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We
try not to ‘ instruct ‘ our children with our concept of knowledge,
but encourage, and stimulate their curiosity to enquire, search and find
out various facts, bringing them to their own unformed decisions.
Five
Steps to Unschooling
by
Joyce
Kurtak Fetteroll
Some
people understand unschooling as soon as they hear about it. Others
wander about in a fog of confusion, wondering how unschoolers can be so
certain about something that seems so counterintuitive to everything
we've picked up about how kids need to learn. Maybe a few, well-defined
steps in the unschooling direction could lead out of at least the very
pea-soupiest part of the fog.
Step
One
To
unschool, you begin with your child's interests. If she's interested in
birds, you read - or browse, toss aside, just look at the pictures in -
books on birds, watch videos on birds, talk about birds, research and
build (or buy) bird feeders and birdhouses, keep a journal on birds,
record and ponder their behavior, search the web for items about birds,
go to bird sanctuaries, draw birds, colour a few pictures in the Dover
Birds of Prey colouring book, play around with feathers, study Leonardo
DaVinci's drawings of flying machines that he based on birds, watch
Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
But
DON'T go whole hog on this. Gauge how much to do and when by your
child's reactions. Let her say no thanks. Let her choose. Let her
interest set the pace. If it takes years, let it take years. If it lasts
an hour, let it last an hour.
Step Two
Second,
you need to make sure your child has opportunities to expand her
interests. Have books, videos, kits, games, puzzles, music tapes,
puppets, nature collections, and other cool things available for her to
pick up when she chooses. (Think library, yard sales, and attic
treasures.) Take her places as a way to spark an interest. Wander about
museums and just look at the cool stuff that interests either of you.
(And resist the urge to force an interest in the things you think would
be good for her.) Read a book or do a kit even if you're certain it
won't lead anywhere. Let her say no thanks if she's not interested in
pursuing something right now, or in pursuing something to the degree you
think she "should."
Step Three
Get
interested in things yourself. Not interested in your child getting
educated, but in learning for yourself. Pursue an interest you've always
wanted to but never had time for. Be curious about life around you. Look
things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just ponder the wonder of it
all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to. "Why are there
beautiful colours beneath the green in leaves?" "Why did they
build the bridge here rather than over there?" "Why is there
suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to be?"
Let
your child know that all the questions haven't been answered yet and
it's not her job to just keep absorbing answers until she's got them
all.
Step Four
Start
noticing the learning available all around you. There are fractions in
time and cooking and in the relationships between objects. (There are
one third as many blue M&M's as there are brown.) Tax is a
percentage of the total, some items offer 20% more free, and stores
having a sale will knock a percentage off the regular price.
There
are oodles of science in cooking. Why does heat make the white of an egg
turn from clear liquid to solid white? What process turns liquid cake
into poofy air-filled solid cake? Don't worry if you don't know the
answers. Anyone can look up the answers. Few can ask the questions.
As
a real-life example, by watching Xena and reading Little Town on the
Prairie, my daughter was exposed to three references to Julius Caesar,
Brutus, and Marc Antony. She doesn't "know" Roman history now,
but she's got a hook or point of reference to build from tomorrow, next
week, three years from now: "You remember Julius Caesar. The guy
Xena hates."
Unfortunately
we learned in school that learning is locked up in books and reading is
the only way to get to it. It's not. It's free. We're surrounded by it.
We just need to relearn how to recognize it in its wild state.
Step Five
And,
finally, forget the linear approach to learning we grew up with. For
instance, we learned that the way to learn is to read "all the
important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged for our
convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package
of information.
Sure,
sometimes an interest will cause kids to gather up a huge chunk of
learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the
"best" way to learn.
More
often kids will slowly gather interesting titbits, making connections as
things occur to them to create a foundation. They'll add pieces here and
there over the years to build on that foundation. This is not so easy to
see going on. And very easy to undervalue.
So,
if we can train ourselves to see that process we can help it along by
valuing the times when they see Thomas Jefferson on the Animaniacs and
then later on the nickel and then still later on Mount Rushmore. Those
moments will establish a feeling of recognition and familiarity. Then
the more titbits they gather about Jefferson, the more interesting he
becomes. And the more interesting he becomes, the more they want to know
about him.
It
took at least two years and a lot of posts by very patient unschoolers
(and a lot of questions by other newbies who were equally confused) for
me to finally "get" unschooling. Hopefully, these five steps
will make your transition to unschooling easier than mine was!
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