So if you have followed my blog, you know that last November, we took some time to do NOTHING. We were technically "unschooling" or "deschooling". My kids didn't stop learning, but it wasn't with anything structured and it was based on what they wanted to learn about it. My oldest ended up covering so many topics that would have been in a Biology textbook just in her research and an anatomy book for that matter (which she actually bought two of those at the bookstore for fun). My youngest ended up doing a lot of science experiments and realizing vocabulary was important to her and started expanding her own vocabulary.
I have to say that quitting school was the BEST decision I have ever made. There is value in letting your kids have the reigns. There is a value in being relaxed and letting go to let them explore their own interests. Before we did that, my oldest wanted no part of going to college and really didn't know where she was headed. Now she knows she wants to go into nursing or possibly even higher in the medical field and is anxious to start classes at a local university. My youngest realized the importance of wanting to be smart and actually came to us wanting to start school back up, because she needed to learn and be as smart as her peers.
However, while taking our break made a difference for my kids, it also made a HUGE impact on myself. I learned to respect my kids more and their decisions. I also learned that when I relax, they take control more. So our schooling is SO much more relaxed than it was. Unschooling or deschooling helped me with that.
We have been doing "school" 2 weeks now from our break. However, it is VERY different than how we have done structured school in the past. The kids and I have a weekly meeting on what they are to complete for the upcoming week. They do it and it gets graded but I'm not stressing the grades. They are writing them down though.
It is pretty comical to see my oldest being competitive with her grades (she is competitive in nature). In algebra 2, she started off with not the best grade on her first quiz and now every time she takes a test, she has been so determined to get a better grade that she goes and researches the topic even more before taking the test to make sure she understands it. She isn't even coming to me, she is trying to figure it out on her own. I appreciate this level of independence in her and her determination. If she keeps this going, she will do well in college.
My youngest told me she didn't want to do history, she doesn't think that's important. While I may disagree with her, we came to a very relaxed agreement. Both of my girls don't really care to read, and let's face it, there's a lot of reading in life and other subjects period. So, my youngest watches movies that I pick for her that are based on real events or true stories. So she just watched The Kite Runner on Amazon Prime (btw: it actually ended up having so many subtitles, she said she was reading a lot and I didn't do that on purpose and we laughed about it). She then went to the computer to research the setting of the movie along with what was going on. I came home and she told me all about the United States giving Afghanistan weapons to help them when Russia came to attack them in 1979. She was describing the Soviet-Afghan war, which if I am honest, I didn't know ANYTHING about! She amazed me. She wrote a 600 word essay on the movie. I didn't have any requirements of how long of a paper she was to write. I just told her that she was to write me a paper with what she researched and to tell me about the movie. She has always been my writer and she's really great at it. Not only did she write about the story and the time in history, but she got a little something from the movie, too. Her last paragraph was this, "The story is beautiful and deserves way more attention than it gets. Seeing the places they lived, the food they ate, and their lifestyle was heartbreaking. You need to appreciate the food on your table, the roof over your head, and the good friends you have. Not everyone has what you do."
As I said previously, neither of my girls like to read. So I am being so much more relaxed on our methods of learning. Ashlyn, not wanting to learn about history, ended up enjoying it with her movie. Kylee doesn't care for literature, but is very much a video person, so she will also end up watching movies based on books and we will discuss for her literature as well.
There is so much value in relaxing. I always wished we would have relaxed more when they were younger, but now I am realizing, just because they are older that doesn't have to change. They learn more when it's not forced. After all these years of homeschooling, I'm still learning what's best for my girls.
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