Homeschool chat: unschooling means choosing to learn

(edited slightly; originally posted 3/11)

Homeschool mom's job: line them up for success, aim as well as you can,  then take what you get- knowing that ultimately they choose whether to smile...

I have heard comments, "I can see letting teens plan their own education to some extent, but I don't see how it works for young children."  At my house, the early years, or preschool, is through age 8 or so. The children spend their early years learning to fill their own time. The traditional setting dictates to a child how to spend nearly every moment of his day- wake up early enough to get ready, put on a uniform, get to school on time, sit at a desk at this moment, walk to another class at that time, eat now or never, do some more work now, read this at this time, go home when it's over, do homework, play if there is time, eat, do chores, go to bed. My belief is that it is important to learn to fill your own time- not to depend entirely on an outwardly imposed schedule- for moral, intellectual and social development. Becoming a truly responsible person requires the opportunity to risk irresponsibility: freedom of choice, freedom of action, and freedom to experience failure (or "consequences") results in a responsible person. Children who are unschooled have the freedom to choose and act and experience failures that lead to nurturing a true responsibility that comes from a core character quality rather than simply acting to gather rewards or avoid punishments.

The child who does not know how to occupy his own time can become morally stunted: she whines that she is bored, they destroy things out of boredom, and he makes trouble to create his own excitement, interest or attention. This child is overly concerned with self: how good am I, what makes me come out on top?  The intellectually stunted child presses you to tell her the answers to all her questions, he gives up easily, and they make trouble for others demanding to be provided with information and interesting activities. This child is overly concerned with frivolity and things: what amuses me, what is pretty, what excites my senses? This child can become dull to stimulus and crave more and more, addicted to anything that might stimulate the mind passively. Becoming a truly inquisitive person requires opportunities to experience a vacuum: no set curriculum, no set schedule, no set evaluation methods. The void of a set curriculum gives children freedom to learn so much more! The void of a schedule means every moment is a learning moment.  The void of evaluation means the child becomes aware and adept at self-determination.

Children who cannot occupy their own time become socially stunted.  This child can only operate in a competitive peer-influenced and adult-managed environment, is easily depressed or influenced, and makes trouble for others in an attempt to self-determination against the norms. This child is overly concerned with measuring herself against peers, media, fashions and whims. This child becomes a bore and a bully. Becoming a socially forward person requires mixing continually with diverse ages, characters, and experiences and learning to put oneself in such stimulating environments. The traditional classroom, scope and sequence, and age segregation simply herds children through processes that allow a stamp of approval that the child went through the process; there is never any real measurement of the personhood and no real concept of the place in the culture for such a product.

With the pressure to improve schools, increase learning, and submit to standardized tests, when is the child supposed to learn to occupy himself?

The early years should be spent in complete freedom- transitioning from babyhood into young adulthood is the time to learn to self-regulate. To go to bed, to wake up on one's own, to feed oneself with health-promoting foods, to care about the world and others around them and to seek to understand it through exploring, experimentation and evaluation as well as reading others' explorations. Without outside pressure, children will choose to become experts on dinosaurs, robots, wars and weapons, period costumes, historical figures, inventions and inventors, and any other number of things. They will learn to read if read to, spoken to, and given plenty of rich materials and free time away from too many peers. They will learn arithmetic in the same environment, particularly when allowed to cook, travel near home, earn money and spend it. They will learn to occupy their time and in so doing begin to seem like true pre-adults with their big eyes, deep discoveries and logical remarks. Then, they can enter a season of honing and becoming corporate (large body) leaders.

Five things that parents of school children can do to add a bit of unschooling to their curricula

How much carefree time daily are you giving your kids? How do you plan to incorporate a little unschooling into your chid's day?