I have been reading up on a lot of non traditional ways of educational for children. Montessori, Steiner and now Unschooling. Yes, you read that right. UNSCHOOLING. When I first heard of the term, in my mother’s group, I honestly laughed. How can someone “unschool” your child/children? Isn’t one of our responsibility as a parent to a child is to give them a form of education? And isn’t education school?
Now, I was brought up with the traditional way of education, you go to school, a teacher teaches you and you learn a set of curriculums and you graduate. That's it. No ifs, ands or buts. That is what an education would be for me. I didn’t know any other methods out there.
Back to when I heard the term “Unschooling” and me laughing, I was asking the girls, so when you “unschool” your children, does it mean that you do not send them to school or follow a set of curriculums or etc? How are they going to go into University (or College if you are in the US). With no entrance exams or not set formal ways to see how far you have become how is a University going to determine if they would accept you? No one knew what the right answer was.
THIS article from the Shake, made me curious once again with the term Unschooling. Zoey mentioned that she was home schooled throughout her primary years and their way of learning was “unschooling”. There is that word again, I thought.
I looked around and googled the term "Unschooling", and this is what I found and explained it the best (and by best I mean makes the most sense to me):-
" One alternative approach is "unschooling", also known as "natural learning", "experience-based learning", or "independent learning". Unschooling isn't a method, it is a way of looking at children and at life. It is based on trust that parents and children will find the paths that work best for them - without depending on educational institutions, publishing companies, or experts to tell them what to do.
Unschooling does not mean that parents can never teach anything to their children, or that children should learn about life entirely on their own without the help and guidance of their parents. Unschooling does not mean that parents give up active participation in the education and development of their children and simply hope that something good will happen. Finally, since many unschooling families have definite plans for college, unschooling does not even mean that children will never take a course in any kind of a school.” – Earl Stevens (The Natural Child Project)
After reading that, little did I know, I was already “unschooling” my child at home. I set out her toys at home to invite her to play with it or sometimes I set out her toys or learning material according to her interest that week or month or season. That way she will learn more of what she already knows. For example, learning about life cycle of a butterfly (after reading “The Hungry Caterpillar”), well, ok I cheated a little, she was learning this at day care as well and I just made sure it flowed at home as well, and her learning and interest continues at home as well. I will touch more on how I set up invitation to play at home in another post.
When the Lil’ Tiger ask me how things work, I rarely give her the right answer, instead, I ask her “I don’t know LT, let’s find out together” and off we go. Of course her interest at this time isn’t too complex and things that we, as an adult would know the answer to. These are all the basic forms of Unschooling. Who knew? And it’s true what they say, children learn more when they are interested in something. Certainly works for me in when I was in school. I scored good marks on subjects that interest me the most and I was thinking, why can’t the school just let me learn subjects that interest me and not subjects that make me want to cry like Physics or Calculus, in which I failed miserably. Hmmm... interesting.
This is just the surface of "unschooling", I know I need to read more on the subject. So I am off to read one of John Holt's, who is considered the Father of Unschooling, book "How Children Learn".
DO YOU KNOW ANY OTHER METHODS OF LEARNING/TEACHING? ANY TEACHERS OUT THERE?
*Disclaimer – I am not saying that the traditional way of learning is not good for a child, of course each child and family is different and it is totally up to the parent’s to oversee how their children get their education, whether by learning it the traditional way or the Montessori way or Steiner way or the “Unschooling” way. Some children are well suited in the traditional way of schooling and some don’t. I totally understand that.
