Five Steps to Unschooling
By Joyce Kurtak
Fetteroll
Some people understand unschooling as soon as they hear about it. Others wander
about in a fog of confusion, wondering how unschoolers
can be so certain about something that seems so counterintuitive to everything
we've picked up about how kids need to learn. Maybe a few, well-defined steps
in the unschooling direction could lead out of at
least the very pea-soupiest part of the fog.
To unschool, you
begin with your child's interests. If she's interested in birds, you read - or
browse, toss aside, just look at the pictures in - books on birds, watch videos
on birds, talk about birds, research and build (or buy) bird feeders and birdhouses,
keep a journal on birds, record and ponder their behavior, search the web for
items about birds, go to bird sanctuaries, draw birds, color a few pictures in
the Dover Birds of Prey coloring book, play around with feathers, study
Leonardo DaVinci's drawings of flying machines that
he based on birds, watch Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
But DON'T go whole hog on this. Gauge how
much to do and when by your child's reactions. Let her say no thanks. Let her
choose. Let her interest set the pace. If it takes years, let it take years. If
it lasts an hour, let it last an hour.
Second, you need to make sure your child has
opportunities to expand her interests. Have books, videos, kits, games,
puzzles, music tapes, puppets, nature collections, and other cool things
available for her to pick up when she chooses. (Think library, yard sales, and
attic treasures.) Take her places as a way to spark an interest. Wander about
museums and just look at the cool stuff that interests either of you. (And resist
the urge to force an interest in the things you think would be good for her.)
Read a book or do a kit even if you're certain it won't lead anywhere. Let her
say no thanks if she's not interested in pursuing something right now, or in
pursuing something to the degree you think she "should."
Get interested in things yourself.
Not interested in your child getting educated, but in learning for yourself.
Pursue an interest you've always wanted to but never had time for. Be curious
about life around you. Look things up to satisfy your own curiosity. Or just
ponder the wonder of it all. Ask questions you don't know the answers to.
"Why are there beautiful colors beneath the green in leaves?"
"Why did they build the bridge here rather than over there?"
"Why is there suddenly more traffic on my road than there used to
be?"
Let your child know that all the questions
haven't been answered yet and it's not her job to just keep absorbing answers
until she's got them all.
Start noticing the learning available all
around you. There are fractions in time and cooking and in the relationships
between objects. (There are one third as many blue M&M's as there are
brown.) Tax is a percentage of the total, some items offer 20% more free, and
stores having a sale will knock a percentage off the regular price.
There's oodles of science in cooking. Why does heat make the white
of an egg turn from clear liquid to solid white? What process turns liquid cake
into poofy air-filled solid cake? Don't worry if you
don't know the answers. Anyone can look up the answers. Few can ask the
questions.
As a real-life example, by watching Xena and reading Little Town on the Prairie, my daughter
was exposed to three references to Julius Caesar, Brutus, and Marc Antony. She doesn't "know" Roman history now, but
she's got a hook or point of reference to build from tomorrow, next week, three
years from now: "You remember Julius Caesar. The guy Xena
hates."
Unfortunately we learned in school that
learning is locked up in books and reading is the only way to get to it. It's
not. It's free. We're surrounded by it. We just need to relearn how to
recognize it in its wild state.
And, finally, forget the linear approach to
learning we grew up with. For instance, we learned that the way to learn is to
read "all the important" stuff about a subject gathered and packaged
for our convenience in a textbook and then move on in line to the next package
of information.
Sure, sometimes an interest will cause kids
to gather up a huge chunk of learning all at once. This is easy to see. And easy to overvalue as the "best" way to learn.
More often kids will slowly gather
interesting tidbits, making connections as things occur to them to create a
foundation. They'll add pieces here and there over the years to build on that
foundation. This is not so easy to see going on. And very
easy to undervalue.
So, if we can train ourselves to see that
process we can help it along by valuing the times when they see Thomas
Jefferson on the Animaniacs and then later on the
nickel and then still later on
It took at least two years and a lot of
posts by very patient unschoolers (and a lot of
questions by other newbies who were equally confused)
for me to finally "get" unschooling.
Hopefully, these five steps will make your transition to unschooling
easier than mine was!
© 2000, Joyce Kurtak Fetteroll