You are the cutting edge.

Unschooling.
Take a deep breath. You are the cutting edge.

You are a 'learning in freedom,' education activist. Yours are the sharpened knives cutting though the crap that conceals the truth about how learning happens and education is really acquired.

That truth? True learning is interest lead and passion based.
Education is not 'product,' that once you've 'got,' you've got it for good. The act of education is a never-ending process.
You know that there are many ways to live, to be.

You are travellers of the avant-grade. Few have ventured where you
go.

Take heart. You will emerge bringing trophies from your journey into the unknown.

Go bravely into this new world. As you go, you will find that your awareness to your surroundings increases your understanding.
Respect for life and self are enhanced.

A sixth sense for opportunity as well as for contribution steadily develop. Know that you will be forced to expand and to grow in all ways.
Your children will demand this of you. You will demand it of yourself.

What We Gain: Empowering Unschooling

There's all this chatter about the academics  that are lost when kids unschool; "This kid can't write worth squat. He's 12!"  A valid concern for those who are worried that unschooling ways will drag the country back into the Dark Ages. I hope they are as worried for those kids that go in for 12 years of public education and still can't read. 

The chatterers have no idea of the context this child is growing up in. If they were to wait a few years and revisit the child they might see another picture all together.

In the mean time it might be worth reflecting on the following: Who is this child? How is he? What is he doing? What interests him? Is he happily pursuing his interests? Is he getting out there and growing that interest and taking time to nurture it?  And equally important, is he confident and giving and kind?

Take my friend's son. He is 11. He enjoys playing sock puppets and stuffed toy animals with his younger sisters (9 and 7). By the way, the sisters sew these well crafted toys entirely by hand.

The nine year old has just launched a little business of her own.

Together they have enlightening games and stories that they continiously develop. He then takes these to the computer and creates animation videos.

His sisters in turn draw constantly. They tell complicated stories through art. Their work is sophisticated and detailed and beautiful.

How many 11 nearly 12 year old boys do you know who enjoy playing with their younger sisters? 

Both sisters are at the stage where they are breaking the reading code.

So okay- they don't know grade 3 or grade 5 math. Yet.  And I am sure that with her business venture, the 9 year old will grow her math sense at lightening speed.

In fact, as with my own daughter (who is working on her piano pieces for an upcoming recital as I write this)- now that she has decided she wants to try out high school next year, we have started working on math together. It's going well because she is motivated.

Aside from a few workbooks here and there over the years, she has done very little formal math-there was very little interest. I have always been aware of this but have kept the 'mat' door' opened- be it in making sure there are math opportunities (yes- even flash cards), math games, chess which she loves, art that has a mathematical component and even literature and ideas that are math based.

So what do we gain when we unschool?

We gain and retain a strong sense of individuality. Our kids need not hide who they are nor what they are interested in.They are free to be. This is empowerment at its purest. 

Unschooling: When Couples Don't Agree.

You know what is right for your children and school isn't it. Your partner disagrees. S/He insists that school is were they ought to be. 

A friend of mine says, "He never agreed with my unschooling philosophy. I did it anyway."

Joanna's children are mostly grown up now. The three oldest are gainfully employed and the youngest, opting to go to highschool is in grade 10.

I ask her how it affected her relationship with her husband. "He didn't agree of much of anything I did. Unschooling was just another area. We hardly saw eye to eye on anything," is her response. 

Yet she stayed in the relationship because of her strong belief that unschooling would benefit her children.

"My husband blamed me for our lack of income. He thought I should be contributing."

Now that the kids are older, she has started the divorce process.

Does she have any regrets?

"I still believe in unschooling as the best learning strategy for my kids. Inspite of our compromised income, our stressed relationship, it was worth it."

Today she is working towards certification as a massage therapist. She cautions, "Make sure you have a way to make an income. I didn't and it was a hefty price to pay."

Another friend tells me that because of the respect her husband has for her, he agreed to give unschooling a try.

He read the materials she gave him, watched videos and even met with some of the "weirdos and freaks," that unschool.

He had to admit that the kids were normal-"bright and confident for the most part," my friend laughs.

When he met a family of grown unschoolers, he was sold on the idea. I think he just wanted to be reassured."

In the end, families will make decisions based on what they can tolerate. I'm lucky in that I never had the problem of an unwilling partner. I should say though, that I was very strong in my position. I never had doubts that unschooling was right for my family. I think that confidence in what I believed, backed up with evidence, made it easier for my husband to be open minded about the idea.

There is always a sacrifice, a price to pay, though. That could be quitting a day job as some have done to work at a home office so that they could be with their children during the day. Some work at night. Some do with less income.

When couples are not on board, it becomes difficult to unschool with one undermining the other.

As one father says, " Unschooling is life changing. It's effects are far-reaching-encompassing all areas of ones life. I couldn't imagine unschooling if my partner didn't support my thinking."

Unschooled does not mean Unstructured

Some unschoolers worry that if there is structure in their kids' lives, then they are not really unschooling. This is faulty thinking and sounds as ridiculous as saying that there is no learning being done if you are not seated at your desk in a specially established 'learning institution.'

It's that 'purist' tendency that corrupts all good intentions and good ideas making a prison out of what was initially a way to experience freedom.

You can have freedom in learning as a strategy for educating that includes 'A to B-no deviation' programming. This is what can happen when an unschooler decides they want to study a subject that is best achieved by following a structured curriculum to attain their goals.

Structure is often appreciated by kids. In my case, my daughters have always enjoyed following a course of study in music-two of them follow the Royal Conservatory program in violin and piano, and have been doing so for years.

Karate lessons, Mandarin language,soccer and swimming practice all add 'sought out' structure to the day, helping my daughters gain a sense of achievement and completion.

The key to structure in unschooling is that the learner be in the driving seat-that they are directing their own learning and agree to accept or not accept a structure as they feel meets their needs.

To strictly define oneself as such and such only leads to rigidity and ultimately, that is what we want to get away from.

Rather to be open and adaptable, to be willingly to experiment, try out what works, reject what doesn't is real freedom in learning.

Beyond Unschooling

Just found this on YouTube (by Rowan Fortune-Wood).  What an articulate and brilliant unschooled person! Bravo!