My oldest son never much cared for writing. Like so many boys in homes and schools across the world since time has begun, my son declared that while writing was something potentially useful in certain situations, it should not under any circumstances be embarked upon without a vital clear purpose and motivation of intent. In other words, there is no reason in the world why any child with zillions of more important things to do like wading in streams, reading comic books, and playing with tinker toys should ever be prevailed upon to take time out of his schedule for things such as rote copying or report writing. There is way too much to do in the course of a day, and life is just too darn short.
Brandon was a reader from the time he was young and has loved books passionately since the day of his birth. Every chance he ever got to listen to a story or find books on a subject that interested him were almost religiously followed up on, and he was one of those kids who just woke up reading one day without anyone ever showing him how to do it. He was (and is) a voracious reader, but his attitude toward writing was the complete and total antithesis of voraciousness, and astonishingly enough he never got the slightest inclination to do it. The only evidence I had that he even knew how to write came every Christmas when it became 'necessary' for him to write an extensive list of requested toys at the risk of something getting overlooked. In these situations, he miraculously sat down and churned out 3-4 page long descriptive toy lists with next to no effort in near-perfect penmanship. I was aghast.
I witnessed this phenomenon several times before realizing that there was a harsh and vital truth behind the idea that children need a reason to learn. Without a purpose for every element of skill that takes place in a person's life there is just no way that 'lifelong' learning is remotely possible. It is a wasted pipe dream at best. Even worse, everything that the tax-funded establishments spend years teaching kids around here is promptly forgotten the moment a child walks out the door in 9 out of 10 instances. Why? Because it does not serve the purpose of the learner at that time. Education is more a matter of timing than anything else in the world:(.
Something interesting I have noted lately, is that a child will never lose face in the event of a forced activity. Rather than subjugate him/herself to a higher authority and risk losing his (or her) identity entirely, kids will revolt in ways that are incredibly, logistically brilliant. They daydream, they fail to apply themselves, they misbehave accidentally and on purpose, they become downright disruptive, and most brilliantly of all, they simply forget what was taught as soon as it is no longer necessary to remember it. Are these marvelous examples of creative non-compliance, or what? It's very simple when you think about it. The human spirit refuses to be broken, and refusal takes all forms from babyhood to adulthood. No child will allow herself to be shoved and humiliated without mounting some sort of defense. Should we be surprised that kids revolt in school nowadays? It has nothing to do with peer pressure and course materials. It is purely an act of self-preservation:(.
Back to the writing issue. I decided that since no one can stop the flow of the ocean after all it was better to run with the tide than against it. Suddenly, at the age of 13, my darling son found a group of kids who shared many of the same interests and used email to communicate their battling monster/hero gangster swordsmanship scenario sequences every day. Suddenly, the boy who never wrote was whipping off page after page of questions, comments, opinions, and discussion points with textbook grammar usage, standard spelling, and shockingly creative expression. I spent weeks in a state of astonishment at the volume of material that was pouring out of him, and I realize now that my years of worrying and wondering were all in vain, and that the ability of Brandon to express himself perfectly resided in him all the time waiting for the right time, the right place, and the right purpose.
So this is what unschooling is all about, in my opinion. Free-schooling also. And even the movement of homeschooling in general. We are born with inherent tools and timetables, and all the instincts need is a little time, space, and self-motivation to develop. We as adults cannot force these issues. We cannot bestow tools that do not exist or force a talent to surface before development dictates that it should. All the cleverness in the world will not bring a horse to water if it does not want to drink. It has to need to drink.
In my opinion the most important thing we can do for any kid is not to teach them skills. It is to have perfect faith in their ability to unfold. No one knows what a person will do later in their lives. No one can see the future or find a way to tailor education to individual destinies if no one has the remotest idea of what those destinies will be. Self determination is the only hope for reaching adulthood intact and becoming mature, self-actualized human beings. That must be the future of education as we know it.
More streams of consciousness next week (with luck....:^),
Anonymom:)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Honesty
Honesty seems like the simplest concept in the world when you think about it. It means, in the most basic sense, 'abstaining from telling lies'.
Lies are not always terrible things when we tell them to protect someone else, or to spare a person pain that would not have benefitted them, that could only have made things worse, etc. These types of lies are known as 'white lies', and everyone in the world has told one at one time or another for any number of reasons. 'Honesty' as we know it does not usually mean the exclusion of 'white' lies, but the absence of a much more important kind of falsehood----the lies that we tell to ourselves.
Where children are concerned, honesty is of the utmost importance. When we say 'honesty', we should not include occasionally shielding a child from events that may be too upsetting and abstract to bear (for ex. exposure to rude or offensive adults, x-rated internet content and pathological situations, etc.), but it is of paramount importance to answer the serious questions that children ask at all times, no matter what.
The adult track record for honesty is admittedly horrendous, and probably has been since the beginning of time, LOL. Some of the worst examples of lying to children (IMO) are listed below:
1) A child asks, "Mommy, why does it thunder?", and the parent replies, "Because God is bowling". Answers like this to basic questions seem harmless and even humorous at times, but they definitely fall into the category of dishonesty because an adult has deliberately misled a child who has asked for a specific explanation to something. It also assumes that the child is not capable of understanding a scientific answer (or how the world works in general), and in this case there is no reason for failing to offer the explanation other than not wanting to expend the effort to supply a person with a detailed answer. There are situations in which stories like these are told in fun and that's wonderful, but the objectionable versions involve children being made fun of, with their intelligence deliberately being insulted on a basic level, and adults lying sheerly to get a laugh at the expense of someone young.
2) Ignoring or brushing off questions. A common tactic for avoiding unwanted questions is simply to push them off until a later date. For ex, the child asks, " What happens when you die?" and the parent answers, "We'll discuss that later". Of course, there sometimes is no time to discuss a subject of this magnitude at length, in which case "we'll discuss it later" is an honest response provided that someone actually does so at a later date. Unfortunately, answers like this can also be a shield that adults hold up to deflect questions that may be uncomfortable for them (putting a whole new spin on the subject and demanding more in the way of personal reflection).
A famous poet (who I forget the name of now), once said that the worst types of lies are not those we tell other people, they are the ones we tell ourselves. Dishonesty like this is the plague of child rearing, IMO. That kind of denial pervades not only families but public institutions of every description including those that handle our children. Schools are rife with dishonesty, teeming with manipulation that is almost impossible to believe. The worst untruths are those that tell a child that he will never amount to anything if he does not conform to rules and acquire skills and abilities by age-graded deadlines.
Children are honest to a fault, everyone knows this is true. The only time in all my years of working with them that I have ever seen them lie is when they are afraid or trying to protect someone they love. They see more clearly than any adult is capable of seeing, and their observations are often embarassingly on target as a result of this amazing clarity. If we as adults try to evade their honesty every chance we get, then there are issues at stake that need to be addressed immediately. The toughest part of raising kids (especially those being raised in less restrictive environments), is addressing our own fears so that we do not pass them onto our children.
Lies are not always terrible things when we tell them to protect someone else, or to spare a person pain that would not have benefitted them, that could only have made things worse, etc. These types of lies are known as 'white lies', and everyone in the world has told one at one time or another for any number of reasons. 'Honesty' as we know it does not usually mean the exclusion of 'white' lies, but the absence of a much more important kind of falsehood----the lies that we tell to ourselves.
Where children are concerned, honesty is of the utmost importance. When we say 'honesty', we should not include occasionally shielding a child from events that may be too upsetting and abstract to bear (for ex. exposure to rude or offensive adults, x-rated internet content and pathological situations, etc.), but it is of paramount importance to answer the serious questions that children ask at all times, no matter what.
The adult track record for honesty is admittedly horrendous, and probably has been since the beginning of time, LOL. Some of the worst examples of lying to children (IMO) are listed below:
1) A child asks, "Mommy, why does it thunder?", and the parent replies, "Because God is bowling". Answers like this to basic questions seem harmless and even humorous at times, but they definitely fall into the category of dishonesty because an adult has deliberately misled a child who has asked for a specific explanation to something. It also assumes that the child is not capable of understanding a scientific answer (or how the world works in general), and in this case there is no reason for failing to offer the explanation other than not wanting to expend the effort to supply a person with a detailed answer. There are situations in which stories like these are told in fun and that's wonderful, but the objectionable versions involve children being made fun of, with their intelligence deliberately being insulted on a basic level, and adults lying sheerly to get a laugh at the expense of someone young.
2) Ignoring or brushing off questions. A common tactic for avoiding unwanted questions is simply to push them off until a later date. For ex, the child asks, " What happens when you die?" and the parent answers, "We'll discuss that later". Of course, there sometimes is no time to discuss a subject of this magnitude at length, in which case "we'll discuss it later" is an honest response provided that someone actually does so at a later date. Unfortunately, answers like this can also be a shield that adults hold up to deflect questions that may be uncomfortable for them (putting a whole new spin on the subject and demanding more in the way of personal reflection).
A famous poet (who I forget the name of now), once said that the worst types of lies are not those we tell other people, they are the ones we tell ourselves. Dishonesty like this is the plague of child rearing, IMO. That kind of denial pervades not only families but public institutions of every description including those that handle our children. Schools are rife with dishonesty, teeming with manipulation that is almost impossible to believe. The worst untruths are those that tell a child that he will never amount to anything if he does not conform to rules and acquire skills and abilities by age-graded deadlines.
Children are honest to a fault, everyone knows this is true. The only time in all my years of working with them that I have ever seen them lie is when they are afraid or trying to protect someone they love. They see more clearly than any adult is capable of seeing, and their observations are often embarassingly on target as a result of this amazing clarity. If we as adults try to evade their honesty every chance we get, then there are issues at stake that need to be addressed immediately. The toughest part of raising kids (especially those being raised in less restrictive environments), is addressing our own fears so that we do not pass them onto our children.
The concept of honesty relates directly back to the idea of unschooling and free-schooling. Children who have been raised without deception do not have to spend years of their lives restoring themselves afterward. That original clarity remains intact, they are unafraid to address challenges, and there is no delay (or utter failure) to launch themselves later in life. An honest relationship is totally reciprocal, involving the willingness to fix ourselves before we even think about paving the way for our children.
A tough job, but we've all got to do it, LOL.
Anonymom:)
Monday, April 7, 2008
Summer Fun (to Come)
What the heck is this thing, do you think??
Funny you should ask. It's a 'Splongee Ball' (!!) that one of the boys concocted over the weekend:).
I admit this seemed like sort of a funny thing to make (except for the fact that it was loads of fun, which means that it wasn't funny at all:)) . According to the book Jonathan borrowed his instructions from, it's best use is outside in the summer, as a tool for radical, splash fight 'hoedowns'.
As everyone who raises boys (and probably girls too:)) knows, there is nothing quite so important every summer as staging the all-out, ultimate, championship water war. This conflict must be replete with water guns, hoses, water balloons, buckets, and a variety of other creative weapons employed solely for the use of soaking your opposition into submission. Each year there is an entirely new plan and much discussion about how everything will work ahead of time (with some incredibly sophisticated rules and pre-war strategies in place), and then as soon as it is hot enough to run around outside in soaking wet bathing suits (or regular clothes, as the case may be), the fun begins.
Jonathan found his book called, 'The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions' by John E. Thomas and Danita Pagel, in the library. The wonderful thing about this book is that it makes project and craft ideas out of EXTREMELY cheap ingredients (perfect fodder for the single income HS family), and it is easy to understand the simple instructions for each project.
The 'Splongee Ball' project is located on pg. 24 and reads as follows:
What You Will Need:
-3 large sponges (use 3 different colored sponges) preferably nylon
-1 plastic cable tie
-Scissors
How To Concoct It:
1. Cut each sponge into thirds lengthwise
2. Stack the cut sponges on top of each other in three rows of three
3. Grab the stack of sponges in the center and twist the stack once.
4. Secure a plastic cable tie around the center of the twisted stack, pulling it as tightly as possible.
5. Trim the plastic cable tie down as close to the eye as possible.
Jonathan made his ball out of cellulose sponges because that was all his dad could find and because he was impatient to make it immediately. However, nylon ones would really be best because they stay soft and are easier to twist and tie (and as a bonus, come in lots of 'radical' colors:)).
It's a little early to think about summer yet, but once those triple H days roll around there is nothing better than to send everyone out with buckets of water and an arsenal of splongee balls to hurl across the yard at each other (while you position yourself somewhere w-a-a-a-y out of reach). They are cheap, fun, and best of all, indestructible!!
All the best,
Anonymom:)
Funny you should ask. It's a 'Splongee Ball' (!!) that one of the boys concocted over the weekend:).
I admit this seemed like sort of a funny thing to make (except for the fact that it was loads of fun, which means that it wasn't funny at all:)) . According to the book Jonathan borrowed his instructions from, it's best use is outside in the summer, as a tool for radical, splash fight 'hoedowns'.
As everyone who raises boys (and probably girls too:)) knows, there is nothing quite so important every summer as staging the all-out, ultimate, championship water war. This conflict must be replete with water guns, hoses, water balloons, buckets, and a variety of other creative weapons employed solely for the use of soaking your opposition into submission. Each year there is an entirely new plan and much discussion about how everything will work ahead of time (with some incredibly sophisticated rules and pre-war strategies in place), and then as soon as it is hot enough to run around outside in soaking wet bathing suits (or regular clothes, as the case may be), the fun begins.
Jonathan found his book called, 'The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions' by John E. Thomas and Danita Pagel, in the library. The wonderful thing about this book is that it makes project and craft ideas out of EXTREMELY cheap ingredients (perfect fodder for the single income HS family), and it is easy to understand the simple instructions for each project.
The 'Splongee Ball' project is located on pg. 24 and reads as follows:
What You Will Need:
-3 large sponges (use 3 different colored sponges) preferably nylon
-1 plastic cable tie
-Scissors
How To Concoct It:
1. Cut each sponge into thirds lengthwise
2. Stack the cut sponges on top of each other in three rows of three
3. Grab the stack of sponges in the center and twist the stack once.
4. Secure a plastic cable tie around the center of the twisted stack, pulling it as tightly as possible.
5. Trim the plastic cable tie down as close to the eye as possible.
Jonathan made his ball out of cellulose sponges because that was all his dad could find and because he was impatient to make it immediately. However, nylon ones would really be best because they stay soft and are easier to twist and tie (and as a bonus, come in lots of 'radical' colors:)).
It's a little early to think about summer yet, but once those triple H days roll around there is nothing better than to send everyone out with buckets of water and an arsenal of splongee balls to hurl across the yard at each other (while you position yourself somewhere w-a-a-a-y out of reach). They are cheap, fun, and best of all, indestructible!!
All the best,
Anonymom:)
Friday, April 4, 2008
Whole Language--A View of the Past
When I first started teaching 20 years ago, the big rage in methodology was Whole Language. The Whole Language technique was a method of teaching reading that was originally borrowed from New Zealand, the country with the highest literacy rate in the world at that time. It involved teaching with the 'Whole' child in mind, and focusing on the 'Whole' literacy process. Instead of picking language apart into minute components such as consonants, vowels, and grammatical details FIRST, it began with enjoyment of the reading process, and introduced real literature first to extract the phonics skills AFTER the child had become accustomed to reading whole words from whole text. In short, it was a method based on the natural joy of literature which bolstered a child's desire to read and gave them confidence in the written word before anyone thought about getting down to the nitty gritty of mechanics. Whole Language built on the concept that the human brain synthesizes information in Wholes rather than Parts, and that successful retention could not take place until each skill was embedded in a much larger, more meaningful context. Lifelong readers could not be built without a favorable view toward the reading process from the beginning, and you could not isolate skills on a daily basis without losing all sense of purpose, motivation, and retention for the child in the future.
Whole Language was the main reason I got into teaching. I still believe that it was the single most child-centered learning approach that the public schools had every attempted, however it was a short lived 'fad' in reality because it had the disadvantage of requiring faith in the child's ability to learn, it did not produce instantaneous, measurable results (emphasizing process over product at all times), and it did not fit neatly into educational plans and instructional curriculums. WL required teachers to research and create their own units (often based on needs and interests of the children themselves), and it required the ability to shift gears quickly and an unusual amount of creativity on behalf of the teacher. In other words, it reflected the true nature of a child and the zigzag fluctuations that the path of a learner always takes. In hindsight, there was no way that an approach this radical could have survived when it came down to it. Big bureaucracies demand evaluation at every turn and house teachers who favor long-term structure over child-led curriculum, and I don't see that changing anytime soon:(.
There are several techniques in the Whole Language philosophy that coincide extremely well with the ideas of homeschooling and child-led education. The following are a couple of ideas that have long been forgotten in the world of hard-core phonics and skills based instruction, but they are still effective today and (in my view) far superior to those that are employed in modern schools:
1) Stimulating, learner based environments. The presence of books and reading materials of every description pervaded real WL classrooms. Art supplies, math manipulatives, toys, writing implements, paper, and environments decorated entirely with homemade materials of the child's making were key. No child-based classroom ever had teaching aids of the type one always sees in teacher-stores and catalogs (factory made bulletin board kits, pre-fab signs and decorations, etc.) All of these objects did nothing but convey to the children that the teacher was in charge of the learning process, not them. WL classrooms emphasized the work of the children who 'lived' and learned there, and valued them. While a few pre-printed aids such as alphabet and number lines could be glimpsed here and there, the majority of the room was always covered in the childs' creations. Indeed, some teachers had nothing to do with decor of the rooms at all, it was all done by the children themselves in whatever way they saw fit to make the environment happy and comfortable.
2) Skills learned within the context of Whole books, Whole concepts, and Whole themes. Skills are best learned when they are not isolated from the context in which they originally appear. For ex, the 'th' consonant blend is best learned when it is encountered in a repetitive, interesting story filled with examples of the 'th' combination. Fractions are best introduced in the context of cooking and measuring ingredients where they have real world applications. Dates and events in history are best learned as part of the larger historical events to which they belong, and the Parts of a Plant are best learned in the context of the outdoor investigations that come naturally to children of all ages. According to the WL Philosophy there is no reason to take a skill out of context EVER, and part of the success of the method in New Zealand relied heavily on connecting all activities to a larger whole that made sense and was instigated by the children themselves 90% of the time;
3) Modeling. Another important tenet of the WL Language philosophy involved modeling the reading/writing process to children. Modeling meant that kids could get to see adult writers making mistakes and rethinking their ideas, becoming interested in reading for it's own sake and not just for the sake of encouraging it in children. It was critical for kids to see adults as fallible in other words (something that is seldom allowed for in classrooms today).
4) One-to-One Time and Attention. Whole Language also involved an inordinate amount of face to face contact and time devoted to each individual in the learning program. Time was spent talking and reviewing what the child was working on, discussing the child's interests and asking the child what they thought, and what the next step should be in their development that day/week/month. The opinion of the child was a major factor in their own progress, and negativity was actively discouraged at all times.
5) The Mini-Lesson. Whole Language teachers made efficient use of a concept known as the 'Mini Lesson'. This was a short lesson (usually 10-15 minutes in length) that introduced or reviewed a specific concept in Math or Reading, which then led to hands-on experimentation with manipulatives or games to reinforce the IDEA behind the concept. As most people know, the aim of instruction today revolves around endless repetition of a skill until the solution grinds itself into the consciousness of the child and temporarily boosts test scores. The only problem with this method of repetitive practice (or kill and drill, as the case may be) is that research has shown that retention does NOT improve past a certain point, and that the vast majority of children utterly despise the practice, making it less likely than ever that they will associate joy with learning:(.
There were many interesting concepts in the practice of Whole Language that unfortunately live on only in dated books and articles (at least in this country). Though the homeschool setting is different from the environment for which this method was originally designed, many of the principles align themselves perfectly with what unschoolers and freeschoolers believe (the ideas of child-empowerment, holistic learning, confidence, participation in the learning process, and emotional well-being). Someday the public schools may wake up to the idea that children are people and treat them accordingly, but until then it will be up to the mavericks among us to uphold principles that keep their spirits intact and continue methods that were tried and could have worked had they not existed in a vacuum of compulsion and austerity.
Til next time,
Anonymom:)
Whole Language was the main reason I got into teaching. I still believe that it was the single most child-centered learning approach that the public schools had every attempted, however it was a short lived 'fad' in reality because it had the disadvantage of requiring faith in the child's ability to learn, it did not produce instantaneous, measurable results (emphasizing process over product at all times), and it did not fit neatly into educational plans and instructional curriculums. WL required teachers to research and create their own units (often based on needs and interests of the children themselves), and it required the ability to shift gears quickly and an unusual amount of creativity on behalf of the teacher. In other words, it reflected the true nature of a child and the zigzag fluctuations that the path of a learner always takes. In hindsight, there was no way that an approach this radical could have survived when it came down to it. Big bureaucracies demand evaluation at every turn and house teachers who favor long-term structure over child-led curriculum, and I don't see that changing anytime soon:(.
There are several techniques in the Whole Language philosophy that coincide extremely well with the ideas of homeschooling and child-led education. The following are a couple of ideas that have long been forgotten in the world of hard-core phonics and skills based instruction, but they are still effective today and (in my view) far superior to those that are employed in modern schools:
1) Stimulating, learner based environments. The presence of books and reading materials of every description pervaded real WL classrooms. Art supplies, math manipulatives, toys, writing implements, paper, and environments decorated entirely with homemade materials of the child's making were key. No child-based classroom ever had teaching aids of the type one always sees in teacher-stores and catalogs (factory made bulletin board kits, pre-fab signs and decorations, etc.) All of these objects did nothing but convey to the children that the teacher was in charge of the learning process, not them. WL classrooms emphasized the work of the children who 'lived' and learned there, and valued them. While a few pre-printed aids such as alphabet and number lines could be glimpsed here and there, the majority of the room was always covered in the childs' creations. Indeed, some teachers had nothing to do with decor of the rooms at all, it was all done by the children themselves in whatever way they saw fit to make the environment happy and comfortable.
2) Skills learned within the context of Whole books, Whole concepts, and Whole themes. Skills are best learned when they are not isolated from the context in which they originally appear. For ex, the 'th' consonant blend is best learned when it is encountered in a repetitive, interesting story filled with examples of the 'th' combination. Fractions are best introduced in the context of cooking and measuring ingredients where they have real world applications. Dates and events in history are best learned as part of the larger historical events to which they belong, and the Parts of a Plant are best learned in the context of the outdoor investigations that come naturally to children of all ages. According to the WL Philosophy there is no reason to take a skill out of context EVER, and part of the success of the method in New Zealand relied heavily on connecting all activities to a larger whole that made sense and was instigated by the children themselves 90% of the time;
3) Modeling. Another important tenet of the WL Language philosophy involved modeling the reading/writing process to children. Modeling meant that kids could get to see adult writers making mistakes and rethinking their ideas, becoming interested in reading for it's own sake and not just for the sake of encouraging it in children. It was critical for kids to see adults as fallible in other words (something that is seldom allowed for in classrooms today).
4) One-to-One Time and Attention. Whole Language also involved an inordinate amount of face to face contact and time devoted to each individual in the learning program. Time was spent talking and reviewing what the child was working on, discussing the child's interests and asking the child what they thought, and what the next step should be in their development that day/week/month. The opinion of the child was a major factor in their own progress, and negativity was actively discouraged at all times.
5) The Mini-Lesson. Whole Language teachers made efficient use of a concept known as the 'Mini Lesson'. This was a short lesson (usually 10-15 minutes in length) that introduced or reviewed a specific concept in Math or Reading, which then led to hands-on experimentation with manipulatives or games to reinforce the IDEA behind the concept. As most people know, the aim of instruction today revolves around endless repetition of a skill until the solution grinds itself into the consciousness of the child and temporarily boosts test scores. The only problem with this method of repetitive practice (or kill and drill, as the case may be) is that research has shown that retention does NOT improve past a certain point, and that the vast majority of children utterly despise the practice, making it less likely than ever that they will associate joy with learning:(.
There were many interesting concepts in the practice of Whole Language that unfortunately live on only in dated books and articles (at least in this country). Though the homeschool setting is different from the environment for which this method was originally designed, many of the principles align themselves perfectly with what unschoolers and freeschoolers believe (the ideas of child-empowerment, holistic learning, confidence, participation in the learning process, and emotional well-being). Someday the public schools may wake up to the idea that children are people and treat them accordingly, but until then it will be up to the mavericks among us to uphold principles that keep their spirits intact and continue methods that were tried and could have worked had they not existed in a vacuum of compulsion and austerity.
Til next time,
Anonymom:)
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Daring to Begin
I recently talked to some parents who were just trying homeschooling for the first time, specifically 'unschooling' one or more children in their homes. All of these mothers had babies and one or more toddlers approx. 2-3 years old, and all were extremely unsure of what they were doing. They were unsure of whether homeschooling/unschooling was something that they ought to be doing considering the current climate of hyper-accountability in schools, and many of them were just plain wondering if all this grief would really be worth it in the end.
I remember feeling exactly the same way years ago when we first began homeschooling. I remember having a child that was 4, one toddler that was 2, and another baby who was a few months old and in need of nursing 24/7 (or so it seemed at the time:)). I had already committed to homeschooling despite the fact that 'formal' education would not begin for several more years yet, and I remember my worst moment of uncertainty being when the kindergarten bus passed our house on the first day that my oldest would have started public school, and having to tell the bus driver not to stop because there would be no one here who would be getting on. As a person who had gone all the way through public schools, studied through college and teaching classes to get an education degree and then gone back to traditional school to go to work again, this was a defining moment that was literally fraught with terror. I knew down inside that I was doing the right thing, but the conditioning of early schooling is such that panic is almost a knee-jerk reaction in us, causing us to disregard what we know to be true in favor of what everyone else expects of us (school, teachers, parents, administrators, other kids, and so on).
The earliest days of homeschooling here were like what everyone else seems to describe. Very strict, very regimented, and very accountable. There were schedules, charts, word lists, and maps stuck to the walls, and I wanted very much to make it look as though there was serious 'school' stuff happening in our home and my children were not missing out on a blessed thing. Looking back now, none of those charts or schedules were for the childrens' benefit at all---they were solely and strictly for me. Those props were hanging up to reassure me, the 'trained' teacher, that my children were acquiring every possible skill from every known corner of the universe via 1000 different vantage points. They had nothing whatsoever to do with my kids or my kids' educations. They were purely and simply a product of my own fear.
Anyone who homeschools (or does anything outside the mainstream for that matter) should think alot about fear. It is the one thing, almost without fail, that clutches us all unconditionally and makes it virtually impossible for us to see the world clearly or find the brightest possible future for our children. A.S. Neill (and other pioneers like him) saw the danger in bestowing this kind of fear on children. He saw the limitations and handicaps it would evoke and realized that there was no going out into the world successfully unless a person could somehow manage to throw it away afterward. Since that is such a difficult thing to do, his solution was to create a place where it would be prevented from taking hold in the first place.
Most of us who have been weaned on conventional educational systems understand fear well. We spend 10-20 years after school is finished trying to shed what has been thrust upon us in favor of who we really are and what we truly believe in. Even if we should manage to slip the chains (and practically speaking, most of us never do), we will still have our moments of sudden fear, panic, and the 'knee-jerk' reactions that occur where we are sure we have done something that is about to get us in trouble with someone somewhere.
I believe that it is this innate fear that stops us from trusting our children, that makes us fortify each experience with thousands of theories, walls, and safety nets. Simply put, we don't trust kids because we don't trust ourselves. Our FIRST duty as homeschool (unschool, or free-school) parents, is to examine our own insecurities and lay them to rest in order to give our children a more confident future. There is no other way to 'slay' this beast:(.
Last of all, homeschooling is a 'process-oriented' approach. This means simply that trying DOES matter, and every little step you take benefits a child in some way, though perfection will never be attainable (Thank Goodness:)).
Anonymom
I remember feeling exactly the same way years ago when we first began homeschooling. I remember having a child that was 4, one toddler that was 2, and another baby who was a few months old and in need of nursing 24/7 (or so it seemed at the time:)). I had already committed to homeschooling despite the fact that 'formal' education would not begin for several more years yet, and I remember my worst moment of uncertainty being when the kindergarten bus passed our house on the first day that my oldest would have started public school, and having to tell the bus driver not to stop because there would be no one here who would be getting on. As a person who had gone all the way through public schools, studied through college and teaching classes to get an education degree and then gone back to traditional school to go to work again, this was a defining moment that was literally fraught with terror. I knew down inside that I was doing the right thing, but the conditioning of early schooling is such that panic is almost a knee-jerk reaction in us, causing us to disregard what we know to be true in favor of what everyone else expects of us (school, teachers, parents, administrators, other kids, and so on).
The earliest days of homeschooling here were like what everyone else seems to describe. Very strict, very regimented, and very accountable. There were schedules, charts, word lists, and maps stuck to the walls, and I wanted very much to make it look as though there was serious 'school' stuff happening in our home and my children were not missing out on a blessed thing. Looking back now, none of those charts or schedules were for the childrens' benefit at all---they were solely and strictly for me. Those props were hanging up to reassure me, the 'trained' teacher, that my children were acquiring every possible skill from every known corner of the universe via 1000 different vantage points. They had nothing whatsoever to do with my kids or my kids' educations. They were purely and simply a product of my own fear.
Anyone who homeschools (or does anything outside the mainstream for that matter) should think alot about fear. It is the one thing, almost without fail, that clutches us all unconditionally and makes it virtually impossible for us to see the world clearly or find the brightest possible future for our children. A.S. Neill (and other pioneers like him) saw the danger in bestowing this kind of fear on children. He saw the limitations and handicaps it would evoke and realized that there was no going out into the world successfully unless a person could somehow manage to throw it away afterward. Since that is such a difficult thing to do, his solution was to create a place where it would be prevented from taking hold in the first place.
Most of us who have been weaned on conventional educational systems understand fear well. We spend 10-20 years after school is finished trying to shed what has been thrust upon us in favor of who we really are and what we truly believe in. Even if we should manage to slip the chains (and practically speaking, most of us never do), we will still have our moments of sudden fear, panic, and the 'knee-jerk' reactions that occur where we are sure we have done something that is about to get us in trouble with someone somewhere.
I believe that it is this innate fear that stops us from trusting our children, that makes us fortify each experience with thousands of theories, walls, and safety nets. Simply put, we don't trust kids because we don't trust ourselves. Our FIRST duty as homeschool (unschool, or free-school) parents, is to examine our own insecurities and lay them to rest in order to give our children a more confident future. There is no other way to 'slay' this beast:(.
Last of all, homeschooling is a 'process-oriented' approach. This means simply that trying DOES matter, and every little step you take benefits a child in some way, though perfection will never be attainable (Thank Goodness:)).
Anonymom
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