Unschooling Ourselves: The Fast and Furious Pace of Learning

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Fast and Furious Pace of Learning

Super chef Dmitri

New York is a highly regulated state for homeschoolers. Next year will be my first year of reporting to the school district about Dmitri, who will be six in a couple of weeks. Right now I'm preparing to write up our IHIP (Individualized Home Instruction Plan, I think). To that end, I have a little notebook where I record stuff that can be translated into educationese.

I just spent the last twenty minutes writing down anything that came to mind as it happened. Those twenty minutes were so full! I scribbled as fast as I could to keep up. My scribblings:

Is the world covered in water?
What makes stuff pop?
Can we see the air?
Can we see smoke?
How you can see air moving in drawings
How to include real water in a train layout
How Thomas the Tank Engine's face moves, computer animation
Voiceovers
"They're taking a video of toys and they're showing scenes from the movie"--how a video was put together
Sometimes blood comes out our noses
Setting up a model train scene to show a broken building--before and after
How to show broken trains
"Smithereens"
Stop action -- photos I took of him arranging his Thomas character cards on the floor
organization -- storage of craft materials
The Big Bang theory
When was there no earth?
million, billion, "jillion"

1 comments:

JessicaApr 9, 2011 09:09 PM
Where we are is not that regulated, thank goodness, but i do jot down a lot of what happens daily into a notebook.If anyone ever says we are not learning we will have a lot of evidence to counteract that.Its also why i blog about daily life:)
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Is Unschooling Better?

Each parent has an optimal "zone of functionality." Mine happens to be at the radical end of unschooling. If you deeply believe in your bones that a non-coercive approach is best, then your zone of functionality as a parent is going to be there. Kind of a circular thing.

Parents figure out their beliefs (always evolving, of course) and then play to those strengths within the zone of functionality. I know people who don't want to be home with their kids--no way, no how, not gonna happen. Unschooling wouldn't be better for them.

Why is unschooling better from my perspective? Kids are basically free. They don't have to learn then unlearn complex patterns of people-pleasing. They're not tied up in or distracted by being evaluated. They have ample time to follow their passions and to discover new ones. They don't see learning as something handed out or imposed--it's something they live every day. It's as natural as breathing. I like giving my kids that kind of ease.