Our year of Unschooling

I didn't talk about this when we started the year because I'm not big on judgement and I could see that there was a chance it would come at me from all quarters even from people I respected for their intelligence and ability to respect the choices of others and others who generally do their homework before bagging out someones choices. And what I was doing was brave and hard and a real shift from what I had known. And although I was supported in this decision by Les it was support that came from trust and faith in my ideals.... not a knowledge and belief of his own.

I knew from the start that when we decided to homeschool Merenia that we'd be unschooling. (Yes that is an actual term not one coined by me it's also called natural learning).

In the past I have done both schooling and unschooling- I've also done a hybrid of the two. :-) If you have children you've unschooled as well, unless you were the most incredibly anal parent that ever walked the face of this earth.

I never actually enjoyed teaching regular class. Admittedly I never did it for long, but I'm not sure I could have it's kind of in-congruent with joyful learning. And as someone who is absolutely passionate about learning and thinks it's way better than anything including sliced bread it's hard to encourage learning in a manner that doesn't really consistently inspire a passion for learning.

Les and I had a conversation when were first trying to figure out what Merenia needed where we decided that what was happening at school was 'good enough'. Neither of us thought that as parents it was ok to settle for 'good enough' for our kids. Hence the decision to homeschool.

In the first 5 years of his life Kieran learned to move, talk, walk, dress himself, read, write, use the computer (and various other gadgets and devices) and an exceptionally large amount of mathematical knowledge for his age. As well as that he had a huge general knowledge about wide number of subject matter from geography to history to science and so on. He read and was read to widely and often.

He had a 'laboratory' under his bed. (Which I discovered after being berated for cleaning it up).
And we had great conversations such as:
Me (having a blonde moment):  But there weren't any swimming dinosaurs.
Kieran: Oh Mum! Mosasaurus, Plesiosaurus, Nothosaurus, Liopleurodon.. sigh ...do I need to say more!
His vocabulary was stunning:
Les: What flavour milkshake do you want?
Kieran: According to my research, Dad, I would like chocolate.

And you know what: WE did that. Me and Les we did that through the power of good parenting. I never sat down and 'taught' him to read. Les never gave him practice addition sums (unless he asked for them). None of it was planned or particularly intentional. We talked to him, all the time- so much so an hour in the supermarket with a non-verbal child was exhausting because the conversation is so one sided. We sang with him. We danced with him. We cooked with him. We read to him (and we read to him and we read to him). We shared and encouraged his passions. I knew the answer to that dinosaur question- I must have been having an off day. Of course I couldn't spell Liopleurodon (still can't) but he could.We went to the library, we brought books (a lot of books) we brought toys and models and we made stuff. If he wanted to write a story before he could actually write- he said it, I wrote it. If he wanted to learn to spell words I wrote them on cards and stuck them on the wall and so on. I don't remember talking about fractions or basic multiplication but we must of because he knew. And his foundations were so solid that taking on new information was easy for him because he had so much prior knowledge to build on.

We never had a plan. We never once did an assessment. We never once made him learn something. We didn't push, we didn't have expectations we just lived and parented the best we knew how. Fortunately we knew a lot more than some parents (and not as much as others). The latter being something I think comes with time and experience and the former being why Early Childhood education and schemes like Parents as First Teachers are so important- and where Plunket is failing dismally.

That's unschooling. (See I told you you did it too).

We unschooled our kids for the first five years and they loved learning and were really passionate about finding out about stuff and doing stuff and well just about everything.

Then we sent them to school, and now they aren't.

*************

In my second year at Teacher's college I was the luckiest girl in my year. I got assigned to Mr Clayton's class at Arthur Street School. Neil Clayton had a Year 4-6 class that year which became a year 4-8 class the year after when he took the 'excess' (older kids) from the Montessori Satellite class which called Arthur Street home.

His style of teaching was eclectic and open. He is the best I ever saw at catering for individual needs and the most perceptive when it came to personality and such. He was incredibly respectful of children as human beings and allowed his class a huge amount of autonomy over their time and their learning. He is one of four truly amazing and inspiring teachers I have ever had the privilege to know*. After having spent 3 years in college intending not to teach but to use my degree to do something like guidance counselling in a school I came to the realisation I was going to teach and now I thought I knew how. *(In case anyone is wondering: Pamela Robertson (my year 1-3 teacher), Alva Kapa Standard 4/year 6, Pam Shand the Montessori teacher at Arthur Street and Neil- my top 4)

After a 3 week posting to his class at the end of my second year I came back once exams were over and hung out voluntarily. And then in my third year I begged, pleaded and cajoled my College of Ed. Deans to send me back to Neils Class for my 3rd year postings which would cover the whole year- Neil didn't normally have third years but he made an exception for me! And the double bonus was working alongside (across the hallway) from the Montessori class and learning a decent amount about a whole other theory of education that rocked as well as learning from Neil. Triple bonus was the kids- super amazing!

Off I went, the next year, into the world to do what Neil did with my own class of mollycoddled year 7 & 8's at a school in rural West Auckland where the bulk of parents were lifestylers who did the big commute to the city each day while the wife played tea parties with her friends darling- that's a gross generalisation. (But they were pretty gross kids, mostly). My senior teacher (the DP) hadn't any say in my being employed and was unhappy to say the least and when she saw the way I wanted to teach she was down right dismal I had zero support.

Of course young and naive I hadn't realised a whole bunch of stuff relating to Neil's style- and hadn't considered his gift for reading kids and the freaking years of teaching experience under his belt (probably at least 25 years by the time I met him). I gave my kids a mile and they took about 100km and I spent the rest of the year trying to claw control back inch by hard earned inch whilst still trying to hold true to my ideals. Dismal fucking failure.

And that's about the point where we found ourselves last year.

I headed into the year with great ideas and high hopes. I wanted to spend the first few months 'de-schooling' Merenia. Give her the chance to get out of the schooly mentality and gain back some of the self-esteem that had been decimated through the state school system. The generally accepted theory is that it takes a month for every year the child has been at school. Four and a half months in our case- we were pretty relaxed and laid back. Went to Choir and Ukulele to keep in contact with other people and do something she enjoyed (Choir) and learn something new (Uke). We signed up for the Mathletics website. I spent the time getting prepared- pulling all the cool resource-y stuff I had together in a big cupboard with pretty organisation.I had big plans and dreams. I remembered those heady days with Kieran writing stories and talking about different animals and our Olympic games study. I did more reading and research on the net and at the library. We sorted some international penpals for Merenia. We enjoyed the still warm Auckland days and got outside as much as we could.

In hindsight I should have seen it coming.

She wanted to garden but wasn't willing to do any reading to find out how or what.

She wanted to cook every day but I had a two year old and limited resources and limited patience for this high maintenance activity and neither did Les especially at dinner time when we really just wanted to get the night time routine streaming easily along to bed time.

She wanted to go out everyday to Kelly Tarltons, the Zoo, the museum, rainbows end, the tip top factory, the beach, homeschool camp, and gym, and art classes. And once again I had limited financial resources, still a 2 year old who couldn't do half that stuff, and I really liked my stay-at-home life.

So for the deschooling months we had our Wednesdays at Brown's Bay, Merenia took herself over to the library bus every second Thursday and the rest of the time was at home. She did what she wanted (within reason). And I got tired of her constant proximity and longed to be able to just pop out on my own (with Will). Or do something without being investigated. Or ask myself a question without her answering it. And I got sick of having to ask her constantly to let Will have some space to do his own thing.

When we were done with the deschooling. I found I had a girl who I wasn't enjoying all that much and who had no interest in anything much more than watching preschool television, reading Saddle Club and writing three line emails to her penpal. She didn't want to learn. She wasn't interested.

What? I don't get it. I don't understand. This doesn't compute. What do you mean not want to learn? What do you mean no passion for finding out stuff and how to do stuff. I don't understand that at all?

And I couldn't make her.

Especially if it involved reading for knowledge, writing or, god forbid, Maths she wouldn't have a bar of it. She simply wasn't willing to put in any effort no matter what the benefit.

We made her the head gardener at the start of the year giving her the responsibility for the garden design and planting. But she literally just wanted to plant pretty stuff she liked where she wanted with no thought of weeding, soil prep or seasonal planting and so on. We couldn't afford to throw money away so she could learn from her mistakes and she wasn't willing to learn how to avoid them.

I tried a bunch of different things I even tried going all teacher on her arse. No deal. No go. No way. And the relationship was deteriorating.

Once again I hadn't considered the nuances of the situation and hadn't really taken into account the kid when I was polishing my lovingly held ideals. I mean I thought it would be hard- it's not like we didn't have a total clash of personalities before our year started. But never in my wildest dreams could have imagined that I/we had raised a kid who didn't want to learn. DIDN'T. WANT. TO. LEARN.

I also see now that I still hadn't got past my teacher training as much as I had thought. Because really I should have spent a lot more time just doing stuff and having her work alongside or in the vicinity of me learning as we went- I was still trying to 'teach' her rather then just letting her learn.

We spent the rest of the year as we started doing nothing much more than reading Saddle Club, playing Uke, playing computer games and watching preschool TV. I grew increasingly frustrated, confused, disillusioned and also angry. Really really angry.

I'm not saying that there was no learning last year. There was a whole bunch of incidental stuff taught by both me and Les. And we had Merenia assessed and learnt a whole bunch more about her in the process- I don't think we would have done that if she had still been at school.But I do think Will learned less than if it had have been just the two of us. And he learned more stuff that I did NOT want him to learn and was NOT suitable for a two year old.

And there were the other benefits that I talked about in the other post. The lack of mean girls in her life (apart from me). The good health, the raised self esteem, the renewed belief in her ability to learn (maths in particular) and improved attitude towards life the universe and everything (except doing what she was asked and keeping her stuff tidy). These things are all gold that makes the year worth while.

But they don't make me feel all that much better about my failings as a home educator and as a patient and caring parent. And she still holds the belief that she is right and we are stupid and anything we say is negotiable. Like having a blue vivid in the bedroom your share with your 3 year old brother despite the fact you've been repeatedly told you may not have any such writing/crafting material (permanent or not) in said bedroom. And so really I just despair.

We need help. Expert help, because everyone else in our circle informs us that she is just sweetness and light and just the best person to have around. Which just seems to confirm Merenia's belief that we are idiots and she is pure genius. And seeing as they see her so seldom they are able and willing to treat her on all those occasions and let her do special stuff, confirming her further notion that we are the cruellest parents to walk the earth and she is a poor hard done by saint of a girl stuck in this awful family. But of course none of those people actually have to parent her every day of every year, heck they don't even have to get her to wear underwear.

Like I said we need help, real actual help: Now! We're working on it.

♥