In the meantime, check out this excerpt from Tara’s post “Whole Life Unschooling: It’s for More Than Just Kids:”
To us unschooling is not only about our children, it’s about all of us. It’s about our life.
Unschooling your whole life means…
- Seeing no division between child and adult, regardless of ability or experience. All should be treated with the same equal respect and consideration.
- Trusting all people of all ages are natural learners, born with an innate curiosity and an earnest desire to learn, even if it requires a bit of excavating for some of us to rediscover.
- Knowing that all people are inherently good. A learning curve on societal rules or boundaries, or a personal struggle due to past history does not make them “bad”. We all do the best we can with the tools we have.
- Thinking all people, regardless of age, have a purpose and that that purpose may seldom, or often, or never, change. And the best determiner of that purpose is the person in question.
- Believing in the wildly passionate pursuit of interests, supporting those interests wholeheartedly, and trusting when an interest fades.
- Disbelieving that interests are only valid if they come with monetary or status gain. We do things for the love of what we do and trust how our needs are always met.
- Not condoning the subjugation, squashing or criticism of individuality or diversity. We allow for difference of opinion, we see the underlying needs of others and we validate their particular experience.
- Not creating division between various subjects or activities. All of life flows in and out of all of life. The subject of “math” doesn’t exist but we find numbers and patterns in everything.
- Adamantly disagreeing that life should consist of unenjoyable work, that we should always follow all the rules or do things the same way everyone else does them. Feverishly questioning anything that tells us otherwise.
- Trusting in ourselves first, each other next and all others last.
- Respecting the boundaries of others and ourselves.
- Taking responsibility for our choices and our life. It’s all about empowerment.
- Seeking our own life and not settling for someone else’s. Supporting others who do the same.
- Building off our individual interests, creating a rich, diverse and engaging environment in which we can all thrive equally.
- Respecting one another’s personal Truths or choices. But drawing definitive lines where the boundaries of another are being crossed.
- Standing up for the little guy, especially the one without their own voice.
- Knowing that life is good. Messy. Imperfect. Wonderful. Sometimes heart-wrenching. And loving it anyway.
How can you possibly explain all that in one short answer? It’s impossible to describe what this looks like when someone asks. Because unschooling is just life and although you can define life and you can explain it, it’s still something that must be seen and experienced to fully understand.
Again, if you are interested in learning more about this. Read, be open, ask questions (and listen to the answers), take your time, don’t judge, and live your life authentically. (Oh, and among other things, visit theorganicsister.com for one cool point of view. Thanks, Tara.)
Tags: living simply · parenting · reading · road-schooling · unschooling4 Comments
4 responses so far ↓
Thanks for posting the information about Tara's Blog. I found it interesting and fun to read.
I wonder if people ever think about how fast life really goes by and how much they miss by living each day without really seeing the beauty of them.
The fast pace of life today robs us of so much unless we look for the rewards of " slowing down to smell the flowers." It's a wonderful thing if we can realize this when we are still young and not regret things when we are old. After all it is "the journey and not the destination" that counts.
I've got to respect your unschooling life learning program. Many of the points on your list are definitely beacons for which to strive. But, the whole "seeing no division between child and adult" is mantra used by pedophiles as elevating the child to their level or lowering themselves to the child's is an important element in their own psychological acceptance of their acts. Also, I can't imagine that you just let your child run free to do whatever he so desires. So there must be boundaries. Your child can not get up tomorrow morning, leave, and call you from Mexico where's he's partying with some college students.
As a college professor, you must see that there is benefit to structure when it comes to education. Would you allow it if one of the students enrolled in your class spent his time studying the benefits of handheld gaming and at the end of the semester came into your office and said, I have mastered pokemon during your class and deserve an A? Would he get an A?
I think you and I could become friends. We would have a good time debating things, I believe. By the way, sometimes I just play devil's advocate on a point I've never even considered before because it seems like the right thing to do. I really like your site. Very nice.
Scott, thanks for your comment. I think you've distorted the first point on Tara's list when you suggest that it puts children at risk for sexual predators. The point reads: "Seeing no division between child and adult, regardless of ability or experience. All should be treated with the same equal respect and consideration." The idea is that children and adults should be treated with equal respect, should be listened to, and given due consideration. If anything, such treatment of children empowers them, making them less malleable and susceptible to the perceived authority of a potential predator.
Regarding your point/question on "no boundaries," yes, I believe children should be "free to do whatever [they] so desire[s]" as long as such pursuits do not infringe upon the rights of others. Your example is an extreme one. My child would not want to take off to Mexico and party with college kids. Now if he expressed a real desire to go to Mexico, we would work as a family to find a way to make that happen. We would give his sincere desire due consideration, just as we would an adult member of our family. What we're talking about here really isn't that radical; it's open, honest, mindful, and respectful parenting. Certainly, we offer guidance to our child as he grows and matures, but we do our very best not to stifle him or coerce him in that process. We also trust the decisions he makes for himself with regard to his interests and own desire to learn; we honor those decisions and support him. He's his own person, and we respect that fully.
As far as being a college professor, I don't see it as entirely the same thing as a compulsory schooling experience because the young adults in my college classroom come there of their own accord. They have chosen to be there, and can just as well choose not to be there. Even so, I have in recent years felt some conflict with the "natural learning" lifestyle I am living with my family and the work I do in the college classroom. As a result, I have made some adjustments to what I do. I've written a little bit about this. Check it out here: http://writing101.net/2799
Again, thanks for your comments. Cheers.
I believe your system can work when there are two highly intelligent parents in the home that can set boundaries by their own actions. The child will likely imitate his atmosphere. But, as you add additional children into the mix, especially if they are close in age, the dynamic will change as a subculture will begin to develop in the home as the children either conflict in their desires or band together to impose a new culture throughout the house. With each additional child the cracks in the system will intensify exponentially.
So long as the parents are both completely invested in the system, and there are one or maybe two kids, the end result may likely be better than what is considered an average home. But, in all fairness, average homes often do not have two completely invested parents to start with, so that isn’t really a good comparison. I see the greatest risk in this approach is the possibility for a child learning that there are no restrictions on behavior. This is the behavior exhibited by pro athletes and celebutants who are often raised in these no rules kind of households, each for different reasons.
Children gifted athletically who are recruited sometimes as early as nine or ten years old or earlier, find that there home life is tailored to their talents to the detriment of everyone else in the house. The ones who make it to the multi-million dollar contracts have, by that time, learned that anything they want will be given to them. The real world doesn’t operate that way. Most people have to struggle to get achieve even the smallest advancement in their lives.
I did use extreme examples because when you begin to look at examples, one particular example is only degrees short from the next which in turn is only degrees away from the next. It is fair to connect the dots. So long as there are intelligent, highly engaged parents, allowing a open a free household, there aren’t knives accessible, there isn’t Cinemax available on the television, there aren’t porn DVDs lying around, and there isn’t cocaine on a nightstand. Those bad options aren’t even a part of the child’s world. But life is lived in the gray area. Cigarettes, matches for candles, bleach, tylenol bottles, Miley Cyrus on Hannah Montana one day and TMZ the next, and the Internet. For every writing101.com website there are a hundred [inappropriate web sites]. For every site dissecting the evolution of black hole theory, there a dozens of sites trying to convert people to their version of racism or religious zealotry.
I agree with your theories in the way in which one would agree with socialism. It sounds good on paper, but in practice, it’s rarely going to work as conceived, and only for as long as the ones making the decision about the system are hands on and don’t have ulterior motives.
As to your classroom, I completely respect your program. You have laid out the system clearly and everyone understands exactly what they are signing up for when they sign up. It seems very fair and straightforward. I think it would foster an atmosphere of creativity for those who choose to actively participate and who have the pure goal of learning how to become a better writer. For those who are there for any other reason, such as it being a core requirement or because they’ve heard that it’s easy or fun or whatever, then they will try to find the shaded corners to hide out and do as little as possible. In my years in college, my experience would lead me to believe that for every one student there to learn, there are nine trying to find the shortcuts to the degree.
I would definitely take your class if I were a student. And for the right reason.