that were happening in their lives. It’s all connected. It’s all learning.

How about something a bit closer to home? What about playgrounds? Maybe explore a different one in your town each week. Hiking trails? You can go every week or two and see how things change as spring arrives, or fall. Or rainy season. Find the things that catch your children’s attention and follow up over time. Would they like to try bowling? Or laser tag? Or trampoline? The bonus is that family places are much less busy during the week—most of the kids are in school! We even scheduled our vacations in the off season: lower cost and less crowded.

If you live in the city, take trips beyond the suburbs and explore farms and parks. Take a horse-drawn carriage ride. Visit a pumpkin patch in October. If you live rurally, take trips into the city and explore the attractions. Walk the streets and admire the tall buildings. Take a subway ride. Explore the world around you, not just the one outside your door.

Tired yet? Haha! I have given you a pretty wide range of ideas to help kick start some conversations with your kids, and I’m sure you guys will come up with many more! (Another great thing to do with your kids now that they’re home: talk.) It’s pretty unlikely that they are going to be interested in all of these things—certainly not all at once. But don’t be stressed if your children aren’t interested in even a handful of them. We’re all uniquely ourselves—find out what your kids are interested in.

Meet Your Kids

That leads nicely into this really important piece of the deschooling journey: getting to know your children. Understanding them is the foundation from which you will explore the world together. What are they doing when you see their faces light up? What do they ask to do regularly? What new things would they would like to try? What brings them joy? What engages them so completely that they don’t notice time passing? Do those things often.

Bring in related things you think they might also enjoy. If they like Spongebob, would they like to do a puzzle depicting a scene from the show? Or if they like a certain movie, might they enjoy watching the gag reel or the short making of documentary on the DVD? You don’t necessarily need to ask them, just let them know it exists and see if they are drawn to it. Just be careful that these are things you think they will enjoy, not things you wish they would enjoy. (Like that Spongebob math workbook you were eyeing at the supermarket—keep deschooling!) And if they aren’t drawn to something you give to or show them, don’t fret—you’ve just learned something new about them. Maybe your guess was off a bit for now, or maybe they were busy and it will catch their attention next week, or next month, or next year. Their world is still a bit bigger because now they know that such a thing exists.

And don’t forget about home—life can be fun and interesting there too! What do your children enjoy doing in their PJs? Board games? Card games? Twister? Red light, green light? Colouring books? Crafts? Puzzles? Building forts with couch cushions and blankets? Carving snow sculptures after the big storm? Playing catch? Hula hooping? Making their own playdoh? Kicking a ball around outside? Frisbee? Reading stories together? Playing hide and seek? Tent in the backyard? Watching movies? YouTube videos? Somersaults and handstands? Playing video games? Online games? Baking cookies? Acting out TV shows? How could I forget Lego and K’Nex and Duplo? The possibilities are vast.

Whatever they enjoy, do those things with them. Bring bits of the world to them that you think they’d find interesting.

Remember, it’s Saturday! Relax and enjoy your time together.

How Do You Learn?

I remember when my daughter’s preteen friends would comment to her about how boring her life must be without school. What do you think? Does it sound like life without school will inevitably be boring? I don’t think so!

As you dive into all this fun living (and learning!) with your family, don’t forget to take some time yourself to continue learning about unschooling. The challenge at this point is probably that you’re feeling overwhelmed! There is so much information coming from so many places:

observing and engaging with your kids;
contemplating memories dredged up from your school career;
reading more and more about unschooling and parenting that supports that lifestyle;
hanging out with like-minded people to see how they approach things;
philosophical meanderings about how you want to live your life; and
questioning, well, everything!

How are you going to connect it altogether to paint yourself a cohesive picture of unschooling?

Well, how do you like to learn?

Do you learn things more effectively through writing? Like to journal? You can pick out a beautiful notebook (or decorate one yourself if you feel so inclined) and fill it with observations and thoughts and ideas as your family moves through deschooling. Or maybe you’d like to create a blog, either a private one for your family’s eyes only, or a public one where you share the ups and downs of your journey with others.

Or do you like to process information more visually? Like taking pictures? You can create photo essays, grouping them through the threads you see in the images. Or maybe a photo blog if you would like to share with others.

Or do you lean toward verbal processing, enjoying conversations with others on the same journey? You can find local unschoolers and meet up to chat at park days or coffee nights, you can attend an unschooling conference or gathering (there are more and more of them!), or you might approach some unschoolers you’ve met online and see if they are interested in chatting by phone or skype.

Or maybe it’s an eclectic mix of all of these, but figuring out how you like to learn is a worthwhile step in deschooling. It helps you discover the vast array of ways that people learn outside school, opening you up to all the ways you might support your children’s exploration and learning.

And that’s where the real fun of unschooling is.

 

Why Deschooling?

Last month we talked about a couple of the paradigm shifts that typically accompany the journey of learning about unschooling. Deschooling is a general term used to describe this transition to unschooling, where we expand our definition of learning beyond the classroom paradigm. Conventional wisdom tell us that learning looks like teachers and listening and writing and tests. Even years after we’ve graduated, chances are our vision of learning is still locked within those four walls. But what might we see if we remove our school-goggles?

The guideline surrounding deschooling is that the process typically takes about one month per year of school or school-at-home. Right away that tells us that parents likely have the bulk of the work to do, which makes sense because we’ve been enmeshed in school culture the longest. The idea of a guideline makes me giggle a bit because it takes as long as it takes, but where the statement really helps is planting the idea that the process takes a while. Not a few weeks or a couple months, but some real time. Long enough that when you’re nearing the end, hopefully you’ve reached the point where you’re not even looking for the “end” any more.

That’s a great point to remember when you find yourself feeling overwhelmed with information and begin to worry: deschooling is going to take months and months. And months. I don’t think I came across that information when my children first left school—or if I did, it didn’t make a lasting impression. I recall posting on a homeschooling forum after about six weeks about my worry that, at least my older two (ages 10 and 8 at the time), were playing all the time and not learning. I was encouraged to relax and I think someone mentioned the longer time line of deschooling at that point. I relaxed and six months or so down the road I looked back at that post and laughed, realizing how tightly I was still clinging to my school-vision goggles—I wasn’t yet seeing all the learning that was happening in their play.

Moving to unschooling is a process. Six weeks can seem like a long time when you feel like you’ve leapt into an abyss, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s just a blip on the radar. If you find yourself questioning your choices, that’s good! It’s part of the process. Do your best to answer them, don’t just throw up your hands in defeat. And be careful not to use the longer-term nature of deschooling as an excuse to dilly-dally: take another step forward, and another. Keep learning and observing and thinking. You can’t change past moments, but right here, right now, is a new moment in which you get to choose how to act and react.

For me, it was probably about a year before I felt like we were truly unschooling, not deschooling. There was no announcement, no graduation ceremony, but one day I realized I no longer feel like I was emulating the lifestyle—we were living it. I was no longer trying to wrap my mind around the principles, instead I was spending my time supporting how those principles were playing out in my unique family.

So how do you get there?

Something spurred you to investigate unschooling and whatever it was, it’s a great place to start because that’s where unschooling has made a connection with you. What conventional idea were you questioning? What unschooling action or principle caught your attention in response? Why? If you stay with the conventional wisdom, how might it play out in your family over the next five years? What about the unschooling wisdom? What might that look like in your family today? In a year? In five years?

Alongside that, since at its most basic unschooling is about creating an environment for learning to replace school, it’ll help to examine your thoughts, ideas, and filters surrounding learning. Ask yourself tons of questions to explore your understanding of learning. You’ve been learning for many years, so how’s that been working for you? How would you define real learning? What does a test really measure? How much of what you learned in school do you still remember? What’s the difference between what you remember and what you don’t? Do you better remember the stuff that was useful to you? Interesting to you? Have you learned things on your own since leaving school? What about hobbies? Is that learning any less valuable just because it was done outside a classroom? Is there a difference in how easily you learned things you were told to learn and things you wanted to learn?

When you’re not busy playing with your kids or pondering the nature of learning, continue reading about unschooling and its underlying principles. Tip: though what you’re finding my seem incredibly unconventional right now, try to keep an open mind. When I first began reading about some of the parenting things unschooling families were up to I remember thinking “well, we won’t be doing that.” But instead of feeling defensive, I just let it flow by and kept reading—I was so curious! I hungrily absorbed all the unschooling information and discussions I came across. The information about how people learn aligned so closely with my personal experiences and my observations of my own children’s learning, that I knew there was something to this unschooling thing. I kept learning. And in a few months I was doing many of those things I initially dismissed—they began to make sense as my understanding grew.

If possible, hang out with unschooling families to see them in action. Do a bit of web searching for unschooling or even homeschooling groups in your area (there’s a reasonable chance you will find some unschoolers in the homeschooling groups, especially groups focused on social activities). Some things to notice as you spend time with them: What do the parent-child relationships look like? Be careful not to put higher expectations on the kids, unschooling kids aren’t “perfect”, nobody’s perfect—neither is anyone’s definition of “perfect”—but do they seem happy? Connected? Do the parents seem supportive and available? Do the parents and kids enjoy being together? Try to observe in different situations, groups and individually. Talk with them. Or just listen. Understand yourself and how you like to learn. You’re not there to judge, but to see unschoolers in action; to see some of the unschooling principles you’re reading about play out in person, deepening your understanding.

Personally, I did not find any reasonably local unschoolers so I focused on reading, reading, reading. I’m not one to ask questions at first, I prefer to join communities and lurk for a while, reading and trying to make sense of things myself first, eventually asking questions about what is still confusing or nagging at me—like my six week question. It helped a lot, and I don’t think I asked anything else for a few months. But that’s just my learning process. It’s not to say that asking questions while you process things is wrong, not at all! Some people learn more effectively that way, and it brings those topics up for discussion in the group for others to read (like me!) so it’s helpful that way too. It’s interesting to notice our ways of learning, and the ways of others. Why? Because the ways our children prefer to learn may be significantly different from ours. That’s a really good thing to notice. Don’t presuppose anything: observe and chat and discover. Learn.

Now that we’ve talked about the purpose of deschooling, over the next couple weeks I’m going to talk in more detail about things you and your family can do instead of school to help you transition out of the schoolish mindset and begin to explore the exciting world around you. Have fun!

 

Moving Toward Unschooling Principles

Last week we talked about the first part of a paradigm shift: shifting away from the conventional wisdom that does not seem to mesh with our own experiences and understanding of the world around us. We looked at a couple of examples surrounding learning and parenting.

The second part of the shift encompasses moving toward the ideas, or principles, that seem to better align with our understanding, experience, and goals. For continuity, let’s continue with those same examples. The first conventional idea about learning was that it needs to be directed by a teacher and measured by a test and let’s imagine that, for any of the reasons we talked about last week, this doesn’t mesh well with your experience. What might better align with our intuition about how we learn?

Unschooling principle: Learning is everywhere.

So how might we get here?

Maybe we start by asking ourselves what we mean by learning. What is real learning? Does learning need to be hard? If it’s interesting and fun, is it still learning? Is it really learning if we forget it a few weeks down the road? What kind of learning do we remember for the longer term? The things that make a connection to something we already know? That expand our perspective? The information and skills we use regularly in our lives? Those related to our interests and passions?

In shifting away from the idea of learning paths dictated by others, some might ask themselves questions about what learning is important to an individual. Is there a definitive time line for learning? What would the consequence be if we forgot some of the things we’ve learned? What if they haven’t come up again in our lives for months or years? What if we didn’t spend the time learning them before we forgot them? What if we wait until there’s a need or a connection or an interest? Is there a downside to not knowing something before there is a need or an interest? Might you learn something faster when you are interested in gaining that information or skill along the way to satisfying a current need or goal?

Then maybe we wonder about where and when real learning happens. If we feel that limiting our definition of learning to the activities related to the physical attributes of school (desk, classroom, teacher, school hours) doesn’t do it justice, how does that open up our understanding? Is it still learning if it happens at 9pm? In our backyard? In our pyjamas? On our bike? If it’s inspired by something we see on TV? Or hear a friend talk about? Is there any reason to value one source of learning over another? One method over another? Is it enough that learning happens? Think about your own light bulb moments. What were you doing? Were you interested and engaged? Immersed in the flow of the moment? Were you inspired to rise to the challenge, instead of turning away from it?

Once you start looking for the learning instead of the teaching it’s like a whole new world opens up! When you stop judging the method and just look clearly at your child’s engagement and joy, you can see their mind hard at work through the window of their words and actions. You begin to recognize the learning they are doing all the time. Time and location and teaching becomes irrelevant. Exploration of the world becomes exciting. Being curious about things that catch our interest becomes a fundamental trait.

Unschooling principle: Why not yes?

The realization that exploring the world through their interests and passions inspires so much real learning often gives rise to another paradigm shift: from automatically saying no to most of your children’s requests to taking a moment to seriously consider saying yes. Your growing understanding that the best learning happens when your child is interested and engaged means that when there is something they are interested in exploring, it behooves you to take a moment to see if you can find a way to say yes. You discover you want to find a way to support their exploration, not stop it in its tracks.

That realization inspires an avalanche of self-inquiry. Do you really need to sweep the floor first? Get dinner on the table at 6pm? (You begin to question both the time and place of that scenario.) Is it really a big deal to leave the in-progress board game on the dining room table overnight? To let your kids sleep in their clothes? Or stay in the bath for over an hour? To watch the rest of the movie they’re enjoying even if it’s past 9pm? We’ll talk lots more about this transition time over the coming weeks as we explore deschooling, but for now, realize it’s okay to question the conventional wisdom of day-to-day living. It may well have made sense when it first became part of society’s fabric, but does it still make sense today? For you? For the individuals in your family?

Even with this quick look at a couple of principles, it’s plain that unschooling isn’t just a new set of rules to replace commercial curricula and it doesn’t just happen during school hours—it’s a lifestyle. It is exciting and daunting and exhilarating and exhausting. And if the ideas don’t make sense in your experience or align with your goals, it’s fine to move away from unschooling and explore other educational paradigms. It’s a choice. But if the idea of exploring the world and sharing it openly with your children excites you, unschooling just might be for you and your family.

Keep learning and see where it takes you.

 

Shifting Away From Conventional Wisdom

This is an incredible moment in human history. The ability to communicate and share ideas with other like-minded people across the globe has burst into our daily lives over the last decade, challenging our beliefs more deeply and swiftly than has been possible before. So many conventional paradigms are being challenged: health, lifestyle, and more and more, education.

Without access to the Internet I’m not sure I would have even come across the idea of unschooling. I mean, I questioned some conventional parenting wisdom on my own—just observing my own young children and trusting my instincts led us to a somewhat attachment parenting lifestyle before I knew such a model existed. But questioning the education system as a whole? Not on my radar. My eldest was in school through grade four—with me working with his teachers year after year in an attempt to make it a more palatable experience—before I discovered that participation in the public education system was optional. It took that long because nobody in my network of friends and family had ever challenged that convention. But nowadays, when you start questioning things you can ask a vastly bigger audience than the face-to-face community that surrounds you. You can ask the world.

Regardless of the initial inspiration—whether you commonly challenge the status quo or specific issues have arisen that are now encouraging you to ask questions—a paradigm shift is the culmination of two discrete, yet connected, actions: shifting away from something that doesn’t seem to be working for you (typical a conventional viewpoint), and moving towards an idea that seems to better align with your understanding, experience, and goals.

Let’s look at a couple of the conventional ideas that are typically the first to fall as people philosophically find their way to unschooling.

A conventional idea about learning:

Learning needs to be directed by a teacher and measured by a test.

Often one of the first conventional paradigms that is challenged as people find their way to unschooling is the idea that for learning to happen it needs to be directed by a teacher and measured by a test (and then a midterm, and then a final exam). It’s a pretty ubiquitous idea, I mean our entire public school system, and much of the private, is built around this premise. So what might cause people to begin to question it?

Sometimes they’ve had a frustrating school career themselves. Looking back, they have come to realize that they learn just fine on their own when they’re pursuing their hobbies, but that the required subjects at school, or the way they were presented, just weren’t interesting enough to keep their attention. Or maybe over the years they discovered they just aren’t very good at taking tests—they knew the stuff, but couldn’t often get it across on the test the way the teacher wanted. Does that mean they don’t know it? Even when they use that knowledge day-to-day? Do their less than stellar test scores tell the real story?

Or maybe they are drawn to evaluate the process itself. Who chooses what everyone should learn? Why? How do they make their choices? From what perspective? Who is the customer in the learning transaction? The learner? The parents? The company that may hire the student as a graduate? How does the business of education, the enormous industry surrounding the creation and selling of curricula and standardized tests, affect the product? What’s the motivation behind the curriculization (damn, that should be a real word!) of all manner of things that make up being human, like character and sex?

Maybe they dig into the idea of curriculum—is that really how people learn? Does everyone’s learning path march the same equidistant steps, to the same beat, as the curriculum developer envisions? Through their hobbies, maybe they recognize that their own learning process thrives on following the unique path of questions and connections that arise for them as they delve into a topic. Is it important to normalize as many students as possible into following the curriculum’s specific path? Why? If they don’t fall into step, what is the long-term consequence?

Once one thing, some thing, tweaks a person to start questioning this conventional idea about learning, there are so many facets of the educational system that seem to be at odds with helping children learn. Not children as a concept, as a norm, but real children. Your children.

A conventional idea about parenting:

Parents need to set boundaries for their children, and a definitive no helps the parents stay in control.

Another conventional paradigm that is often challenged early as people learn about unschooling is the idea that parents need to be the boss of their family and keep their children inside their arbitrary lines. Training a child to do as they’re told starts early and doesn’t let up: parents, teachers, coaches—any adult in a conventional supervisory capacity demands it. What might cause parents to question this paradigm?

Maybe they remember moments from their own childhood when they did what they adults in their lives told them to but it didn’t work out well—they are quite certain things would have been better if they had followed their instincts. They felt deeply misunderstood. Maybe their rebellion was so fierce and damaging that they are looking for ways to break that seemingly inevitable cycle with their own children.

If they are drawn to digging into the paradigm of power struggles maybe they begin to question the conventional wisdom of firmly saying no and not changing your mind: “Don’t flip flop or you’ll just confuse them, they won’t understand where the boundary is, and they’ll continue to challenge you.” Meaning, wear them down until they stop asking. They wonder if this logic might work too: “Hmm. That doesn’t seem safe. What are you trying to do? Maybe we can figure out another way to do it.” In other words, is it possible to work together rather than struggle against each other?

Or maybe seeing their children’s play in action causes them to question whether seemingly arbitrary boundaries interfere with their everyday joy and learning. They watch their children as they throw themselves wholeheartedly into the activity at hand. Look at that concentration! Do I really want to disturb it? Is my need for, say a tidy playroom before we go to bed, more important than my children’s passionate engagement? Look at them trying to build that tower over and over and over. What’s the worst that might happen if I let them keep at it for now? If they ask me bring them more supplies from the cupboard, should I? Is saving them for a hypothetical “next time” more important than giving them what they need to continue exploring right now?

Again, once a parent begins to question their role, they begin to discover how much of our conventional parenting wisdom is geared to controlling our children to make our lives easier today, rather than to raising thoughtful and interesting human beings that, in turn, are a real asset to society. Not because they fit in, but because they stand out; not necessarily in any over-the-top fashion, but in their day-to-day lives, in their family, in their chosen communities.

Learning about the philosophy of unschooling is often sparked by something that challenges us to begin questioning the conventional ideas about learning, parenting, living, success, the path of school-college-job. These ideas were often handed to us without question by the adults in our lives as we were growing up. Whether or not these conventional paradigms end up working well for you, it’s important to question them, to roll them around in your mind, to see how they fit with your understanding of yourself, of the world, and of your goals. The key is realizing you have a choice. The philosophy you choose to live need not be foisted upon you by others, but can bubble out of you with determination, care, and joy. That’s living joyfully.

Phew! That was a long one! But it’s a key piece of the puzzle: understanding where you’re coming from and what may not be working for you. Next week we’ll look the second part of the shift: moving toward ideas, or principles, that seems to better align with your understanding, experience, and goals.