The way I see it, there are two forms of education: guessing what people should know and compelling this learning or allowing the student to lead the way.
Fear that failure will occur comes with both paths, but fear of what gets lost along the way from the former overwhelms me.
I spend the majority of my days hanging out with my husband and kids. I signed up for this and love that about my life, but if not kept in check, sometimes I’ll forget about myself. I think this happens to a lot of homeschooling parents.
We become so hyper-focused on our kids’ interests, hobbies, and goals that we forget to find things for ourselves to enjoy. Some of my go-to activities are reading a good book, taking a long walk, and having a soak in the tub, but my all-time favorite is playing tennis. If I could, I’d play tennis every day. It’s my favorite hobby, gets me exercise, and is a blast. Honestly, I should try to make this a part of my life almost daily. Guilt will start to seep in if I spend a lot of time doing things I love, and I’m not sure why. I don’t understand the parental guilt of doing something away from our kids. I know it’s not a healthy way to feel, so it must be lousy programming.
Here’s my challenge to you all: Do something you absolutely love every day or as often as you can for the next month, and stop feeling guilty about it. You deserve to follow your passions and interests just as much as your kids. You’ll also be sending a much better message to them that you matter and spending time on yourself is crucial and doesn’t have to go away just because you grow up.
As an unschooling mom, the two most common questions I receive are, “How do you teach reading?” and “How do they learn math?”
Today, I’d like to talk about the reading one. My three daughters, 12 and twin 8-year-olds have successfully learned how to read.
Emmy, the oldest, was challenging, but truthfully, she wasn’t always unschooled. She spent a couple of years in the public school system. I have to say, the way the system handled reading was downright heartbreaking. I would volunteer in the classroom, working with the kids who were “behind” and “struggling.” Each morning, we’d sit together in the hallway at 8:00, kid after kid flipping through notecards, working through whatever sight words deemed necessary to memorize for that particular school year. Each kid was tired, bored, and embarrassed. I was mortified that this pressure was being put on them at all, let alone first thing in the morning. I could fully understand why my daughter was so hesitant to read. How could she link the joy and love of reading to this heavy, depressing process? She felt so ashamed of herself. She thought she was dumb, and everyone knew it – the other kids, the teachers, the volunteer “helpers.” I would leave the classroom every time and go to my car and cry. I wanted to ease these kids’ pain, tell them they weren’t wrong or stupid, and I wish I had. Fortunately, I had the sense to take my daughter out of that toxic environment, and I can say that she now loves to read and only reads what she chooses to.
Hannah was our next reader. She was about 4 or 5 when she started showing interest in words. After our experience with Emmy, I must admit I had some major anxiety about how kids were meant to learn this. We’d already switched to unschooling, so I was in no rush and had no intent on teaching anything, but when Hannah started asking questions and wanting to try words on her own, I knew it was my job to make things available. So, of course, we just did the obvious and kept reading together. At this time, I also came across the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons by Siegfried Engelmann. I figured I’d have it in our library if anyone were interested. Hannah really wanted to learn, so we would just scan through the first few pages or so, and she’d point and sound the letter combinations out, soaking it all in. Within days, maybe a couple of weeks, Hannah could pretty much read. I know that sounds impossible to some, but it’s true. It just clicks when it’s meant to. For some kids, reading just seems as natural as walking or talking. I can’t explain her process more than that because that’s all it took. She works hard at it and can figure out words I never imagined entirely on her own.
Hailey, like with most things, did things her way. She didn’t have much interest in reading until she was around 7. She learned the basics through reading together and using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book off and on but didn’t grasp how to sound things out well until later. Hailey’s real drive to get better at reading came when she started playing Roblox. Roblox is an online video game that you play using an avatar and connecting with other players. Players are in simulated life situations and basically play real-world living. Hailey realized that the chat function was the only way to communicate with the other players. She knew she had to learn how to read and write much better and fast. Now, she’s never said any of this to me. I’m just sharing what I’ve seen. I’ve watched her go from not knowing to knowing by sheer determination to learn to keep up with her friends and sisters. That’s all the motivation we really need, after all, isn’t it?
When you’re struggling to always find the right words to say, you should probably just say what you really mean.
So many people.
So many places.
Where’s the humanity?
It’s so shallow.
So empty.
So lonely.
There is a grave difference between saying “no” and saying “no, because… it’s wrong, bad, inappropriate, etc.”
When you simply say “no,” you are expressing yourself in a meaningful way with no morality attached to it. As soon as you add the extra bits, the receiver will now feel judged, wrong, or unloved.
The results are equally different: a healthy relationship with boundaries vs. a shattered one.
Further, if you really think about why we feel compelled to add the reasons, it’s usually coming from a place of fear or hate instead of love.
Only when we meet and accept ourselves exactly where we are right now, can we move forward.
We live in a society more than ever where the squeaky wheel seems to get all the grease. The loudest person, the biggest complainer, the most “different” people are getting all the attention. So often, I see my sweet, considerate, rule-following, curious and intelligent children get the short end of every stick. When with friends, they get ignored or walked all over. When in a class, they get bypassed for the kid who is quite literally screaming for attention.
When will it be their turn to be seen? To be heard? To be considered interesting and worthwhile for their thoughtfulness and creativity? Rewarding the squeaky wheel with so much attention encourages ridiculous behavior. All people should be heard and validated, but I think we’ve gone too extreme on this. We’ve given so much allowance and attention to the weird and wacky. Now the calm, well-adjusted people are just in the background of a chaotic and unequal society.
I would prefer to be in a community where the people are quiet and calm enough to hear the wisdom of the wise, the excitement of real learning, and the humming of cooperative chit-chat over the shrills of pointless vocals.
We grow up learning basic math:
Division is the opposite of multiplication.
When thinking of love, imagine a world where we stopped dividing love and only multiplied.
There are no things we must teach our children for them to learn. Humans are curious, courageous, and driven creatures, capable of things beyond understanding. The idea that we will not learn the things necessary to be successful of our own volition is a deep mishit at our potential.
But just as the desire to learn is natural, so is the desire to teach. We all want to teach. When we teach, we learn better. We better reinforce our understanding of things, and when done properly, we can help hungry learners. If we allow people to seek out teachers organically, out of sheer curiosity, then learners will learn, and teachers will teach.
The problem is the disconnect. We have somehow lost faith in human nature and believe humans must be coerced to learn. “Teachers” must be of a certain age, certified, accredited, etc. Real teaching is happening everywhere, all the time, however. Children teach adults; authors teach readers; friends teach one another. Only when we can recognize and respect our natural abilities can we experience the best learning.
