Families, Be Who You Are!

Families, be who you are!  --Pope John Paul II

Who are you?  --the caterpillar, from Alice in Wonderland

Some family weeds clearly need to be pulled and healthy flowers planted in their place. Weeds such as active alcoholism, untreated depression and mental illness, anger issues, abuse, harsh judgment, and unloving attitudes are not who we are. These are merely the weeds obscuring the proper growth of the roses, lilies, violets, and hydrangeas that reflect our true nature. Before we follow Pope JP II's advice, we need to answer the caterpillar's question. If you are accustomed to the chaos of a disordered life, like found in those weeds mentioned above, you may look around for examples of "normal" families in order to chart a different path. This may be helpful to take a look at how a well-functioning family navigates the world. However, if they are a family of daisies, while yours is really a family of hibiscus, well, you can see the potential issues. Each plant has different needs of sunlight, temperature, soil, and water.

There is no one right way to be a family. Nor is there one right way to be homeschoolers or to raise happy, healthy children. There is no one right pace to learn any particular thing. There is no one body of knowledge necessary for any one child to learn by the age of 18. There is no single, correct diet for people to eat, or best place for everyone to live, or most perfect method of discipline to follow. There is, in my opinion, one true religion--but the possible paths to Truth are endless. Figure out who you want to be as a family, then be who you are. Be who you are, families, without feeling that you need to justify yourselves to anyone. If your life is joyous, if you accept yourselves exactly as you are, then you are on the path to freedom. Your garden will still have weeds, for that is our fallen nature. But we are made in the image of God.

Collage Style Catholic Unschooling

We did get to lesson time today, after Beezy's homeschool friend left. She read three pages aloud to me from her Ginn reader, On Cherry Street. I usually have her read at least two pages, and this evening she wanted to read a third. I read a chapter to her from Little Town on the Prairie, which she narrated Charlotte Mason style. Then she did copy work from the Hail Mary prayer. Her dad came home in the midst of this bearing a new Monster High doll, so lesson time ended, and we had dinner.

Considering again Holly Pierlot's objections to Catholic homeschoolers adopting the use of the term unschooling, I think her point about John Holt's educational theories being secular and perhaps opposed to the Catholic parental vocation are valid. However, I will need to revisit his writings in more depth, because I'm not certain that what he advocated was anti-teaching. Certainly he was against a coercive, one size fits all, institutionalized schooling situation. But from what I have read from Catholic unschoolers, they are able to take the ideas of John Holt and apply them from within the domestic church.

The open source style of learning can incorporate faith formation; lessons of the child's choosing, such as piano or dance; apprenticeships; any curriculum that is useful and fits the child's needs; chores and family responsibilities; varying degrees of structure, etc... The direct teaching of skills such as reading is not frowned upon if children do not pick them up naturally, nor is formal work required by the parents forbidden. A common theme is that there is no timetable for when to learn any particular thing, and there is no rigid establishment of what is important for all children to learn. Learning is individualized, largely driven by a child's interests and each family's values.

In addition to John Holt, the names that most commonly come up on the path to unschooling are Maria Montessori and Charlotte Mason. Classical Catholic education is also often utilized in an unschooling approach. The key seems to be that parents and children are not slaves to a commercial curriculum and the daily checking off of items completed. Segue style learning, which I have written about before, is an approach of following an organic process of making connections between ideas, experiences and subject matter--the science of relations about which Charlotte Mason wrote. Learning is not compartmentalized from the rest of life. By "collage style" I mean that you take what you like from any number of sources and use whatever fits your family best, producing a customized education for each child that promotes faith, self-discipline, useful life skills, and an authentic human character.

In future posts I will flesh this collage style of Catholic unschooling out, giving ideas for a basic format and implementation of such a prospect. I will also incorporate the teachings of Therese of Lisieux and John Bosco, who are called upon as patron saints for Catholic unschoolers, as well as the writings of other notables of the faith such as Pope John Paul II.

St. Therese