I've saved the best for last.
Getting a grip on all the homeschooling methods has taken hours (literally, months) of research. I first began combing the internet to find resources, materials and homeschooling blogs to use as my starting point. While I was positive I wanted to teach our children at home, I had absolutely no idea where to begin or how to set up a curriculum. It was all very interesting, albeit quite overwhelming. I eagerly but ignorantly began copying and saving Pre-K and Kindergarten worksheets, exercises and teaching materials. I copied and saved other homeschool mom's schedules, ideas and activities. I bought a binder and began calculating our calendar year, our time allotments for each subject, and started pricing ready-made curriculum bundles that included textbooks, workbooks and materials. Then I quickly realized that one thing I was positive that I didn't want to do was recreate the public school classroom at home. I wanted something different, something eclectic, something that would set my kids apart from (no offense to other parent's children) - the tools that the public education system was spitting out after 12 years of compulsory schooling.
It was at that point that I got away from the vanilla programs like the K-12 Virtual Academy and many of it's competitors. Determined to think outside the box, I began finding more interesting bloggers who lived and breathed the methods they taught their children by. The more I read, the more I discovered about my own intentional parenting style, and how it would tie in to our learning. About halfway through these deliciously fresh, revolutionary homeschooling philosophies, I was linked to a series of podcasts that contained the lectures of ex-school teacher John Taylor Gatto, and since I stumbled upon them by accident, (typical while internet hopping from one related subject to another) - I bookmarked them for later viewing.
After a few weeks of burnout pouring through blog after blog of how moms (and sometimes dads) educated their kids from home, I took a break and decided to lurk in some teacher's forums to get an idea of what kinda mojo they were jerkin' to be able to work with kids day in and day out and not only love their jobs, but inspire the students. I was surprised at how hearing them describe their days sounded eerily similar to, say - a very disenfranchised industrial worker, or a corporate burnout. They spoke of frustration, of in-fighting and discord among administrators, of politics, and lots of F-bombs (not literally, but you could read between the lines) regarding the much-hated Common Core. I decided to listen to those podcasts I'd saved for a rainy night, as it had a catchy title: Weapons of Mass Instruction.
Not that the coffin needed any extra nails on my end already - but if I hadn't already decided to not send my kids to school, I'm absolutely, beyond any doubt certain that John Taylor Gatto's lectures would have compelled me to not to. It was eye-opening, it was candid, and it all made perfect sense. I won't give away any spoilers, but it's accurate to say that the public education system has been failing for a long, long time.
The Unschooling method seemed liberal almost to a point of carelessness upon first glance. Although I could grasp the philosophy behind child-led learning, the idea of not setting up a schedule, a curriculum, or have any "tests" to measure my kid's comprehension seemed reckless. I was closely following education.penelopetrunk.com, which seemed like the most radical free-for-all out there as far as raising "free-range" children go. What surprised me was that after reading about a hundred entries, it became clear that there was something pure, natural and blissfully unrestrained about having children discover the knowledge they need on their own.
While there's no set of rules or any exact guidelines to follow for Unschooling, the main characteristics is that it's organic, interest-driven, and completely self-directed by the "student". It's allowing your children the freedom to learn at their own pace, led by their own curiosities, and towards their own goals. They are able to pursue interests that they feel passionate about without being tethered to a classroom schedule. Most successful unschooling parents report their kid's progress in odd stages - perhaps one decides to become a music aficionado early on, while another is fixated with numbers, yet doesn't learn to read until they're 10-years old. Does it truly matter what order we learn things in? A question that kept popping up from skittish parents who couldn't imagine letting go of the reigns was, "What if all they want to do is play video games all day?". The unschooling parent's answer: "You let them". Now, before you clasp your hand over your mouth and recoil with horror (like I did) imagining your child bouncing around from one seemingly worthless activity to another, I urge you to read a few entries of some successful unschooling parents so that you can truly see the "progress" they report. I was shocked to learn that kids have a natural tendency to want to know as much as they can about most everything, and even more flabbergasted to discover that some seasoned "unschooled" teenagers were actually applying to colleges early and boasting huge accomplishments in subjects you'd think they wouldn't have touched with a 10-foot pole, since it was all voluntary on their parts. John Holt had it right all along - it's not the children who crave structure - it's the parents. And that's because we were taught in our own compulsory school careers to behave and submit to what we were being groomed to be: obedient, compliant, unremarkable "workers" for a society that doesn't appreciate uniqueness and will NEVER reward freethinking revolutionaries.
Despite that appeal, I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't implement unschooling until I was confident that I'd dutifully taught my children the basics up to at least a 5th-grade level. After that - I could totally visualize our homeschool life evolve into an interest-driven, student-directed affair. I'd like to think that I'd have instilled a love of learning and a good academic base to spring forward from, so that my children would be passionate enough and self-governing enough to "write" their own curriculum. And I'd like to think that I'll know them well enough to trust that they'd see it through to be able to follow their dreams and go as far as their aspirations will take them.
My three kids, as of this writing, are under 3-years old. The idea of them learning at home makes me absolutely dizzy with pride and excitement. Knowing that they aren't being tossed into a system that has very little concern about their individual progress or accomplishments puts me at ease. While I realize that the next decade and a half of my life is going to be centered around making sure they are receiving all the stimuli and encouragement they need to succeed as adults, I embrace the challenge - intimidating as it may be - and look forward to being a part of their journeys.
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