Unschooling thoughts

We have been unschooling since my children were born. In essence what this means to me is that the learning that happens is directed and initiated by my children. For example, when they ask the time I tell them. This is not the same as telling them how a clock works and slipping in the basics of how to tell the time one's self while the subject is at hand. It is just answering the question asked. It is twenty minutes past six I say, as we both look at the clock. That is it. Or I sometimes might add, the big hand is at the number four and the little hand is at six, so it must be twenty past six. But really it feels a little patronising to do that. Like my hidden agenda is to teach them how to tell the time, rather than assist with their own learning - it felt sort of false to elaborate (would I say that to another adult if they asked the same question?). I am not doubting that knowing how to tell the time is a valuable skill, it is, but their aims and questions were directed at finding out what time was right there and then (not how to tell them time for themselves or what the various numbers around the clock might mean) and so my answer needs to reflect that in a simple way. Since I am using telling the time as an example here I'll tell you how my older son recently learned this skill.

I bought a watch for him a year ago thinking he'd like one since he had been asking about the time fairly often. But he was not so bothered about it and never once wore it. Or not for very long, it would be on one minute and then off the next. And he never asked me how it worked. He said to me later that the strap hurt his arm - it was a ridiculous Velcro one. Fast forward a year later and he finds the watch in a draw and asks me if we can get a new strap in town from the watch shop he has seen. We go and he picks one out and the jeweller person fits it on with little screws. He asks me what time it is and I say quarter past two and then he asks me a few more questions - I forget what. BUT for the remainder of the day (and ever since!) he tells me several times a day what the time is. And he is nearly always right. That first day he told me every five minutes, along with telling every person we met. In one day he learned for himself how to tell the time and when he was stuck, he asked me. I have no doubt that over the years and months he was absorbing the face of the clocks we saw and taking in what he needed until he could do it for himself.

This is not a story to highlight how fabulous the learning of unschooling is compared to the schooled way of sitting at a desk and filling out worksheets and booklets and having many a lesson about how to tell the time (although it does seem rather laborious and unnecessary when it can obviously happen spontaneously) - rather I thought it was just pretty cool that I had not ever really properly taught him in the traditional sense.

It highlighted for me (when I often get anxious that we have no written record of what my children learn) that learning happens from the inside and springs best from self motivation and a desire to learn. When that is in place the learning happens super fast. These sorts of things reinforce for me my feelings that unschooling is A Good Thing. That learning happens every day all of the time. That sitting in a classroom and filling exercise book after exercise book doesn't guarantee anything is learned or retained. I spent five years learning German in school, passed my GCSE in it and really doubt now if I could ever hold a conversation with a German beyond hello and how are you. Friends of ours recently took a trip to Italy and in the six weeks leading up to it the children and mother took home every available Italian learning kit from the library and by the time they went they all were able to order food and ask directions and understand basic signs and what Italians were saying to them. When they needed and wanted to learn a language, in context, meaning they were not learning it for the language's own sake or to pass an exam, but were going to apply it and *live* it, they were more than capable of it.

This brings up for me how important it is to be learning as a part of life, not in the abstract, but by doing and being. We don't need to watch a film about the Post Office we can just go and post a letter; buy our stamp deciding which to purchase - first class or second? Talk to the post lady about her dog, hear her telling someone else that their parcel was too big to go through the letter box they would have to pay extra.... all of these little encounters and interactions are such valuable learning about the way our world works, contributing to individuals who can easily navigate living in the real world. The child that has pocket money and saves and spends is doing valuable maths, as is he when he is baking and measuring quantities, or weighing out how much extra is needed when we need to double the recipe to fit more people.... The child who writes a list or letter or email or makes and addresses a card is writing and spelling - but more so is learning these skills because these things are part of living a real life and doing real things, useful, purposeful. The learning has meaning. Which is exactly what unschooling is. Simply put. Living Life!