How We "School" Part 3: Lessons

Lessons. Lil'Bug has taken lessons. How is this exactly unschool? To unschool is to embrace what and how you learn from life and naturally, right?

Sure, but there comes a point when you want to master something and you seek out teachers, or perhaps taking a lesson sounds like a fun, dare I say it, social thing to do.

Here is where the difference, at least for us has occurred.

Lil'Bug took music lessons. Really, music lessons is redundant in our family because we have a music room and she has access to about 15 real instruments and 30+ of her own toyish percussion things. But she wanted to take lessons, which as a three year old means singing and dancing and playing with toyish like percussion things only with a room full of other three year olds. Fine.

Here is where we take a different approach. One lesson we had a substitute teacher whose style of relating and rule sets were different from our regular teacher. In our regular class, Lil'Bug always played helper and assisted in handing out things and cleaning up. The new teacher balked at her efforts to help and explained "nicely" that Lil' Bug would get an instrument when she sat down and waited. Lil'Bug stood there stunned for a bit, but processed it and sat down. And yet, the teacher made a point of handing sticks to everyone, including me, before giving them to Lil'Bug very last and saying to the class that she got hers last because she sat down last.

What? That was unkind, but apparently acceptable to everyone there. Well, except for my sweet tot who set her sticks "nicely" down and left. Walked out of the classroom.

I followed her out and sat down with her. She explained that she didn't like the teacher, thought what she did and said was rude and unkind. She wanted to go home.

So we did. I agreed with her AND if I was in her position I would be allowed to choose to quit. As adults, when someone treats us poorly we have choices. Why not let her choose how she wants to be treated? Because she is a child, should she suffer the ill treatment of someone just because they are years older than she is? I don't think so. Sure, I paid for the class, but that money was already paid and gone and certainly not worth the price of humiliation for my child in front her parents and peers.

So we quit. She tried going back once the regular teacher was back, but it was never the same. So that was that.

Some parents I have talked to said they would make their kids stick it out, finish what they start. Some said they would have confronted the owner and/or the teacher. And some agreed with my decision. I learned a bit about myself and my kid that day. She could have thrown a fit, but she simply walked out and clearly articulated her needs. What would have happened to our bond and her trust in me if I had ignored it? She looks to me to be her hero, her helper, her teacher, and her friend. But most of all, her mama.

So, back to lessons. We also do swim lessons, she calls them that. Really it is swim play and she asks me to teach her things or spot her while she tries out "dangerous tricks." She trusts me to not let her drown. She trusts me to catch her. I think she calls these swim sessions lessons because she has been taught to by PBS kids shows and peers that when you learn something it is a lesson. Schoolish thinking.

Lessons, just a word, but we have decided to make it our own. It is our way of countering the culture of schoolish creeping in.

How We "School" Part 2

This is really more about how we found community. When Lil'Bug was a little over a year old I sought out homeschool groups online and park days to attend. I attended these with another mom who had a slightly older child, still not of official schooling age.

I am so very glad I did search because of what I learned. Some of the groups showed disdain and suggested that I go find a toddlers moms group. I tried those, but most of the kids were heading to public school and while I have no problem with that, I also needed others to talk to about our choice.

Our choice is different even to the traditional school at home community. We unschool.
Finding unschooling community is really important. I found another great local support group, and they were inclusive, but the majority were school at home and there was a lot of unspoken disdain towards unschooling. Especially when it was time to talk curriculum. Perhaps it was just me feeling left out or uncomfortable, but when failings of various methods became topic, I couldn't help but join in with statements about children learning naturally vs forced useless subjects; the negative feelings swelling up in ME ultimately led me to back away. I wasn't adding anything good, just salt to the pot. With the unschoolers, learning naturally is a priority and a goal worthy of working towards.

Then I found it, a park day hosted by unschoolers. That has made all the difference. Why?

1) Other moms to chat with
2) Other kids to play with
3) No age segregation, the 3 year olds are welcome to play with the older kids and vice versa
4) Sunshine

I could go on and on.....Lil'Bug asks to go every week. The games they invent there come home with us. She climbs trees and explores and buries treasure and trains as a Kung Fu Master Princess Warrior and and and.....

A couple weeks ago the only kids there were unschooler boys over the age of 11. They welcomed her into a game of Frisbee, helped her with her fighting moves, and discussed with her the merits of root beer. The next week the only kids were all under 7 and the wild game involved dragging tree limbs to build a house in the woods.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I sit down with the other moms. My doubts are eased when the kids strike up a conversation with the group, adults and kids, about kayaking or peaches or politics....these always unschooled kids are not wild, strange, unsocialized recluses but rather articulate, civilized, and engaging young people. Compared to them I am the strange, unsocialized recluse.

I get asked the question by others all the time, you know, THE question about unschooling: how do you know it works? Part of what fuels my confidence is this weekly burst of exposure to other families and the large range of children thriving in this method, really, this lifestyle.

More than that, I feel at ease when breastfeeding or talking about cloth diapers or chatting about local foods and my aversion to corn syrup and oil. Or bees. I had a 45 minute conversation about bees recently. I have all these interests and once a week I can sit down with IRL moms and no one gives me a hard time when I say I aspire to be a sheep farmer or I want to dye my hair purple again.

I look forward to Thursday afternoons almost as much as Lil'Bug.

Who's Side Are You On?

Today Lil'Bug exclaimed, "Who's side are you on? Don't give him the Oregano!" As I was handing dearest the seasoning for dinner.

She was betrayed deeply when I handed it to him because obviously I was not on her side.

She also informed me that she was going to open a flower shop because she has lots of flowers and she'd be good at it.

She licked the mirrors at the eye doctor. Then she was thrilled to help clean them.

It has been a day like that.

Me, I am filled with a restlessness. We put our home on the market and, even though the market is terrible, I half expected at least one call by now. Even though the house isn't technically ready. Even though the picture isn't up yet on Realtor.com. Even as I have a pile of laundry to get through, drapes and pictures still to hang, and some painting to do. I expected a call. At least one.

It is more than that. We will be caught in a middle phase when we do sell. We can look for a house now, not able to buy until we sell, or we can wait and either way we can't buy until we sell so the new house has to be on the market when we do sell OR we need to find a place to rent for a short while and we have 2 birds, a dog, a cat, and 2 tornado tots. And a short while could be anywhere between 6 weeks and 2 years. And we may end up moving to Ohio. It is a time of great change and just thinking about it sends me into a small panic.

So do we get our hopes up for the 40 acres with pond, a turn of the last century home restored by an Amish family? Or do we quit tormenting ourselves with all the possibilities Realtor.com has to offer and wait until we sell to even look? I spent at least an hour looking today when I should have been painting or making apple butter.

I need to be able to visualize. I need to have something in mind to work for. So far my hopes and prayers have been with the visual focus of an apple tree. Is that silly? I have always been a dreamer. The dreams help me work toward goals.

Our goal is simple: we want an acreage to homestead. We want to raise our own food, everything: milk, cheese, eggs, fruit, berries, nuts, veggies, grains, honey, fish- everything. Then, maybe we could consider a CSA once we become self supporting. It will be a lot of work. I love a challenge. I also want sheep for wool. I want to learn to knit our own socks. I want to raise chickens and pick fruit at sunrise and run and play in the sunshine in an open field of wild flowers with my children.

Completely unrelated, I got assigned another Lit class for the Spring semester! Now I'll be teaching Kid Lit and Science Fiction. Neat.

So, while these thoughts are not completely as articulated and organized as I would like, neither have I been.

Cold Rain

Today it is raining and it is cold.

Today I have many things and thoughts running around in my head, dizzy. I will go clean and hang pictures and then come back write about them. Expect a few longish posts later today.

A strange bit of anxiety soup hangs think in the air today.