Published by
Joanne on
March 1, 2010
A few months ago, a student at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism contacted me and asked if they could interview me about unschooling for research they were doing. Here are her questions, and my answers.
1) You address a lot of the day to day in your blog, but what are the biggest hurdles to starting?
For me, it was changing the way I view education, school and learning. Real learning…learning that truly means something to an individual. Learning has nothing to do with passing or failing, dividing the world up into subjects or taking a standardized test. That’s not learning.
Education is not telling students that it’s June 1 and today is the day you need to learn about dolphins. Also, when you’re done “learning”, you’re going to be tested to see if you can regurgitate all the facts back. And if you do, bingo!…you’ve learned!
For me, seeing the learning in everything and not dividing the world up into educational and not educational has been very helpful. In Guerrilla Learning, by Grace Llewellyn she says;
“Real learning requires meaning. Meaningless information can be memorized and repeated, but it’s not learning. For information to have meaning, there must be meaningful context for the information. That’s why most people, unless they are really good at absorbing and retaining meaningless data, forget most of what they learned in school.In school, subjects are artificially separated from each other. It’s as if schools believe that if you give kids one tree at a time, year after year, they will save them up and make a forest out of them. School can sap kids interest in learning, confuse them with so many meaningless “trees” that it may take years to recover and begin to see the “forest” again. School can simply eat up so much of their time that there’s none left for the real learning, for spontaneous exploration or free play. Instead of discovering their unique gifts and talents, many learn to see themselves as “disabled” if they don’t keep up with the traditional school systems standards of measurement.”
2) And what are the unexpected benefits you find along the way?
For my children, one of the unexpected benefits is how they (especially my youngest) are starting to question things more. They’re interested in knowing things. They’re curious. They’re starting to see that learning is not something you do just to pass a test. For me, an unexpected benefit was how much I would change through this journey.
3) How has homeschooling helped your children blossom?
Unschooling is allowing them to be free and they’re blossoming in that freedom. They’re starting to become more sure of themselves, which isn’t hard to do when you’re not in school. There’s nobody telling them that they’re failures so their confidence in themselves is soaring. They are starting to see that life is not sectioned into educational and not educational and that they’re interests take them places that school could never dream of.
**originally posted in 2007**
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Published by
Joanne on
February 24, 2010
I really enjoy the Spiritual Parenting newsletter by Mimi Doe and have been receiving it for quite some time. The title of the current one is ‘The Love That Listens”. Some of the highlights for me are:
ASK… LISTEN… AND LISTEN DEEPER
ASK….
Ask your child to make a list of all the things she wants to know more about. You may be very surprised. Follow through on this information and provider her with materials, books, teachers if appropriate, and opportunities to explore her interests. Encouraging your child’s natural inquisitiveness about all things nourishes her soul.
LISTEN…
Often a child will talk to a neighbor or friend instead of directly to you. Are there enough of these removed listeners in your child’s life? Can you be a receiving adult for a child other than your own?
LISTEN DEEPER…
Perhaps you are open and available to listen to your child but feel there is more that you need to know. Try talking directly to your child’s soul, guardian angel, or spirit. Get quiet and mentally ask if there is something you need to be aware of. You can ask for a picture or message that will help you parent in a deeper way. Listen to the thoughts that come.
PARENTS’ INSIGHT-BUILDING EXERCISE
Think of a time when you were heard as a child.
- Who listened?
- How did it feel to be heard?
- What did you say that was acknowledged?
- How does that experience live with you today?
Now think back to a time when you were there to listen to your child.
- What was that like?
- Why were you available to listen? Had you made time? Was your child demanding you stop and listen?
- What did you hear?
- How did your child react when you listened?
Ask for guidance this week on how to best hear your children’s needs. Ask for divine insight into ways you can help give your child’s feelings a voice.
Now let go and remain open to receiving insight and guidance. Listen to the subtle ways your inner wisdom is revealed.
Trust your ideas and insights; YOU are wise.
*Mimi Doe is the founder of Spiritual Parenting.com and the award-winning author of “Nurturing Your Teenager’s Soul”, “Busy But Balanced”, “10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting”, and co-author of “Don’t’ Worry Get In”. Mimi’s free newsletter, Spiritual Parenting, has more than 30m000 subscribers from around the world. Sign up on the website: www.SpiritualParenting.com.
Tags:
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Mindful Parenting,
parents,
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Published by
Joanne on
February 3, 2010
Wow.com (World of Warcraft) interviewed an unschooling mom, who along with her two children, are involved in the Horde of Unschoolers, at World of Warcraft.
In the article, Sarah Spooner, senior admission counselor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, was asked if unschoolers succeed in college and later in life.
“These students are really well motivated, have done their homework and done their research,” she affirms. “They’re the type of students who excel when they get on a college campus because they can keep themselves in check and make sure they’re doing well and succeeding.”
Later on in the article, the mom was asked if she considers WoW to be part of her kids’ educational experience?
Everything is educational; learning happens all the time. Anything one does or doesn’t do adds information to her body of knowledge, no? For us, WoW has led to many interesting conversations and research. For instance, one time my son and I played with a couple of guys from Brazil. One of the guys only typed in Portuguese; the other guy would translate. We got to learn a few Portuguese words, look up Brazil, check time zones. We got to make a connection with stories from my husband about the time he was in Brazil (seeing shanty towns and eating the most tantalizing coconut pudding).
You can read the rest of the article here: Horde Of Unschoolers.
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Published by
Joanne on
February 2, 2010
Two women meet at a playground, where their children are swinging and playing ball. The women are sitting on a bench watching. Eventually, they begin to talk. …
Woman #1: Hi. My name is Maggie. My kids are the three in red shirts — helps me keep track of them.
Woman #2: (Smiles) I’m Terri. Mine are in the pink and yellow shirts. Do you come here a lot?
W1: Usually two or three times a week, after we go to the library.
W2: Wow. Where do you find the time?
W1:: We home school, so we do it during the day most of the time.
W2: Some of my neighbors home school, but I send my kids to public school.
W1:: Wow – how do you do it?
W2: It’s not easy. I go to all the PTO meetings and work with the kids every day after school and stay real involved.
W1: But what about socialization? Aren’t you worried about them being cooped up all day with kids their own ages, never getting the opportunity for natural relationships?
W2: Well, yes. But I work hard to balance that. They have some friends who’re home schooled, and we visit their grandparents almost every month.
W1: Sounds like you’re a very dedicated mom. But don’t you worry about all the opportunities they’re missing out on? I mean they’re so isolated from real life — how will they know what the world is like — what people do to make a living — how to get along with all different kinds of people?
W2: Oh, we discussed that at PTO, and we started a fund to bring real people into the classrooms. Last month, we had a policeman and a doctor come in to talk to every class. And next month, we’re having a woman from Japan and a man from Kenya come to speak.
W1: Oh, we met a man from Japan in the grocery store the other week, and he got to talking about his childhood in Tokyo. My kids were absolutely fascinated. We invited him to dinner and got to meet his wife and their three children.
W2: That’s nice. Hmm. Maybe we should plan some Japanese food for the lunchroom on Multicultural Day.
W1: Maybe your Japanese guest could eat with the children.
W2: Oh, no. She’s on a very tight schedule. She has two other schools to visit that day. It’s a system-wide thing we’re doing.
W1: Oh, I’m sorry. Well, maybe you’ll meet someone interesting in the grocery store sometime and you’ll end up having them over for dinner.
W2: I don’t think so. I never talk to people in the store – certainly not people who might not even speak my language. What if that Japanese man hadn’t spoken English?
W1: To tell you the truth, I never had time to think about it. Before I even saw him, my six-year-old had asked him what he was going to do with all the oranges he was buying.
W2: Your child talks to strangers?
W1: I was right there with him. He knows that as long as he’s with me, he can talk to anyone he wishes.
W2: My children never talk to strangers.
W1: Not even when they’re with you?
W2: They’re never with me, except at home after school. So you see why it’s so important for them to understand that talking to strangers is a big no-no.
W1: Yes, I do. But if they were with you, they could get to meet interesting people and still be safe. They’d get a taste of the real world, in real settings. They’d also get a real feel for how to tell when a situation is dangerous or suspicious.
W2: They’ll get that in the third and fifth grades in their health courses.
W1: Well, I can tell you’re a very caring mom. Let me give you my number — if you ever want to talk, give me call. It was good to meet you.
Tags:
Children,
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parents,
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Published by
Joanne on
February 1, 2010
For some people that are unfamiliar with unschooling, or homeschooling for that matter, it’s hard to imagine a life without school. School eats up so much of their time that they find it difficult to understand what their kids would do without it. That’s why those “Day In The Life Of An Unschooler/Homeschooler” posts are so important and we’ve done many here at An Unschooling Life over the years.
We’ve had so much going on recently that I thought it would be nice to show a week in my unschoolers lives, instead of just one day. Enjoy! 
Making pillows they received for Christmas:
Playing basketball:
Going to Girl Scouts:
LOL….getting tickled:
Going to the Museum of Natural History, for the Amazon Voyage exhibit, with friends:
Helping dad make yummy sauce:
Making Gummi Bears (more in another post):
In between these pictures was a lot of playing Guitar Hero on PS2, reading the Twilight series, writing stories about fairies, playing Golden Compass on wii, phone calls from friends, internet surfing, day dreaming, playing Scattegories, going to the park with friends and much, much more.
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