In Which Enough is ENOUGH

The next time a person questions our choice to educate our children outside of school I will tear one of their arms off and beat them about the head with it.  My husband says that isn't exactly a glowing example of homeschooling and proper socialization....but he later understood my passionate outburst.  You will too.
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Almost my entire life I have been fielding questions about home education.  I've also heard the unfounded criticisms repeated again, and again, and again.....and AGAIN.  It gets old.  It really does.  The worst bit I've heard though is this:

"Homeschooling can be a cover for abuse!  If the child isn't in school there is nobody to know and intervene if the child is being abused/neglected at home!"

For the love of Pete....this is where I shake my head.  When I was 17-years-old I had dinner with my former boyfriend's parents for the first time...his stepfather grilled me about the possibility of homeschoolers being abused since he'd seen a news report about this one case I'd ever heard about.  Hardly good dinner conversation...did I mention he was an ass in general?  Yeah, he was.

Let me be clear: Are there abusive homschooling families?  Damn straight there are!  I don't know any personally, but I'm sure they do exist just like there are abusive families whose kids are enrolled in school.  School doesn't magically protect your child from harm....and why exactly is it that teachers and school staff are viewed as protection and parents are all viewed as potential abusers?!  Abuse takes place in school just like it can and does at home!

Which leads me to back to my episode with the tearing of limbs and beating about the head...we've all heard the stories and reports of abuses happening in school.  Bullying, abuse and molestation at the hand of other students as well as teachers and school staff....in fact I was reading a story about a teacher leaving his wife and own teen daughter to live with his just-turned-18 former student when I came across the following story:

3rd grade teacher feeds students his semen on cookies...

What. The. Fuck.

I was mortified!  And angry...not only because these horrible things happened to children, but because I am seen as a potential abuser for keeping my child out of school....yet this stuff happens!  Are people insane?!  Why are there any children left in schools?!  Between the bullying, poor educational outcomes, teachers sleeping with students, shootings, bomb threats, kids getting blowjobs in the back of class, special needs students being voted out of classes by their peers, lack of recess, children with allergies dying, an autistic boy being left on a bus for hours in the summer sun....and F-ing SEMEN COOKIES....WHY AREN'T WE RIOTING IN THE STREETS?!  This stuff should NOT be happening...and what galls me is that schools are assumed to be safe.  I'm the potential danger by not sending my child to one of those hell-holes....

How does that make sense?!  News flash: Schools aren't automatically safe. Nor will teachers always be able to help the children who are abused at home.

So I probably won't actually tear off an arm and use it as a club, BUT I will shove a laminated copy of that vile story into their hands and say "Read this.  I'll wait."

Maps & Paper Chains

 

It's times like these I think to myself "how do people expect children not to learn?!"   Every single day my daughter is asking me questions.  Each of these questions is an opportunity to connect, to learn, to explore....you just have to take it and run.

Monday afternoon we met up with our friends in the town of Ashland, VA.  We parked and crossed the train tracks that run down the middle of the main street, grabbed a bite to eat at a local restaurant, and waited for some trains to go by.  After we finished eating we went next door to the library to play with the large assortment of wooden trains they have there and look for some books.  Eventually we found our way to a small local park and it was when we were leaving that the topic of family relationships came up.  Dani asked me about her friend's grandmother and then her own grandparents.  I explained how each grandparent was related to her which led to her asking where her father's mother, Grandma Mary, lived.

My Mother-In-Law lives in West Fargo, ND.  My husband was born and raised in the town of Cassleton which is about 20 miles outside Fargo.  I told Dani about it and she wanted to know where "Koda" was (North Dakota) so I said we'd look when we got home.  When we got inside, out came the road atlas and a large map of the world my aunt had handed down to us.  Dani enjoyed asking me what all the countries were, looking at flags, and pointing to where all our family lived.  :)  When she pointed to a large blue-colored country and asked what it was I said "Greenland" and she replied "No, Mama!  That's blue!" lol

The other hit of the day was cutting paper and making paper chains to decorate for Dani's upcoming 3rd birthday.  She picked out pink, purple, orange, green, and blue for her paper chain.

A Day In Nature - The Beach

Labor Day weekend we packed the kids up and headed to my parents' house near the Potomac River in Westmoreland County.  I admittedly have a very love/hate relationship with the beach because of living there for nearly 12 years myself....but now that the children are getting older the beach can be a lot of fun.

Dani is really starting to notice nature more and more.  Finding acorns and leaves in our yard, feathers in parking lots, shells at the beach.  The best thing the world for her right now is an empty pail she can collect bits of nature in!

Sandcastles are finally something she can enjoy making as well!  She had a wonderful time slowly filling up a large bucket with damp sand and getting her father to help flip them over.  Grandpa also got in on the action while the rest of us sat close by in the edge of the river chatting and playing with the babies.  Dani is also extremely social these days and instantly made friends on the water's edge and recruited other young kids to build with her.

After a few hours of playing in the sand we went out on the boat and headed for what the locals call "Sharks' Tooth Island".  You actually can find sharks teeth there, though they aren't the fresh white teeth most people are used to.  They are ancient black teeth from ages ago that get washed ashore.  My sister-in-law, Jessica, is particularly adept at spotting them...meanwhile I have little luck with it myself.  Aaron did, however, find two teeth after she told him what to look for (he assumed they were white at first).

Oscar, thankfully, doesn't mind his life jacket (which ALL of the children wear at all times when on a boat that is underway).  He napped most of the trip til we got to the island where he enjoyed some jacket-free time while he nursed and then sat on Grandpa while the rest of us combed the beach.  He is very fond of my father, it seems.  My father is pretty funny looking though....so it's no surprise.  lol

There were lots of gulls on the island.

Dani enjoyed looking at the bird tracks in the sand as well as making tracks of her own.  She looked for rocks and shells, mostly and it was a special treat when we found what we have always referred to as "Phospors".

They're actually a creature called Ctenophora or "Comb Jellies".  They're little balls of jelly similar to a Stinging Nettle or Jelly Fish, but without the venom or tentacles.  They also light up at night when you touch them.  We've been finding them in the river my entire life, but until now I never knew what they were actually called.  Gotta love Google!

An oyster shell.

 The trip, all in all, was very enjoyable for everyone.  

Onward to adventure!

"Mommy, why do people pee?"

And this is how unschooling works.

Dani is a few weeks shy of her 3rd birthday.  If you've ever had a toddler, I don't need to tell you how insanely curious these creatures are.  She wants to know everything, she wants to do everything "by myself", and she wants it all to happen now.

This past Monday I heard "Mommy, why do people pee?" from the backseat as we drove home after lunch at a Mexican restaurant (our power was back on, but there was no food in the house yet).  I gave her a simple short explanation and told her we'd look into it more when we got home. 

Once we got home I nursed Oscar while my laptop started up and then looked up a simple diagram of what the human digestive system looks like.  I showed Dani and we talked about what the different things did.  Then, we traced Dani onto a large sheet of finger painting paper and I drew in some of the organs so she could color it in and add stickers.

First thing, Dani added "green poop comin' out" and asked me to color in the stomach and esophagus pink with green stomach acid. She added food stickers from her activity book and then we drew in some food bits in the intestines.  I'm unsure what the green bit is under the arm though.  Obviously I kept it pretty simple here.

Aaron commented that he didn't learn that sort of thing til 5th grade.  I did the body-tracing and added in the organs when I was in 1st grade.  I remember them hanging on the bedroom door of the room my brother and I shared at the time.

Immediately after hanging this tracing on the wall Dani asked me to draw another one for her.  The second one was smaller on a sheet of 8 x 11 paper we had stacked on the art shelf.  She decided that one was her Daddy and colored it in.  The information seems to have stuck too!  The next day she talked about "food going in my body, and my belly, and poop comin' out" while pointing to the appropriate areas of her body.  She also talked to Aaron about chewing up her food and it going into her stomach while she helped him cook some dinner.

This particular happening has really showed me the power of unschooling.  I didn't think we'd be doing anything of the sort til she was at least another few years older!  But here we are....she's asking questions and we are doing our best to explore the answers with her.  She has no shortage of questions, I might add!  Dani had so much fun coloring in the very basic digestive system that I think I might cut out another tracing and some of the other organs she can stick on.  I also found some skeleton coloring pages online that she would probably enjoy.  Coloring is a favorite activity at the moment.  So is painting which I need to put out supplies for more often.

In other news....Oscar has decided he doesn't like to stay in one place.  He's not quite 3-months-old and already seems determined to wiggle and claw his way around on the carpet however slow a process it may be.  I give it a month before he's actually crawling. 

He is also very interested in toys...so Mama had better get sewing!

With the weather cooling down a bit now nature walks with both kiddos seems to be in the near future.  Oscar is digging the wrap so I'll wear him and take Dani around the neighborhood to collect things in nature.  Now seems like a good time to make some felted treasure bowls which I saw recently in Amanda's copy of The Rhythm of Family.  Gotta get knitting too!

Damn these children are amazing sometimes....<3

Cross Processing The Unschooler

Same child, very different results.

Cross processing is the procedure of deliberately processing film in a chemical solution intended for a different type of film.  The results can be stunning, but a cross processed imagine is obviously not an accurate representation of the original subject.  The overall photo is the same, but the colors can be dramatically different and the overall tone of the image is affected.

Now, what exactly does this have to do with unschooling, you ask...consider the following:

"If my child was given the choice between reading and playing video games...of course they'll choose the video games."

The phrase above is a common statement from those that do not "get" unschooling.  It is used as "proof" of sorts of why unschooling can't work....because of course children will choose the "mindless" entertainment of video games over reading (which is educational, you know, and therefore "no fun" in the child's mind).

Here is where cross processing comes in - people are developing their opinions about unschooling and unschooled children based on a thought process that would normally be used in regards to schooled children.  Yes, they're seeing a picture....but the color and tone are off.  Is that opinion then accurate when viewing unschooling?  No.

You cannot view unschooled children the same way you view schooled children.  The reason people try to is because they assume that what is the norm for school kids is the norm for all children in general and fail to realize the sort of effect that school can have on a child's development and attitudes towards certain activities.

Will a child really always choose the video game over the book?  In the case of a typical school child, yes, probably (though there will always be exceptions).  In the case of an unschooled child?  It's difficult to say...their choice will vary depending on a number of factors.  Simply put, you cannot base your assumptions about an unschooled child on what a schooled child is like when they have lead drastically different lives.  Lifestyle is key.

The Schooled Child

Schooled children spend large parts of their day in school.  School is essentially their job.  As an adult, did/do you come home from work wanting to do more of the exact same task you do at work at home on your off hours?  Of course not!  You would probably want to come home and unwind, perhaps take a hot shower, change into some comfy clothes, and engage in a bit of mindless entertainment (in the form of television, Internet, or perhaps even a video game.)  Adults are allowed to do those things.  It's seen as normal, even healthy after a hard days work.  However, when a child comes home from school they still have homework to do, most likely...and when they engage in mindless entertainment it's often met with criticism and they're then told that they should "do something constructive/educational" or "read something".  Why?  Didn't they put in enough educational time for one day?  When is enough, enough?

Now besides the whole school-as-a-job thing...there is the fact that many schooled children have issues with reading.  Some struggled with it (be it that the method of teaching didn't suit them...or perhaps because they weren't developmentally ready for reading...) or they have negative associations with it.  Some have those negative associations because of required reading that they detested, others simply just see reading part of school and therefore something they do not wish to do for recreational purposes.  It's part of the job, why do it at home?

The choices are reading a book which is not their idea of fun vs. something like video games that have always been classed as mindless entertainment by the adults in their lives.  Yeah, I'd probably choose video games too!

The Unschooled Child

Unschooled children, meanwhile, are unlikely to have drawn any lines between video games and reading in terms of what is "fun" or what is "educational".  They're given the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and follow their own interests.  Learning isn't their job, it's just part of life.  They explore and learn everyday because kids love to learn!  All children have a natural love of learning and a desire to explore...at least until traditional school comes into the picture.  Forcing something is a sure fire way to make it undesirable (anyone who has/had a toddler can tell you this!)...but forcing isn't part of the unschooling lifestyle so the natural desire to learn remains intact.

Unschooled children learn to read in their own way whenever they are ready for it.  There is no required reading list.  There isn't anyone pushing them to read or do something "constructive" so they are free to choose the activity without any negative associations that might taint their decision. 

Reading is fun.  Video games, likewise, are also fun.  They haven't been demonized or classed as "mindless" or "worthless"...in fact video games can involve a lot of reading and be quite educational, though the unschooled child doesn't think about them that way.  There is no fun vs. educational.  There is only fun vs. fun and their choice will vary depending on the situation, their current interest, their mood, the setting, perhaps even the time of day.

Reading an enjoyable book vs. playing an enjoyable video game...hm...let me think about it.

The Big Picture

Of course it's not just about books and video games.  There is a lot more to it than that...but overall the same assumptions that lead people to assume all children will choose the game over the book also leads them to believe that there is no way a child would choose educational activities.  People worry that their children, if given the chance, would waste away in front of the television and never do anything, much less acquire a well-rounded education.  Honestly, if you pull your child out of school tomorrow to unschool...they're going to veg out in front of the TV, computer, or game console for awhile.  They need time to "deschool" and get over bad associations/habits they learned in school.  Parents, likewise, need to deschool and shift their mind-set away from attitudes that tells us things like "tv/video games/surfing the Internet/movies/anime/comic books are worthless", "non-fiction is better than fantasy novels", "math can only be learned from worksheets", "my child needs to know X by X age or grade level", etc.  We need to step back and see the worth in all things, not just those that our traditional schooled mindset says are educational.

Schooled Children As The Norm

Our society has become so accustomed to compulsory education and public schools that it's no surprise when assumptions are made about all children based on what is typical among schooled kids.  However, our current education system is a relatively new concept.  Children existed, learned, and developed long before we started putting them in school.  Meanwhile, in recent history, school has become a major part of most children's lives and has many long term effects on development...and we would do well to recognize that much of what we assume to be typical childhood behavior is a result of that education process.  When you remove that from the equation you need to rethink a few things...and stop viewing those outside the typical school format for what they are.

Unlike cross processing photography, I do not believe that people are deliberately processing their views on unschooling with assumptions meant for schooled children.  I'm sure they have no idea they are doing it!  However, it would be helpful if those people could step back and consider for a moment whether or not their assumptions really apply.  I encourage people viewing unschooling to keep and open mind and ask themselves "what would life be like without school and how would children be different?"....then, perhaps, you'll have an opportunity to see what a beautiful picture can result.  ---