Who’s to Say I Can’t?

Here’s looking at you, E!

Amy just asked if I’d like to do a podcast about unschoo… er, immersion learning as a pathway to personal growth, and since I’d been lumpenly sitting here waiting for inspiration to strike (funny how I still think that can work, after something like two decades of repeatedly proving to myself that it doesn’t [and how ironic that I'm going to write about personal growth after admitting I've been doing the same unproductive shit for something like 20 years]), and since her request made me realize I’ve never addressed the subject in this space, at least not explicitly, I figured why the hell not. So buckle up: It’s personal growth, Ben-style.

I guess first I should say I’m not exactly sure how to define personal growth. I have this vague idea that it’s about becoming a more evolved version of one’s self. Maybe even a better version, though that seems awfully loaded. I mean, who’s defining “better”? And is it not a subjective measure, anyway? And should we even be striving to be better? Are we not damn well good enough as we are? Sigh. As seems my habit, more questions than answers.

So with the caveat that I’m not exactly sure how to define personal growth, at least not empirically and certainly not concisely, I’m nonetheless pretty sure I’ve experienced it. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure that a fair piece of this experience is rooted in our decision to follow the immersion learning path. I mean, of course it is, because I’m also pretty sure that you can’t go breeding and not experience some degree of personal growth (and if you can, it probably means you shouldn’t’ve gone and had kids in the first place). And in a way, immersion learning is parenthood amplified. It is parenthood without the buffer of school. In our home, it is also parenthood without the buffer of screen and so in our home, one can’t really differentiate between immersion learning and immersion parenting. One is the other and the other is one. Truthfully, I think that’s why some parents can’t even fathom such a thing as immersion learning: They don’t even want to spend that much time with their kids. Actually, I don’t think it; I know it, because I’ve been told as much, on more than one occasion.

I’m starting to realize this runs the risk of going on far too long, so I’ll cut to the chase and talk about one particularly striking aspect (striking to me, at least) of my so-called “personal growth” that I attribute in large part to our educational path: Confidence. Not just in my boys – though certainly, unquestionably that – but in myself.

There’s a million different ways this is true, but I suppose the most obvious is rooted in my observation that my children are more capable than I’d ever imagined children could be. I hope this doesn’t sound like bragging – I don’t mean to single out my children, because I think all children are more capable than we imagine them to be; we just don’t tend to give them opportunities to demonstrate how capable they are. But of course my children are the ones I know best, so they’re the obvious example.

When I say “capable,” I don’t mean merely from a skills perspective, though that’s part of it, to be sure. But more so, I mean from a perspective of resourcefulness, both physical and emotional. I think of Rye putting down his buckling, or hauling sap two gallons at a time from deep in the woods to boil over the little stone and brick arch he fashioned. I think of all Fin’s failures on his path toward making his first truly functional long bow. Over and over and over again he failed. And then, finally, he didn’t. When I say “capable,” I mean from the perspective of being hungry for experiences and willing to foment the knowledge these experiences require. Does that make sense?

Here’s how simple it is: Immersion learning and parenting has granted me a front row view of human resourcefulness and capability that I would not otherwise have known. And in that regard, it has meant that my children have become my teachers at least as much as I’ve been theirs. They have unwittingly made me more confident in my own capacity for resourcefulness and self-directed learning.

Because if my kids can do it, who’s to say I can’t?