Our family didn’t start out as unschoolers. In fact, I had never even heard of the word “unschooling” until after we were already doing it. Before I go back to the beginning and explain how we got to where we are now, here is an explanation of unschooling for those of you that are unfamiliar with the term:
“Unschooling is an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Unschooling students learn through their natural life experiences including play, household responsibilities, personal interests and curiosity, internships and work experience, travel, books, elective classes, family, mentors, and social interaction. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities initiated by the children themselves, believing that the more personal learning is, the more meaningful, well-understood and therefore useful it is to the child. While courses may occasionally be taken, unschooling questions the usefulness of standard curricula, conventional grading methods, and other features of traditional schooling in the education of each unique child.” (Wikipedia)
So, let’s start at the beginning. My husband and I both come from families with teachers/administrators where formal education was emphasized as extremely important and necessary to be successful. We were both raised in a traditional public school system, went to college, got jobs, you know the drill (I do have a sub-story about my education and career path, but I will save it for another day). We were married for 11 years before having children and we just settled into a typical life raising our son and daughter.
They went to part-time preschool from ages 2-4 and when my son turned 5 and fall came around, he went to kindergarten while my daughter, age 4, went to pre-k at the same school. That first year was great. Kindergarten and pre-k are fun, and learning comes with lots of play; and for the first time in years I had a few hours to myself every day. I was sucked in to the life of the stay at home mom with kids going to elementary school, volunteering at the school a few days a week, wearing yoga pants, meeting for coffee while talking about how wonderful it is to have time to myself without kids nagging me. (Ugh! When I think about it now it makes me sad that I ever fell into that trap!)
Year two comes around and it’s ok. I am still sucked in. Overall, both kids are doing well but now I am having to push for my son to be able to bring home higher level books to read. But the teacher wants him to start with the lower levels even though he is bored, and they are way too easy. It was little things like this all year long. Nothing major, just frustrating. Year three comes along. I am still sucked in. But now, my daughter has a stomachache most mornings before school and doesn’t want to go. I am assured by her teacher that she is fine, and she enjoys being at school; it’s just separation anxiety we decided. And now my son is coming home from school frustrated that his teacher doesn’t understand him and he’s in trouble for stupid little things that he didn’t even do. Toward the end of the year I had yet another conference with the teacher and when I told her that she made him feel bad about himself (his exact words to me) and he didn’t understand why she didn’t believe him when he was telling the truth, her face dropped and she was visibly mortified. She made an effort after that, but the year was almost over. During that year I had started asking myself why my children not seem as happy and confident as they used to; it was the first inkling that something was wrong. I had never thought about homeschooling before, but it entered my mind at that time.
Well, it was time for year 4 to begin and my son was going to be in the all gifted and talented class with a beloved male teacher. I thought, this is going to be the year that he is challenged and not bored, he is going to thrive. And my daughter was always very quiet and never had any issues at school so in my mind she was ok too. Suddenly, I was getting reports that my daughter was talking too much. When I asked her what was going on she said she was bored because she got work done early but wasn’t allowed to get up from her desk – not even to get a book! And my son loved his teacher but still came home from school every day in tears saying that he just couldn’t be himself. They were both sad and disinterested in school and learning. They were losing their spark and what was going on at school was changing them, but not in a good way.
Why was I allowing this to happen? I started questioning everything I knew about public school and education and I got mad. Mad at the system that was tearing down my children. Mad at the system that had made four years of mornings miserable while we rushed and yelled and hurried out the door. Mad at the system that made me fight with my children to get them to do busy work at home when they already knew the information. Mad at myself for letting the system control me and my family.
I decided at the end of that 4th year that we would start homeschooling. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my husband. I filled out all the online paperwork, sent in records, paid the fee, and registered them with an online academy. When it was all done, I told my husband the decision I made, and he was skeptical but could see my determination and went along with it. When I told my mom, she looked visibly ill. After a few weeks, she came around and decided it would be fun to help us do school at home. The kids each got their own new computer so they could do their lessons and not have to share or fight over one screen – it was going to be amazing!
The first two weeks of online homeschooling were not amazing – they were awful! I made the classic homeschooling mistake and tried to recreate school at home. I had a schedule and lesson plans and textbooks and workbooks. The kids met with their online teachers a couple times a week and I was supposed to just have to support them. Well, my daughter wanted me to sit with her and do absolutely everything with her. She had suddenly become completely helpless and unable to do anything unless I or her nana was with her. And my son spent most of his time trying to sneak playing games and watching videos on his computer rather than doing his lessons. It was not going as well as I had hoped.
So, I regrouped. Instead of me deciding what lessons and when they would do them, I had a list of things they needed to do for the week and they could do them in any order at any time as long as they were finished by Friday. That was working better. They felt more in control and we settled into a good routine. After a few months, it became obvious that a lot of their lessons were busy work – one of the things I wanted to get away from by homeschooling. I started looking at the lessons and I marked the ones that seemed unnecessary as completed so they didn’t have to do them. By the end of that year we all were in a mindset of just getting lessons checked off the list so we could move on and do something the kids really wanted to do. I realized that virtual school wasn’t working for us. Learning should be enjoyable and fun and not just trying to check things off a list. I had to regroup, again.
Year two of homeschooling was going to be different and better! I found a small private school (classes of no more than 6 kids) that met two days a week for four hours. The director was wonderful! She was flexible and very much about meeting her students individualized needs. It was going really well, and the kids were happy for the first couple of months. While doing virtual school we had met some other homeschoolers and found homeschool activities, but they were all on the two days a week the kids were now at the private school. They were really missing those friends and activities and had started getting frustrated with some of the “schoolish” work they were doing in your typical subjects. It was almost time for an extended Thanksgiving break (2 weeks), my dad was coming to visit (the week after), and then there was an extended Christmas break (4 weeks). It was scary, but I decided we wouldn’t go back to the private school after the Thanksgiving break. I was going to regroup, yet again.
We decided to just take a break and relax for the next several weeks, enjoy the holidays and family, and I would figure out what our next steps would be. And then something unexpected happened. My husband was offered a job that he couldn’t refuse – it was truly a great offer, but it was in a different state. We had lived in the same place for 15 years and as hard as it would be to say goodbye to it all, we decided to make the move and start a new chapter of our lives. It all happened extremely fast. He was starting his job in January. We still had to sell the house and find a new one. Within two weeks, I had the house staged to put on the market and half of our belongings were in storage. My husband started his job and flew home on the weekends.
We didn’t know how long it would take for the house to sell so I didn’t want to start any new homeschooling program that we would just have to leave anyway. While we waited we just enjoyed life without any set schedule, subjects, or lessons. We played outside, played games, visited with friends, watched television and movies, traveled, went to museums and science centers, and did anything we felt like any time we felt like it. The kids were thriving and growing without any of the schoolish stuff. I didn’t know it, but we were unschooling. I still hadn’t even heard of that word. It was all just very organic and natural.
A few months later, we were in our new house in our new state. In the first month, I managed to find a Boy Scout troop, Girl Scout troop, music academy, sports lessons, and homeschool social groups. We jumped right into our new community and continued to stay busy. It took a while to get the whole house unpacked so I didn’t have time to worry about a homeschool academic program. I did find a math tutor and she came to the house once a week to work with the kids. That went on for a while but eventually we stopped doing that too.
We’ve been in our new place for about two and half years now and continue to live as unschoolers. I know what the word means now (lol) and advocate this lifestyle to others. You don’t have to start out unschooling to end up unschooling. Never in a million years would I have thought that I would advocate against the public school system and advocate for total freedom of choice when it comes to education and learning. But here we are. I am thankful every day that my family has been able to break free from the system and forge a new path that I hope others will join us on.
Curious about what kinds of things my kids do as unschoolers? Look for a new post soon and I’ll share more about what our days/weeks/months look like.