Day 7
13th October 2021
Unschooling
If you don’t know what this is (and we didn’t), it’s a very scary thing to wrap your head around.
“Unschooling, is children learning through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests & curiosity, internships & work experience, travel, books, elective classes, family, mentors, & social interaction.”
When we finally made the decision to home school our children, this is what we actually wanted.
We didn’t know it was a thing.
We just wanted all of those things for our children, plus you know, Maths, English, Science, Geography, History, and Art etc.
And there’s the rub.
We have been trying to do all of those things PLUS all the bookwork and I have to tell you. The ‘unschooling’ aspect is easy.
The kids are pumped. They come up with an idea and we go with it and they’re engaged and it’s great.
BUT
When you try to get to them to ‘learn’ and get the books out, we’re often met with resistance.
I’m great at re channelling energy, or incentivising etc & so I can get them over the line, but it’s not easy and it kind of keeps you operating on high alert, all day.
I was talking with Liam about this last night. “You know, the hardest thing about home schooling is the rush of fear & anxiety I feel as I’m about to transition them from spending time together, to ‘learning.”
I’m worried that if they say, “I don’t want to”, which they do sometimes, that I won’t be able to turn it around and make them excited to do the work.
I had joined an Unschooling FB page, and had begun reading through the posts and the ideas were so foreign to me, that I felt true fear.
“Could I just really put the books away and let them be free?”
Truly free?!
The unschooling rule of thumb is, for every year a child is at school, they will need one month of unschooling.
By this rational, we would let Lincoln do whatever he pleased from sun up to sun down, for 5 months!!
Mila, 3 months!!
One mum wrote, “It took us a whole year to unschool.”
Many mums said, “Unschooling is hardest for parents.”
I really didn’t see that part coming. That is a true statement. Unschooling is SO hard for parents.
As Liam and I chatted about this, he was quick to say he agreed with the method saying “At the moment, they think learning is work and a chore.”
It’s true. 😢
I said, “Ok. Lets try to let them lead and take things easy, and not make learning a big thing that they don’t like doing.”
Hack School
This little guy got us over the line.
Logan LaPlante, wherever you are, thank you for a very moving and inspiring TedTalk.
We watched it. Then we watched it with the kids. Then we wrote our resignation letter to the school. The end.
Watch it here. http://thehomeschoolyear.com/TedTalk
Now that I know a little more about home schooling. I can see Logan’s ‘hack school’ is a version of unschooling.
And this is what we wanted.
I have to find a way to be like Elsa, and let it go.
Then suddenly Mila says, “I want to do my work now.”
GASP!
I leapt to it. I set her up with some English cards & we revised the oceans.
Wrestle Time
The boys began to rough house after the chess game, & so we just went with it. It ended up in one of the bedrooms and the kids were just roaring with laughter having pinned Dad down.
It was really sweet. No tasking, no storming off. Just lots of love & laughs.
We Met A Wolf!
We got ourselves together and took Pep to the dog park and today, there was an Irish Wolfhound!!
The wolf is Lincolns favourite animal & so he was beside himself with excitement. A little nervous too.
Home For Sushi
Mila wanted to make sushi for lunch. They had a lot of fun doing this.
I Couldn’t Help Myself!
I must be broken!
I am, institutionalised by my own schooling. I found it so hard to just let them be.
The Monica inside me was on fire!
My curriculum, I have it all ready. I have the beautifully sourced and considered books just sitting there. I needed to see those pages filling up!
What the eff!!
It was bothering me that they hadn’t done any maths. (Even though we went over ratio’s when making the sushi rice.)
“We need to do some maths!” I blurted out.
No one was interested.
I totally ruined the vibe.
I got them over the line by saying we could finish the Universal Yums (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Universal%20Yums) if we did maths, and so maths was completed.
It wasn’t too bad, but they didn’t want to do it.
I suppose our biggest question is.
How do we unschool and get our ‘core subjects’ done?
If you know the answer I’m begging you, please email me soon.
We had a great day! A really, lovely day.
It just feels so unnatural to completely let go.