A Day in the Unschooling Life

John Holt Unkinder

It's been a long time between posts, but we're back! (Not before some stern words from one of our fans LOL, I expect to see her comment!). It's a new year, my big girl turns 4 in two weeks. This would be the year that both Sarah Jane's big girl and mine would be starting kindergarten. 2012 is the year I am making one of my dreams a reality: unschool kinder in our local area.

Where we live there are some great programs, groups and activities for children over the age of 6, but for those of us home educating from the outset, I have not found anything for the not-kindergarteners and not-pre-schoolers. But we know that Sarah Jane, myself and our friend "Alemona" are unschooling and have children 4 years and under, and on the weekend we discovered another friend, new to our circle is also considering unschooling and has a child around the same age. My dream is a weekly gathering that changes venue and hosts from week to week. Whoever is host for that week selects the venue and the activities to strew for the children (who can take or leave the activities). It will be an opportunity for home educating parents to connect with one another and share our journeys, our kids will spend time with other kids living the same lifestyle as their families and at the end of the week those of us who struggle with labels like "productivity", "socialisation", "proof of learning", will be able to say "we achieved something this week" :)

On the weekend Sarah Jane helped me come up with a name for our Unkinder and I made a Facebook group for us to keep one another up to date with upcoming events. We decided to name our Unkinder after a famous author who has inspired unschoolers through his works, introducing: John Holt Unkinder:

"My unkinder vision: a weekly gathering of home learning locals during the day when some friends are at kindergarten. Rotating venues: local hubs of learning: libraries, swimming pools, the beach, parks and our homes. Each week a different family strews the path for the group.

1 week the kids might have a craft project at Saree's house, the next week they might have access to Spanish worksheets at mine. Totally up to you what we do and up to the kids whether they do it or not. Whether the kids chose to do the activities offered to them or strew their own paths with each other, regardless, we parents will get to connect with each other on a weekly basis and share the journey.

Meets will be based in our local suburb and surrounds but visitors from afar are welcome. Children of all ages are welcome, strewing will most likely target the 4 year mark, but being free-range types we don't mind if our kindergarteners are 4, 12, or 30."

Our first day of semester starts on Tuesday February 7 with a Not-the-1st-day-of-kinder swim at a local aquatic centre. If you're a home educating family please feel free to join the group and our first event, and let other home learning families know about us. We'd love to meet more local unschoolers, or those considering home educating to know about us.

Unschooling Works! -Unschool Monday

I'm feeling happy and relieved, unschooling works ;) Last week Iris started writing numbers. No one has taught her how to do that. She saw some numbers on my desk and said "Look Mum, you have 1 and a 3 a, but no 2. I will draw you a 2" and then she got a crayon and wrote a perfect 2, I've never seen her do anything like that before. Then she thought she'd have a go at writing 3, found it a bit difficult but found it a bit hard so moved on to 4 and aced that first go.

Then she realised we live at number 24 so she put the two numbers together and wrote the number that we live at. She's very pleased with herself too.

I'm joining in Unschool Monday at Owlet.

Some Hope

Too cool for school

I've been pondering what our lives would be like if I hadn't discovered homeschooling. How different it would be.

I am so glad that I never took anyone's advice about putting Iris in childcare and kinder, or any structured environment. The only reason I realised that she is different and not just "being difficult" is because I spend so much time with her and am connected to her.

Iris would have already been at kinder for a year now, just as we're getting her diagnosis in our homeschool journey. If she had entered the education system she would've been labelled a "difficult child" and "Sarah's child and Sarah never coped with school". 

There would have been so many "justs". "She's just difficult", "she's just bad tempered". With hindsight I probably have Aspergers too. Instead, for my entire school life I was "just rigid", "just over emotional".

Understanding the similarities between Iris and I helps because you can almost call me a functioning adult in the world. Eventually I learned how to be a functioning member of society and have relationships. It gives me hope that Iris will be okay because I'm okay.

A Quote For Sarah Jane

"Unschooling is simply a way to tailor learning to the specific needs of each child and each family. No two unschooling families follow the same path-and no two children within the same unschooling family are likely to go exactly in the same direction"

- Mary Griffith, The Unschooling Handbook, page ix

Unschool & Aspergers? Unschool Monday

Our unschooling journey isn't going to work the way I thought it would because Iris has Aspergers. In one way it's positive because four years of strange social behaviour, tantrums and obsessions are explained. But I'm wondering what this means for unschooling and our family.

For the past couple of years I've wondered why following the traditional radical unschooling approach wasn't working. Why she wasn't self-moderating, why she wasn't initiating play,  why any activities we participated in and excursions ended in literal tears from both of us. With her diagnosis these things are beginning to make sense. 

But if radical unschooling isn't going to work in our family, what is our homeschooling going to look like? Is it possible to unschool a child with Aspergers?

Rationally I can see why she's with me. I have resources others don't have. But I'm still really sad about it. The Godmother I chose for Iris is perfect, she has resources to help, with her own child on the spectrum. We have people in our lives who can offer support, who have experience with children like Iris.

One of the ideas I have to let go of is that if I put in enough effort, enough activities, enough love and resources it would look like what other unschooling families seem to have. I wondered why our days didn't just flow like other families. In other families it seemed that if they gave their children enough freedom  there would be less conflict and more harmony. But it wasn't like that for us.

I wanted the flow, the natural rhythm of the day. There is no flow in our house. Right now I am sad, mourning what can't be in our family.

I'm joining in Owlet's Unschool Monday.

A Day in the Unschooling Life

This week I decided to record what Harriet did all day on a day when we did not have any plans to catch up with friends. A home day that included one short trip out (which she slept through lol).