Unschooling, Shakespeare, and Geeking Out

by: Heather C - May 17th, 2012   8 Comments

“What’s this, Mama?” my oldest daughter asked. She held out a lavishly illustrated fairy tale we’d just gotten from the library.

“You want me to read it?” I asked.

“Yeah!” she said, jumping up and down. She settled into my lap and I opened to the first page.

None of this was at all atypical. Except my heart was beating fast.

Because the book was a retelling of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And I had stumbled across it by accident in the library. It’s probably over her head, I thought, but I set it in the front of our library book basket, wondering if she’d bite.

She did all right. In spades.

Over the next few weeks, we read and re-read Midsummer. We wove the stories into our oral bedtime tales, I dressed her in fairy wings as she was Cobweb or Mustard Seed or Titania, the Queen of the Fairies herself. We watched a ballet version, and then a movie adaptation.

As the Shakespeare fever took hold, I kept wanting to pinch myself to wake from my own dream. We were experiencing Shakespeare in a way I hadn’t even really dreamed was possible. I kept thinking about our experience, narrating its wonder to myself. One day, I wrote in my journal, “Geeking out on Shakespeare again with the girls.”

I stopped.

I felt a twinge.

And then I felt a surge of anger.

Because nothing about our experience with Shakespeare had been “geeky.” And thinking about it that way seemed like a betrayal.

I’m a novice unschooler, my oldest just finishing kindergarten. I’m still figuring out how to do our learning. And our experience keeps surprising me. One big surprise? How freeing it is to me personally to experience learning in a new way.

I was a good student in school, but sometimes, socially, that worked against me. Liking school subjects too much, being engrossed in them, reading books above grade level—all of that was suspect. In high school I became a Christian, and started hanging out with the Christians, which happened to move me “up” a rung, socially. I stopped eating lunch with the science-lovers and drama geeks. I still counted them as friends, but usually watched them from afar.

One lunchtime, I remember watching my old buddies set up an elaborate picnic, with patterned sarongs, a few lawn chairs, cushions, plates. Someone must have packed the accoutrements in their car ahead of time. They reclined, passed platters. I smiled, a little envious of their audacity.

“Who do they think they are?” someone said behind me. I turned to see a friend of mine, a guy I generally thought of as nice, sneering at the motley display in front of us. “They’re such weirdos.”

I was not one to speak up at injustice, but this time I did. “Those are my friends,” I said. “I think it’s cool.”

But I didn’t cross the lawn to join the fun.

I’m older now; I don’t care who knows I like reading books and writing. But I find the habits I formed in school run deep. I’m tentative about so many things. I’m not about to set up a Elizabethan feast in full view of snarky peers.

I was an English major and loved reading books deeply, studying them not just to learn the plot, but ask questions about why the book was structured just so, how the author had achieved her ends. Recently, I started asking: why not do that even when I don’t have a class to study for?

I got nature field guides for my daughters, and realized I could use them myself to learn about the trees that had always been anonymous to me. I’ve always thought of myself as someone that doesn’t know much about nature. Recently, I started wondering: why not change that?

I’m reconsidering skills that people usually acquire in childhood—swimming, say, or basic math. What if I approached them as a learner, not because my kids need to know them, but because they are intrinsically interesting.

I see how much of the world I have shut myself off from. Sure, I have limited time to explore new subjects now. But it’s not so much that I need to do all these things immediately, but that as my daughters see the world, I’m realizing we’ll discover it together. The world is seeming more alive, more deep, more imbued with God’s delight.

Which brings me back to Shakespeare. As an adult, I’ve seen a few live plays, watched a few movies for pleasure, but in general, I’ve approached the Bard on an intellectual level. He’s someone to be read, to feel a little intimidated by, a lofty peak to scale.

But my daughters aren’t intimidated. They don’t get all of it, but they don’t care. Shakespeare doesn’t seem that different to them than the Disney Princesses, or the Narnia books, or the dog-eared copy of Aesop’s fables with its talking lions and crafty foxes. It’s all Story, it’s all play, it’s all magic.

I see the wonder God has put into them growing day by day. I see them go further in to that wonder and excitement. And with a growing delight, I’m realizing I can join the party.

Manifesting a Nest

by: Lauren Fisher - May 16th, 2012   2 Comments

How will we make sure our children don’t miss out on learning everything they need to know? Our answer to this is — by faith, we’re certain that they will receive the learning opportunity at the right time for them.

Here’s a recent, practical example.

Aisha was sitting on my lap recently. “What is a bird’s nest made of?” she asks — out of the blue. I feel triumphant by the question — surely this is a clear demonstration that although we had previously been talking about food, Aisha’s unschooled mind is ranging wider in search of truth and knowledge.

We talk about what could possibly be in a bird’s nest, and then Aisha expresses a desire to see one. Looking up in the nearby trees, I scan them for a nest. There are none in sight, and I can’t manifest one on the spot. So I give my reply — in faith: “At the right time, we’ll find a nest and you’ll get to look at it.”

In fact, I often reply something similar to requests, because I know that I can’t predict the future. So I suggest to our children that they present their requests to God because He is the one who can bring things to pass if they are good and right.

Fast-forward a couple of days, and David and I are walking up a creek. I spy a nest, neatly made at eye-level on a branch overhanging the water. It’s close, accessible and — yes! exactly what Aisha was asking for.

I ask David to bring our girls so they can see the nest, and I sit down to observe it and identify its maker. Soon a willy wagtail briefly returns to the nest, shy and wary of my presence.

This lesson is what we asked for. This lesson is what we received. Thank you, God! He had already designed this nest when he put the desire in Aisha’s heart to learn about nests.

When we have learning experiences like this, how can we doubt that our children will learn what they need to, at the right time? We don’t. And so we unschool in confidence — and in faith.

~ Lauren

photo by Raimundas Gvildys

A Moment of Doubt

by: Jennifer - May 15th, 2012   24 Comments

The room was nearly silent. The awkwardness was palpable. Even the speech therapist … bubbly, outgoing and friendly until just a few weeks prior, absolutely refused to look us in the eye, instead staring down at some imaginary spot on the table. I remember looking at the clock – a standard issue, one-in-every-room school clock – and watching the second hand slowly sweep around until I heard the audible click that signified that another excruciatingly long minute had gone by.

There were five of us gathered around the table: my husband and me, a speech therapist, an occupational therapist, and some sort of head of the special education department. We were there to discuss the next course of action for our then four-year-old first child. He’d started to resist their recommended therapies, crying at every session. They were strongly recommending a special needs preschool, and were in visible disagreement when we declined. They thought he was too attached to me, and that I needed to “be strong” and let him go.

It wasn’t destined to be a happy meeting of the minds.

He needed the socialization! He needed to catch up! He needed more intensive therapy! He needed to learn to separate from Mom and Dad!

I felt sick. I’d never questioned our decision to unschool until that very moment. But in that room, under that fire, I questioned. Not only was our schooling decision under harsh critique, so too was my job as a mother. He was having issues separating because of me. They weren’t able to do their job because of me. He wasn’t going to reach his full potential because of me. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even speak for fear of crying (that would come later in the car.) My heart told me one thing, and my head told me not to listen. Was unschooling really the right decision? Should we send him to the special ed preschool after all? It felt as though his entire life hinged on that very moment.

One week later, our choice was clear. We’d reached an impasse with his therapists, and the current situation was no longer going to work. Everybody involved was miserable, most notably our son. We pulled him out of the system, renewed our decision to unschool, and didn’t look back.

That meeting was eleven years ago. I have never, even for a moment, even in the darkest corners of my mind, regretted our decision. Unschooling was the best choice we ever made, not just for Spencer but for all of our children. And when people ask if unschooling is really suited for a child deemed “special needs,” I do not hesitate.

Unschooling would work for any child, but it works especially well for a child with special needs.  (And it should be noted too, that when it comes to unschooling there really is no such thing as “special needs.”  We all have our own unique needs.)  By its very nature, it is a completely individualized, personalized, respectful path; one that takes into account differences in personality, temperament, and learning styles. It is a way to fully honor and support your child – any child – and unschooling has allowed me to watch Spencer, along with his three siblings, soar and grow into who he is. Not who I want him to be, or who the schools want him to be, or who the “experts” want him to be … but who He wants him to be.

When I think of that meeting, of that day eleven years ago, I only wish I hadn’t doubted … even if the doubt began and ended in the very same room. I wish I hadn’t questioned what I knew in my heart to be true. I’m so unspeakably grateful that we made the decision that we did, but I can’t help but wish that I’d been stronger. I can’t help but wish that when they said “You need to put him in this school. You need to let him go,” that I’d had the courage to stand up and announce,

“You know what? As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

~ Jennifer

(Photo by Familylee)