Radical Homeschooling
Unschooling. Its what all the cool kids are doing. For the in touch, well read peaceful/attachment/evolutionary parent moving on from breastfeeding and co-sleeping, unschooling – or Autonomous Learning in the UK – is this year’s must have parenting accessory. If you are a progressive parent, this is the tribe you want to join.
The Young Scholar
Sadly, I do not think I will make the cut. I am not progressive enough. I am not radical enough, or am too controlling, or too focused on what I want for my kids rather than on what they want for themselves. To unschool I need to let go of all of my own expectations and allow my children to develop how and when they want to. I need to trust in their ability to learn for themselves, free from the pressures and and demands of parents and social expectations – many of them false – on how to achieve “The Good Life.”
I…I just can’t. I want to – it sounds so wonderful and free – and I love wonderful and free – but as much as I try, I cannot escape a small kernel of the Catholic schoolgirl/history teacher/lawyer from a big stinkin’ firm that once I was.
I want my kids to have intellectual and enriching liberal arts education. I want them to study arts and languages and sciences and math. I want them to have intellectual discipline. Can you have intellectual discipline when left to your own devices? Perhaps some can. I just don’t think I can and since I am a much better student than anyone else in my family, I don’t think it will work for us.
This is not to say that I want to recreate school at our kitchen table. I gave that up a while ago. I do not want to stand over my children while they recite Bible versus and John Donne. It would be great if they did but I would rather some of that did come autonomously.
What do I want? Perhaps that is the real question here. Whenever an adult asks what it is that she wants, she invariable puts herself – and not her child – at the heart of this journey. I get that and I accept it. And I am willing to let my expectations go. Just not yet.
For what it is worth, this is what I want: for each of my children to look back on their life and to know that they lived an amazing life. That it was full of adventure, and new ideas, happiness, contentment and determination in the face of obstacles. I want them to be resilient and self-sufficient and in control of their destiny. I want them to love and to know that they were loved unconditionally in return.
For a little while this will require some guidance. They need exposure to new ideas and help to discipline their studies. Learning can and should be fun but without some guidance and support it can become overwhelming. We live in an age of information and children need to learn to master the knowledge at their fingertips rather than being mastered by it.
So this is my declaration: we do radical homeschooling. We do not do school at home but nor are we unschoolers. I will adopt some of unschooling’s principles but not all of them. My children will have choice and freedom – as much as they and I can handle. I will be like a sherpa leading a party up a mountain. Yes there are many paths, but some are more direct and safer than others. They will know my views and I will guide their steps.
That said, I know I cannot walk the path for them. There are some things they will have to do for themselves.
Call me a radical homeschooler – we have no set curriculum and are free to meander as we like.`For me, that is as radical as I get.
At least for now.
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Tagged with: Education • motherhood • Unschooling
Filed under: Education • Homeschooling • Uncategorized • Unschooling
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I am like you. I like control. We consider ourselves unschoolers, but we do have structure. I have core lessons I require and the rest is up to them. We have morphed over the years and I am a lot more relaxed about things and I have found that has worked better. My children have math books, but they are usually found working on them while sitting in a tree
Sitting in a tree? That is so cool! I am trying to get my kids to see that sitting in a tree is a perfectly appropriate place to study math. Sadly they are not as progressive as me, lol! For now it is enough that they enjoy tea and biscuits while doing math and see it as something to enjoy rather than dread. I know that I cannot let them do whatever they want whenever the mood strikes them, however. That is why I can’t call myself a radical unschooler. I believe freedom is something that needs to be age appropriate – the older they are the more they can have. I certainly believe in more freedom than schools permit. Thus I am a radical homeschooler as I guess at the end of the day, I still want some disciplined scholarship going on in my home. Thanks for your comment!
We chose a Montessori school for Adam for many of those reasons – it is structured, but gives him enough flexibility to choose his own path at his own pace. I just need to learn to be more flexible in my own classroom.
Ian went to a montessori preschool – two, actually, and they were fab. I would probably still use one if they had them here in my neck of the woods. My real transformation is with compulsory education – first through twelfth grades. I’ve lost my faith in schools and the process of schooling. I only taught in public schools and went to a great private high school back i the day, but I think it is out of step with the 21st century. But unschooling is a step too far for me. Hope you are good, hun!