With growing up in the system, I will say that letting my children lead their own learning is one of the hardest things I have ever done. I know that I probably still have some deschooling to do on my own. I often find myself not needed and start to question our decision. I miss planning our lessons at times. I have often been upset not knowing what to do with my time. However, do you notice the word "I" that I keep using? My husband pointed out to me, we can't change what we are doing just for me. This way of learning is totally about them. It's totally about them finding themselves and healing the curiosity and creativity so they love learning again. Usually, about the time I start to question everything about this new way of learning for us, my kids end up amazing me.
The truth is there is a lot of time spent on YouTube. However, while my daughter is watching a simple, definitely non-educational, YouTube video about a boy dying from a certain disease leads to researching the disease and learning about heart palpitations and then creating a stethoscope so we can listen to her heart...I realize this is what it's all about.
I have learned that this new way of learning has even changed their minds to be open to learning more. If you grew up in the system, think about how much you paid attention in class without daydreaming or even more how much you retained when you walked out. You probably only retained what you were interested in. The rest was memorized for a test and then forgotten. That's really a lot of wasted time. Have you ever been guilty of going somewhere and trying to make EVERYTHING educational? Well, that was me. My kids became annoyed and resisted it all the time. So they were closed minded if anything seemed educational. However, in the last few months, we have noticed a curiosity that disappeared for a while finally came back.
We took the girls to an airshow. There were lots of cool stunts and planes to see, but what I found the most interesting was my oldest daughter truly paying attention to the announcer...even to one point that she was moved to tears as they were doing a patriotic flyover for gold star families and veterans. I was so proud that day because the one thing I wanted to instill in my girls was patriotism. My husband's side of the family is a gold star family and very patriotic. My husband's father served, my husband served, and his brother was KIA. The announcer was talking about how they were doing the stunts down to what pedals were and were not being pushed, how they put mineral oil in these planes to make the smoke and it wasn't harming the environment, and the angles that the planes were turning. My oldest was learning. She was listening intently. That was a big deal to me considering a few months ago she rejected everything and had no interest to learn anything new.
I've seen my daughters, especially my oldest, get into political discussions and forming opinions about the world around her. We listen to a news station in the car when taking her to her activities and there are often times she chimes in on the discussion on the radio. I definitely feel like discussions are key to a lot of topics. These discussions that she is actively engaging in, whether it's about the 2nd amendment, DACA, or border patrol, are things in real life today and I'm happy she is forming her own opinion about these things. There's no need for me to do "current events" as classwork like I was doing...we are learning about them and discussing them in car rides.
Since our time of quitting school and doing child-led learning, my children have been finding their interests and themselves.
My oldest is now volunteering for a hospice company. She had to take a TB skin test, go through the orientation, read manuals on death, and complete a HIPAA training to volunteer. In that, she learned about tuberculosis (as she had heard about it before but actually did research on it to really know what it was), the history of hospice, end-stage diseases, pain and symptom management, body mechanics, and infection control. She's also had to be creative and learn how to communicate with her older patients. Learning to communicate is a great life skill! Sometimes even some adults need to learn that, including me at times.
My youngest is now volunteering at a horse sanctuary. She's never worked very hard around the house. However, I have been beyond impressed at how hard of a worker she is around the horses. There is a lot of physical labor involved. In just a couple of weeks, she has learned about prey animals (like horses) and how most prey animals have eyes on the side of their head. She has tried to convince us once again on how much it would cost to have a horse, including veterinarian costs. Which I will say after proving her hard work around the ranch, my husband is considering it now in the future of owning a horse for her. In fact, we wonder if she could own her own rescue or sanctuary in the future and wonder if we can help with that later. Which brings me to how she has learned about the difference in a rescue and sanctuary and how there is a lot of fundraising involved in owning a nonprofit company like that. She has had the opportunity to experience first hand watching the farrier work. She has learned about horse diseases, such as laminitis. All the horses that she works with are not rideable and have had some share of problems. So she has learned a little about their medical problems and how they came to the sanctuary, which some were about to go to the slaughterhouses across the border and even one that was about to be lion's meat. She's formed her own opinion on all of that, too. I could go on and on about how much she learns because she learns so much in just a day.
While I admit, this hasn't been an easy road for me at all...the biggest struggle is to trusts. I often had to read a lot of unschooling blogs or watch videos. I am going to post some of those below. This lifestyle isn't for everyone and it isn't for every family. Again, it is the hardest internal battle I think I have ever struggled with. This journey is definitely for my kids. It is more important to us when they grow up, they have gotten to know themselves enough and their interests to KNOW what they want to do and to be happy doing it. I remember going to college just picking a major and not really knowing what I wanted to do...then changing my major...a couple of times. I wasted a lot of time. I'm a 34, almost 35-year-old woman and still trying to figure out what do I want to do when the kids are gone. I guess I am almost doing the same thing as my kids. I'm trying to find myself now that I have more time on my hands.
Anyways, whether you are interested in unschooling or just maybe learn to be a more relaxed homeschooler - take a look at these videos.
The truth is there is a lot of time spent on YouTube. However, while my daughter is watching a simple, definitely non-educational, YouTube video about a boy dying from a certain disease leads to researching the disease and learning about heart palpitations and then creating a stethoscope so we can listen to her heart...I realize this is what it's all about.
I have learned that this new way of learning has even changed their minds to be open to learning more. If you grew up in the system, think about how much you paid attention in class without daydreaming or even more how much you retained when you walked out. You probably only retained what you were interested in. The rest was memorized for a test and then forgotten. That's really a lot of wasted time. Have you ever been guilty of going somewhere and trying to make EVERYTHING educational? Well, that was me. My kids became annoyed and resisted it all the time. So they were closed minded if anything seemed educational. However, in the last few months, we have noticed a curiosity that disappeared for a while finally came back.
We took the girls to an airshow. There were lots of cool stunts and planes to see, but what I found the most interesting was my oldest daughter truly paying attention to the announcer...even to one point that she was moved to tears as they were doing a patriotic flyover for gold star families and veterans. I was so proud that day because the one thing I wanted to instill in my girls was patriotism. My husband's side of the family is a gold star family and very patriotic. My husband's father served, my husband served, and his brother was KIA. The announcer was talking about how they were doing the stunts down to what pedals were and were not being pushed, how they put mineral oil in these planes to make the smoke and it wasn't harming the environment, and the angles that the planes were turning. My oldest was learning. She was listening intently. That was a big deal to me considering a few months ago she rejected everything and had no interest to learn anything new.
I've seen my daughters, especially my oldest, get into political discussions and forming opinions about the world around her. We listen to a news station in the car when taking her to her activities and there are often times she chimes in on the discussion on the radio. I definitely feel like discussions are key to a lot of topics. These discussions that she is actively engaging in, whether it's about the 2nd amendment, DACA, or border patrol, are things in real life today and I'm happy she is forming her own opinion about these things. There's no need for me to do "current events" as classwork like I was doing...we are learning about them and discussing them in car rides.
Since our time of quitting school and doing child-led learning, my children have been finding their interests and themselves.
My oldest is now volunteering for a hospice company. She had to take a TB skin test, go through the orientation, read manuals on death, and complete a HIPAA training to volunteer. In that, she learned about tuberculosis (as she had heard about it before but actually did research on it to really know what it was), the history of hospice, end-stage diseases, pain and symptom management, body mechanics, and infection control. She's also had to be creative and learn how to communicate with her older patients. Learning to communicate is a great life skill! Sometimes even some adults need to learn that, including me at times.
My youngest is now volunteering at a horse sanctuary. She's never worked very hard around the house. However, I have been beyond impressed at how hard of a worker she is around the horses. There is a lot of physical labor involved. In just a couple of weeks, she has learned about prey animals (like horses) and how most prey animals have eyes on the side of their head. She has tried to convince us once again on how much it would cost to have a horse, including veterinarian costs. Which I will say after proving her hard work around the ranch, my husband is considering it now in the future of owning a horse for her. In fact, we wonder if she could own her own rescue or sanctuary in the future and wonder if we can help with that later. Which brings me to how she has learned about the difference in a rescue and sanctuary and how there is a lot of fundraising involved in owning a nonprofit company like that. She has had the opportunity to experience first hand watching the farrier work. She has learned about horse diseases, such as laminitis. All the horses that she works with are not rideable and have had some share of problems. So she has learned a little about their medical problems and how they came to the sanctuary, which some were about to go to the slaughterhouses across the border and even one that was about to be lion's meat. She's formed her own opinion on all of that, too. I could go on and on about how much she learns because she learns so much in just a day.
While I admit, this hasn't been an easy road for me at all...the biggest struggle is to trusts. I often had to read a lot of unschooling blogs or watch videos. I am going to post some of those below. This lifestyle isn't for everyone and it isn't for every family. Again, it is the hardest internal battle I think I have ever struggled with. This journey is definitely for my kids. It is more important to us when they grow up, they have gotten to know themselves enough and their interests to KNOW what they want to do and to be happy doing it. I remember going to college just picking a major and not really knowing what I wanted to do...then changing my major...a couple of times. I wasted a lot of time. I'm a 34, almost 35-year-old woman and still trying to figure out what do I want to do when the kids are gone. I guess I am almost doing the same thing as my kids. I'm trying to find myself now that I have more time on my hands.
Anyways, whether you are interested in unschooling or just maybe learn to be a more relaxed homeschooler - take a look at these videos.
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