Deconstructing Education #3

Beezy understands that learning happens all of the time, not just when we are "doing school".  But she is also conscious of the lesson plan book I keep, of checking things off and being aware of how many separate items we accomplish.  I feel compelled to deconstruct these lesson times a bit.  For instance, last night Beezy was having trouble falling asleep, so she read a chapter in her Ginn reader and then told me that she read an interesting story about a pancake. She gave me a narration of the story without my prompting her in an obvious way while we were lying in the dark.  I had originally put the idea into her head to read if she can't fall asleep, and on her own she sometimes chooses to do this using a book light, which adds an element of fun.

I am torn. I like the Charlotte Mason idea of doing formal lessons in the mornings, being finished by 1:00 and having the rest of the day free. Is that like unschooling "part time"? I think it's fair to say that those unschoolers who believe that, from a philosophical standpoint, you can't unschool part time have a valid point. The consensus seems to be that unschooling is not doing school at home, so it is quite a different animal from homeschooling methods which duplicate the public schooling experience within the home environment. Yet allow me to argue that any method of homeschooling is indeed a radical expression of liberty. I know, now I am co-opting the term "radical" from the radical unschoolers!

I agree with Astra Taylor that it is important how we name things, and that unschooling, while a form of homeschooling, is something different from the styles which use a set curriculum and are adult led, etc... I also agree with the homeschooling mother in the audience that there is too much division between the two camps, and that it is a very brave decision to homeschool one's children in any shape or form. I also agree with that mother that homeschooling does not equal "helicopter" parenting.

The other night Beezy asked if she could have some gum. Since unschooling had suddenly come into my radar, I told her that she didn't have to ask for gum; she could have gum whenever she wants. She was surprised at this, but I told her that I thought she was responsible enough to make her own choice. I reminded her that brushing one's teeth is especially important if one chews a lot of gum. The thing is, we have always had candy in plain sight, available whenever Beezy might want to have some, yet she has always asked first. She doesn't feel a need to sneak it, and she typically doesn't eat too much of it. She loves sweets but doesn't over-indulge. Since allowing her to choose gum without asking, I have noticed no increase in her consumption of it.

I have also been allowing our days to flow organically this week. Yesterday I pulled my back out right before my RCIA director came to catch me up on classes I had missed. Beezy helped clean the house before the director came, and she ran errands with her dad during our meeting. Since I was in too much pain and couldn't move around well at all, we didn't do school. Beezy decided to visit her grandma. Then her cousin came over to play, and the three of us went to the Ash Wednesday Mass. Her dad and I both read to her yesterday, and she read to herself. No doubt plenty of learning took place despite not having "school time".

I still want to keep track of the books and materials we are using, but I think maybe I will put the lesson plan book aside and not write each activity into a subject box. Sometimes I feel stressed in the effort to get a certain amount of things done. It is nice to have school out of the way early in the day on the one hand, but on the other that gives the message that the most important learning happens during that specific time frame. There is an advantage, I think, in not having sharp lines between school and the rest of life. I also think it is nonsense to say that in the unschooling method one must use absolutely no curriculum. Charlotte Mason advocated a broad curriculum focusing on living books and exploration of the natural world. The whole world and everything in it qualifies as educational curricula! In the Montessori Method, role modeling is the best practice to teach children in the way they should go.

What I want to work on is better preparing the home environment to be interesting and stimulating. This will require more organization and closet cleaning, and Beezy can be a part of that. I want to let the day unfold organically but with a purpose toward creativity, spiritual growth, and learning that is both teacher-directed and self-directed, and I want to extend such open source learning more into the community, traveling and going to intriguing places. Now it is time to make Valentine cards, according to Beezy, and she isn't hungry yet for breakfast. So begins our day!

Deconstructing Education #2

http://yes-i-can-write.blogspot.com/2010/12/unschooling-is-not-relaxed.html

This link will take you to the blog, "I'm Unschooled. Yes, I Can Write." This is written by a 21-year-old who was unschooled and is a very good writer, in my opinion. She distinguishes in this post between unschooling and relaxed homeschooling. I appreciate that there is a distinction and that unschoolers are concerned about the co-opting of the term by homeschoolers who do not actually unschool. Yet there is also a definite difference between "radical unschoolers" and plain old unschoolers, so obviously this is a term with a subjective and relative definition. Just as there are many styles and variations of homeschooling, it stands to reason that unschooling will mean something a little different to each person.

For example, I met a homeschooling mother who asked me something like, "Do you homeschool or do you do a co-op?" She seemed to be under the impression that this was an either/or type of thing. We belonged to a co-op which met for only a few hours on Mondays at the time. This did not mean that was all we did as homeschoolers. I considered the co-op to be supplemental, with my child's core education coming from home. People outside the homeschooling community seemed often to be under the impression that the co-op was the primary teaching tool, the "real school" if you will, and were confused about why it met only once a week and for only two, 10-week semesters a year. Clearly this is because it fit into their conception of what school should be better than the idea of a home-based education. To me, the co-op was mostly for socializing purposes for my only child, to do things with other children in a group and to have teachers other than me. It wasn't necessary for her education.

Today we do not belong to a co-op. We are involved in other community activities that fulfill the needs that we previously got from participating in one. Many of the classes there were excellent in quality, while others were perhaps not the best use of time. Belonging to the co-op took time away from myself, since I had to be a teacher there and spend a lot of time outside the co-op to prepare my lessons, and it took away from time I thought would be more beneficially spent focusing on other things with Beezy. At any rate, co-ops can certainly be a viable part of a homeschooling experience; it is not an either one homeschools or one belongs to a co-op type of proposition. This is to point out that even among homeschoolers there are varying beliefs about what homeschooling means, about what it should or should not be.

As far as unschooling goes, I think that term is sometimes used in very "radical" situations when unparenting or uneducating would better apply. But barring those extreme situations in which parents simply fail to parent and the learning of children is seriously stunted, unschooling seems to be a viable option of enriching education which encompasses an entire way of life. In my opinion, unschooling means that one does not generally apply the tactics and methods used for education in the public schools to one's approach to the education of one's children. Open Source Learning, a term I believe John Taylor Gatto coined, may be more accurate to what unschooling actually is.

I think it would be true to say that the Montessori Method is a style of unschooling, even if it is implemented in a classroom setting, although spending long hours away from one's family and segregated from the larger community is still problematic. Montessori's method is based on educating a child for life, on giving children a high level of, but not absolute, freedom of choice, and on being auto-educative and child-centered. Children have freedom of movement and are not shackled to desks. They are also not sequestered with children solely their own age, but have multi-age groupings. Teachers facilitate rather than dictate what a child learns. These are all tenets of unschooling. But unlike some forms of unschooling, there are rules, and the three Rs of respect for oneself, respect for others, and respect for one's environment are intrinsic to this method.

Efforts to instill good habits in children are important. Children are, after all, less mature and less experienced in life than adults (although there are surely exceptions to the rule!). They do not automatically know right from wrong, or how to resolve all of their own conflicts, and they couldn't possibly know what they might be interested in learning more about unless they have first had some exposure to a topic. With unschooling, I understand that this exposure happens more organically rather than by the direct intervention of adults. At the same time, I don't think unschooling necessitates that a parent never initiates a learning experience or that an adult never directly teaches her kids anything. Children thrive best with healthy boundaries and gentle guidance, gradually being given increasing levels of responsibility for themselves. In my opinion, unschooling does not mean that you can't read a book about rainforests to your child unless she has expressed a clear interest in the subject!

So can relaxed homeschooling be understood as a type of unschooling? At this point in time, I would say yes. If you disagree, I want to know why! I did not go to Wikipedia for a definition of unschooling to see if I am understanding the concept. It is clear that some unschoolers themselves misunderstand what it means to de-program oneself and one's children from the spirit-killing effects of government schooling. After all, when John Holt coined the term unschooling in the 60s, it was synonymous with homeschooling. I think some unschoolers have found only an alternate way to kill their children's spirits, well-intentioned as they may be. Yet it is also apparent that many unschoolers have found a way of living that works very well, producing well-rounded individuals who think for themselves and express themselves with extreme proficiency. Furthermore, these kids grow up to be happy people!

As with homeschooling, I will suggest that there is no single, right way to do unschooling. I am unschooling myself by not going to an online dictionary to have someone else's opinion thrust upon me about what this is and whether or not I can call myself an unschooler. I'm not saying that I am an unschooler. I'm saying that I'm thinking for myself about what such a term truly implies. I do not think, for example, that it implies allowing a child of 5 years old to eat junk food all day, and then try to tell people that it is because I trust my child that I allow him to do this. To me, that is simply ludicrous. Such "radical" unschooling really has nothing at all to do with education or authentic spirituality. Right now I have begun to experiment with unschooling. I will continue to log my thoughts, results, questions, successes, failures, and conclusions, and I welcome your imput on the journey!

The Unschooled Life--A Call for Guest Authors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q

Here is a link to the youtube video, "Astra Taylor on the Unschooled Life".  Astra is a filmmaker who was unschooled until the age of 13. She has advanced degrees and even attended Brown University, but she never studied cinematography. She reflects on her unschooled life, her experiences in the public school system, and her time in college. She gives a balanced view of both the pros and cons of unschooling and distinguishes this mode of education from homeschooling.

 Astra Taylor

One thing Astra wishes she had more of as an unschooler was an intellectual community where she could be creative with other kids, having fun and doing projects. This was an unmet need even though she had siblings. She found such a community among her public school friends, who she said were trying to give themselves the unschooling experience she had though they went to a public school. They sought to be self-directed learners.

Self-education is the cornerstone of unschooling. Adults facilitate the learning process rather than teach their children according to a schedule and curriculum. Astra emphasized her enriching home environment and the natural world outside as being sufficient motivation for spiking her curiosity and providing the materials to find out what she was interested in learning. This reminds me of my Montessori experience. The prepared classroom environment was key to this method. Children were free to choose any materials from the shelves, as long as they had been shown the proper handling and use of the material, and they were free to come up with their own variations.

The lessons teachers gave were predominantly individual and small group, and children had the right to not have the lesson if they were not interested or were busy working on something else. We did our best not to interrupt their concentration. But being a school situation, there were lunch times, group circle lessons, and outdoor play times. We tried to make transitions smooth and not hurry the children, and to allow a child who really did not want to break away from his work to finish it whenever possible. It wasn't an ideal situation, and for some children, the school day was excessively long. They could come as early as 7:30 a.m. and stay until 6:00 p.m. The spirit of following the child, a child-centered rather than teacher-centered approach, was intrinsic to this method.

But what about the unschooled child who does not have an enriching home environment or adequate exposure to the community and the arts? Who doesn't have books at home or access to a library? The idea of "radical unschooling" disturbs me, by which I refer to the practice of giving children no rules, no formation of good habits, no regular routines of sleep or meal times, letting them do whatever they want, whenever they want, trusting them to somehow "self-regulate". If they are not exposed to certain things, how will they know what interests they would like to pursue?

So to further my understanding of unschooling and the different types that may exist, I am inviting unschooling parents, and even the kids themselves, to be guest authors on this blog. We could do a Q&A session, or you can write your own article. Please contact me via Facebook or on the blog comments site if you are interested! I look forward to learning more about the unschooling process.

Small Town Homesteading

This being the last day of July, it will soon be time to get "back to school" and to a more structured daily routine.  My husband, a college professor off work for the summer, will begin teaching again in a few weeks.  I spent some time ordering books from the library today on rainforests, which will be our first science unit for this homeschooling year.  I also have two Ginn Basic Readers that I ordered from Ebay.  Beezy, now 8 years old, loved the 12-book Dick and Jane series, and I wanted to find something similar with which to continue.  This is especially because other readers had failed to interest Beezy, and I want her to love to read.  The Ginn books have a similar, repetitious style and old-fashioned illustrations, being from the same era as Dick and Jane. 

Fall is also typically designated as a season of new beginnings, even though it's the last season of the year.  It's a time of vibrant, visible change in the natural world, a celebration of the harvest, and a time of turning inward in preparation for the coming days of darkness.  There is a magical whispering of possibility and mystery in the air.  So I am naturally starting to contemplate things I want to do differently.  The end of summer boredom and restlessness is starting to settle in already, maybe because spring came so early this year.  

I changed the look of this blog today and tweaked the topics to reflect my new focus: Charlotte Mason homeschooling, small town homesteading, belly dance, style & beauty, and sacred living.  Not all is completely new.  For instance, I have been using the Charlotte Mason homeschooling method since the beginning, but I also used a lot of Montessori.  This year there will be less emphasis on the Montessori Method and more emphasis on Charlotte Mason's living books, narration, nature notebook, and other elements of her method.  I want to spend way more time exploring the natural world, and I want to incorporate hand crafts.  I loved latch hook kits as a child, and I am going to introduce them to Beezy this year.  I also want to continue her sewing lessons with her great-grandmother.

I desire a deepening of the homesteading way of life for my family as well.  But I find that when we get these wonderful visions in our heads, we want to overhaul everything and make radical, sudden changes, which usually don't pan out.  So I'm simply going to start with baking my own bread and pizza crusts this fall, and I have an aunt that wants to teach me to crochet.  Baby steps on the homestead!  I want to take family bike rides in the evenings, and hopefully we'll have a good tomato crop this year for making my husband's awesome homemade sauce.  

Here's to the joy of beginning fresh plans, dreaming a little dream, and keeping it simple--and then reaping the grand harvest of the organic life!

Dick and Jane Readers

Do you remember Dick and Jane? And their sister, Sally, and dog Spot? A few years ago my mother-in-law gave Beezy a new, 12 volume set of these books. I was initially discouraged from using them for homeschooling, because they contain a lot of sight words, and I was focusing on the Montessori method of teaching the phonetic letter sounds first, then putting them together into three- and four-letter words. A homeschooling friend of mine suggested the BOB books from Scholastic, and at first I thought these were great, as most words could be sounded out, with only a few sight words gradually being added. The art work for these books is, quite frankly, terrible. I think I could do better illustrations, which is a sad statement indeed. It is actually okay for a child to pick up words from the context of pictures in a book. This is a relational skill, so there is no reason for bad drawings.

After awhile I noticed that Beezy would yawn profusely whenever she read the BOB books, but she would not yawn during any other lessons! She always commented on the bad art, and as it turns out, she really does not enjoy sounding out words. I was relieved to read in Charlotte Mason's manual that sight reading should begin once the basics of phonics are learned, as this is where real progress in the art of reading happens. I have found that this is indeed an effective method, simply putting a finger under each word and having the child repeat it. Mason would not have liked the "twaddle" of either the BOB readers or the Dick and Jane series. So we use Beatrix Potter's wonderful books of high quality literature, interesting stories, excellent vocabulary words, and extremely fine illustrations.

Still, I did not want to completely give up on sounding words out, which one should be able to do in the event that one comes across an unfamiliar word, or in case one wishes to look a word up in the dictionary. So out of curiosity, I looked at Dick and Jane again, which at least has good art work. To my surprise, Beezy has progressed quite well in her reading as a result! The repetition of the sight words gets them into her head, and she doesn't have to stop so often to sound something out. She doesn't seem to mind the simplicity of the language and lack of intriguing plot. The feeling of success in developing reading skills without such laboriousness as we found with the BOB books is evidently enough reward to compensate for the lack of literary value.

Once again, the point is well made that you do what works best with your children. Don't be afraid to trust your instincts and try something different when progress is not being well made. And after all, I learned to read with Dick and Jane, and I am an avid bookworm of exceptional reading abilities! The worst thing to do is to force a skill that your child is not ready for, or to allow lessons to be so boring and tedious that they kill the natural joy in learning that we want our children to possess. Go, Sally, go!

Dealing with Doubters, Part 1 (Homeschooling the Preschool Years)

Even if you have only just begun homeschooling, you have probably already encountered doubters and dissenters on your journey. For me, the first objections came before my daughter, who I will call Beezy, was old enough for kindergarten. My small family moved from Columbus to my hometown in northwest Ohio, when Beezy was 3. My grandma brought up the subject of a local preschool held at her church. As strange luck would have it, Beezy was not completely potty-trained, so I was off the hook. We did not have to make a decision that year.

By the time Beezy was 4, my husband and I were pretty sure we wanted to homeschool, and family members were aware of this. But my mother-in-law offered to pay for preschool, and upon hearing this Grandma delivered enrollment papers to us on multiple occasions, and even gave them to my mother-in-law! In hindsight my grandmother's intentions strike me as endearing, but it was quite distressing at the time. I called the preschool for Grandma's benefit, but many attempts to contact the director with my questions were unsuccessful, and from the one time I had spoken with her, it was clear that there was no real orientation program. The parents were to come on a particular evening and fill out paperwork, and no thorough discussion of the program was going to be given at any time.
     
I was used to the procedures of the Montessori school that I had taught at in Columbus, where there were numerous opportunities for parents to be indoctrinated into the Montessori method, so I was discouraged by this different situation. But mostly, I didn't see the point in having Beezy get used to going somewhere else for school, and then for kindergarten switching to homeschooling. Even if someone else was paying for preschool, it seemed like the money could be better spent. My Montessori training includes ages 3 to 6, so I was perfectly qualified to teach my child. Not that it takes special training to do so, but it seems it would have given others extra confidence in me to do the job.
 
I had read some opinions from early child development professionals suggesting that formal academic training is actually harmful to preschoolers. It seemed like the best idea to me to "follow the child," a term used in Montessori for child-centered learning. In the Montessori method, the key is a prepared environment with engaging, auto-educative activities that the children are allowed to freely choose, once they are shown how to properly use them. I had also read books by John Holt and became interested in unschooling, which basically involves answering the child's questions and facilitating in the learning process based on the child's interests. This reminded me of Montessori's "follow the child" philosophy, so for preschool, this was the way we went.

We had a Leap Frog magnetic alphabet on the refrigerator. Beezy began to ask what sound all kinds of words started with. I would say both the name of the letter and the sound it makes. In Montessori, the child learns the phonetic sounds first, using cut-out, mounted sandpaper letters. I found these letters at a consignment sale, so we began to work with those. Rather than have my mother-in-law pay for preschool, we asked her to help by providing art supplies that are difficult to come by where we live, and she was happy to do so. Beezy has been able to paint a zillion pictures on her easel, usually on a donated newspaper end roll from my aunt who works for the paper.

Being read to daily (the number one best thing a parent can do!), board games, tumbling lessons, story time at the library, Sunday school and other church programs, arts and crafts through our town's Parks and Recreation Department, nature explorations, museum trips, t-ball, soccer, play dates, and various other activities rounded out Beezy's "preschool."
 
Be aware, however, that no matter what great things you do for your child, the concerns of some people will not be alleviated, which was the case with my grandmother. They may be worried about socialization or just have negative preconceptions about homeschoolers. The hardest part in this situation was that Grandma had always been my champion. She was the one person in the world who had always provided me with unconditional love and acceptance, and for the first time ever, she was angry with me (for choosing not to send Beezy to preschool). This came as a shock. Had I stayed in Columbus and decided to homeschool, I don't think it would have been such an issue.
 
Ironically, I had moved back to my home town in great part to be closer to my grandparents. Grandma is one of the most important people in my life, someone I love dearly, and I did not want to lose this relationship. I also knew that my choices for my child had to come first. At the time, Grandma was having health problems that her doctors were unable to diagnose and treat effectively. Though the situation caused me terrible pain, I knew she wasn't herself, and I forgave her. For a long time, though, homeschooling was the invisible elephant in the room.

The silver lining is that these kinds of problems can be a catalyst for personal growth and spiritual healing, which I will explore in another post. Grandma has still expressed concerns at times, but our relationship is not only okay, it is as close as ever. In fact, she encouraged me to write about these issues and not to give up my mission for this blog, despite the discouragement of others. Most people are really not trying to vex you; they are sincerely concerned. In Part 2, I will discuss tactics for dealing with the doubters, and some of the reasons that I believe are behind their resistance.