“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.
~ Heather C
Yes, betrayal, that is what it feels like when I listen to those old schoolish voices that sometimes sneak up on me. I have been unschooling for several years but I still need deschooling encouragement from time to time. Thank you.
Thanks, Lydia. The chance to learn _just because_ feels so powerful. No one is looking at us, judging us for what we’re interested in. When I look at the world this way, I’m astounded at how big it gets.
Oh my! Can I just say how much I *love* reading about another Shakespeare geek passing on an appreciation of totally great drama to a new generation? We totally geek out on Shakespeare around here and I’m not ashamed to own that. Geek isn’t a bad word. In fact, my public-schooled-for-too-many-years unschooled kids will beam with pleasure and say, “Thank you” when they’re called geeks. They learned that from me, too. To me, “geek” just means I see a broader, less limited world to fascinate me than the average person and that’s something that brings me no shame at all.
As far as unschooling Shakespeare I think you’re doing it exactly right. Expose early and let them take what they can from it when they can. There are so many layers to Shakespearean literature that once people get past the antiquated language barrier there really is something for everyone. Especially in his complex works like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” A little comedy, a little drama, some love, some action. It’s all there. Bravo to you!
I stand and applaud your meaning of geek. And it’s not a label that I mind, exactly. Except I think it has a connotation of being cut off, socially, because of your learning. That’s what astonishes me right now–how entering this conversation of books is part of a relationship that grows and deepens because of the learning we do together.
And thanks for the support–I hope this early exposure means the plays always seem reachable for them. I’m amazed myself at how alive all of it seems through the eyes of a toddler and kindergartener.
I love the sentiment of BECOMING the learner again. So important!
Thanks! I think it’s something I didn’t exactly anticipate when choosing this course. I wouldn’t homeschool if it wasn’t working for my kids, but I sure love the fact that it’s working great for me
Wonderful! I could have written this post ten years ago.
And guess what? Even though two of mine have graduated and the last will start high school next year (at home), we are STILL learning together!
That’s the other thing that’s so exciting, Elizabeth. That this journey together is _just beginning_. Wow.
I love the idea of each of you exploring Shakespeare at your own level, all together! You can appreciate some of the finer literary points while the girls respond to the musicality, the story, the wonder. Yes!
The other cool moment was when we were reading one of the Narnia books, and Lewis makes a reference to Bottom getting an ass’s head. My eldest looked at me with such surprise that the books could talk about each other.
I’m with Mari – around here, “geek” is an honorable term. My kids (who are older than yours) are part of a homeschool play group that does one Shakespeare play and one lighter play every year. Usually it’s the comedies but last fall we tackled Romeo and Juliet and they all got a great understanding of the play.
I love that idea, especially because I am seeing more and more that these plays aren’t really “reading” material, but doing material. They’re meant to be alive, and active.
I will co-opt geekdom for our own purposes, perhaps
I kinda connect the word geek with the idea of cool. Geek is by no means an insult. It’s just who I am. I have started approaching things as a learner more recently and I’m finding it so refreshing. My kids are becoming interested in things hat I’m interested in… I suppose because they can see how happy learning makes me.
Thanks for sharing.
I am digging this modest survey of what people think of the term “geek”. I find my own opinion shifts. Looked it up in the dictionary, it does have a pejorative meaning, esp “when used by outsiders.” Also: (and here I am geeking out) it means a carnival performer that performs disgusting acts, like biting heads off chickens.
I think I don’t mind owning it for myself, but when I think of applying it to my daughters, I hesitate. WHen they’re old enough to smile and call themselves geeks, I’ll probably be fine with it. Until then, I am really in awe of their learning. How could I think of that awe in a pejorative way?