Lesson 2: Unschooling Philosophy
Unschooling at a Glance
For most unschooling families, there is no typical day, although children will often spend some time on their own, some time with their parents, and some time with others outside the home. For example, children may read, write, play, create, experiment, and work on academic projects on their own or with friends or siblings, or they may ask for help, talk, discuss, and do projects with their siblings and parents. They may run errands or participate in work with parents, or attend music classes, scout groups, homeschool groups, or volunteer jobs outside their homes.
“Naturally enough, families who do a lot of gardening or raise animals tend to have children who learn a great deal from working and playing in the garden or with the animals. Other families might play games of all kinds–card games, board games, strategy games, word games, puzzles–or spend lots of time volunteering within their communities. Still others make music an important part of their everyday lives.” - Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook.
Some days children may appear as productive learners while other days they appear to do nothing at all. Appearances can be deceptive, but regardless, periods of work and rest are natural and healthy. Much processing likely happens during seeming rest days. Likewise, days full of play and imagination can provide a child with the opportunity to explore new ideas and develop new interests that will lead to focused learning. So, don’t worry if your young child plays with her doll house all day long, or if your older one plays video games, even for several days in a row. The learning they do may not be visible to you, but they are learning regardless.
For information on what kids can learn from playing video games, see Mary Gold’s article, ‘If you give a kid a Nintendo...,” http://sandradodd.com/game/nintendogold
And unschoolers change as they get older. Their interests and the ways they pursue those interests will change over time. Your active, playful young child may become a serious and focused older child. Your independent child may require more assistance. And chances are, your children will do more and more activities away from home.
“It’s inevitable: Just when you think you finally have your kids and your lives all figured out, all set for everything to go smoothly for months or maybe even years, your children change on you. Suddenly the help they welcomed from you yesterday is an unasked-for intrusion. Or things they were perfectly content to do on their own last week they suddenly and desperately need assistance with. The child who happily unschooled for years suddenly begins to wonder if she isn’t just a bit too odd for ‘normal’ society, or her younger brother abruptly decides he’s been learning to program in C++ all wrong and needs a knowledgeable mentor immediately.” - Mary Griffith.
Upheavals like those mentioned above provide you with the opportunity to exercise trust in your children’s abilities to find their own best ways to learn. Your job is to help them meet their true needs be they help from you or another learning resource or just a boost in confidence.
A note on Albert Einstein: In Albert Einstein: A Biography, Albrecht Fölsing reports that Einstein’s general high ability in school was coupled with a disdain for compulsion and a tendency to do things his own way. He remembered schooling as an unhappy experience, yet received good scores when he wanted to. He spent much of his free time at home building with construction model sets or reading serious books about science. He attributed the school problems he sometimes had to an unwillingness to do the work required by his teachers.
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly.” - Albert Einstein, winner of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.
