still deschooling myself

[Kaed Family]

I'm still deschooling myself, still new to unschooling. My kids are 6yr. and 2yr and haven't been to school but I still get urges to homeschool my oldest.  Her kindergarten public school friends are doing addition and subtraction worksheets.  She was interested in trying a couple worksheets since we have workbooks around (hand me down homeschool stuff from a friend)  She occasionally likes to do stuff from the homeschool box. In the back of my mind I am thrilled when she works on traditional looking stuff.  It puts my mind at rest.  She soon bores of it though and we go through long periods of not so clear stuff.  So I was thinking about math drill. Then I realize that her and her young friend have found a pair of dice and a peg board and had made up a game.  I just listened from across the room.  The rules kept changing.  I didn't quite get the game but they played for a long time rolling both dice and adding them up and moving pegs around.  My favorite rule was that they had to take turns winning and would go so far as to throw the game so the person whose turn it was could win.  Then they would be so happy for the other person and start over.  I was thinking that she was adding up the dice pretty quickly in her game despite not having math drill. I have even seen math worksheets with dice pictures for each problem. Crazy when playing dice is much more fun. I was also thinking that the kindness they demonstrate to each other is more important and the creativity of their invented games.

 

I also was thinking about how much she has grown physically in the last couple weeks.  She spent most of the last couple weeks outside riding her bike because she just taught herself to ride a two wheeler.  She's also just started a tumbling class.  After a couple classes she was about to give up because most kids in her class have been in classes since 3 yr.  Then she heard about open gym and wanted to go so we did.  She repeatedly somersaulted down the wedge until she figured it out. She asked to sign up for another tumbling session. She's also been challenging herself a lot in the pool  Seeing how long she can swim underwater in one breath asking me to time her.  There is so much physical growth going on at this time.  I can't sit her down to school her.  She would do it but at what cost.  She has so much determination when she wants to learn something.  She will figure out all the math she needs to know when she wants to.  Right now she has all the math skills she needs.  I need to stop comparing her to school children or comparing at all.  I also have the urge to purge our house of all the home schooling material I have inherited but then again I don't want to deny her of those resources if she wants them. Keep them but with less importance.

 

Instead of starting math drill worksheets, I put myself at ease by paying to upgrade the Starfall website like she had been asking me and am surprised at how much time she puts into math problems. We put Starfall up on the Wii. 

 

Oh I have also  heard her explain to her lil brother that when he is 6yr. like her it will be easier for him to do it.  Then she calculated that it would be 4 years before he is 6 years old.  Stuff like that comes up all the time.

 

She will be fine.  Like I said I am still deschooling, luckily she does not have to. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kaed Family]

I'm doing it. I'm getting rid of the homeschool boxes of learning stuff.  I'm pulling out the interesting stuff and putting it out with everything else and then donating the rest.  I feel by having the learning stuff in a separate box it gives it more value and sends the wrong message.

[Candice Marie Thompson]

 

Good on you for noticing the process; It is amazing all the written words that state that teachers need to do this; be aware of how their experiences limit that of the students yet is it likely that most of them do it? I'm not sure still trying to answer this question... I am in my Bachelor of Education starting in 07 and finding unschooling which I immediately took onboard for my family of 2 boys 1yo and 3yo. I am now finding that constant frustration within my studies yet that is me deschooling process and I am probably the one of few who won't be sucked into the mainstream thinking; though there is hope and it seems as though the more people I speak to the more are interested in HS at least; not ready but getting there. Through my frustrations I am acknowledging that a radical shift is happening from simply doing something different and being happy, accepting, and switched on people. It is worth celebrating!!! 

[Kerry Estey Keith]

Unschooling, Uncivilizing, Rewilding, Shedding the "Shoulds."  Thanks for your post.

[Meredith]

I remember, a couple years ago, noticing I was throwing away math manipulatives. They aren't lego compatible, so they're really only useful as odd parts; they're sometimes handy as extra game pieces, and that's what they'd been used for - never for mathy stuff, and we'd lost most of the set. So I was sweeping up and picking out toys - legos, yes, pennies, no, buttons yes, old math manipulatives no. It shocked me suddenly. Something I had once valued as important had become mostly useless - not nearly as valuable as the 1x1 legos I was carefully dusting off and returning to the lego pile. It felt like a tiny moment of triumph.

 

I still have days where I think "take that, public school!" when one of my kids does something that we tend to think of as needing to be taught or socialized into them. And I still have moments when I think "oh, but maybe I should push this just a little bit" - I regret it when I do, though, so I'm learning. Slowly, but I'll blame that on my education ;)

[Frank Maier]

Our kids are 17 and 18, I've been out of college for 41 years, and we're pretty experienced unschoolers; but I'm still deschooling myself.