Radical Christian Unschooling

Ah, Spring! Farmers Markets…houses for sale…and homeschool curriculum conventions!

Okay, I am home from the CHAP (Christian Homeschool Association of PA) convention. I had never ever been to a homeschool convention before, in all my years of homeschooling, and now that I am fully embedded in radical unschooling, I went! LOL!

That convention was certainly an interesting experience, to say the least! Do you know that people actually go to those things with their LUGGAGE to bring home all the curriculum they buy?? I am NOT kidding! Almost everyone had those suitcases with wheels to put all their stuff in. Of course, I bought a ton of toys and hands-on science kits and art supplies, so maybe I could have used a suitcase or two also…or at least a duffel bag.

I got all sorts of interesting non-curriculumy things. Here are a few (but not all) of the cool finds I made:

Aaron: A bird call gadget, a book called “50 Different Way To Make Slime”, a slime kit, some other science experiment book, two cool board games, a set of “romper stompers”, a crime lab kit, and a KNEX set. Oh, and a toy rifle and a toy pistol.

Andrew: Six new G.A. Henty books, a new chess game called plunder chess, a spy pen that writes in invisible ink and shows up with the blacklight in the other end, a pocket microscope for the beach, and a G.A. Henty book on CD.

Sarah: Two sketch books, a set of acrylic paints, a set of skin tone colored pencils, and an Albert Einstein action figure.

A very interesting day, watching these women, some in jeans, some in Mennonite traditional clothing, some with husbands in tow, some with all 7 or 8 of their kids in tow, discussing and pondering their children’s next year of schooling. I wish I could have just sat and people watched, but alas, my friend had her 7-page list of books she wanted to get, so we traipsed up and down the aisles instead.

The most interesting and amusing sight was seeing the Mennonite women there, in traditional Amish dress, exchanging cell phone numbers or using two-way communicators to talk across the convention hall. What a vivid image of culture clash!

The most perplexing thing was to see all the parenting methodology materials, and even some of the speakers were not talking about homeschooling but about traditional authoritarian parenting. Very sad for me to see such things perpetuated and marketed.

My kids are thrilled with their booty, though, and want to know if I will go back next year…maybe…if I can find and dust off my rolling suitcase in time.

I am really looking forward to the Organization of VA Homeschoolers conference in August! Meeting other VA Homeschoolers, hearing speakers who are passionate about homeschooling, and not having to sift out the parenting and specific religious propaganda is the most incredible weekend.

We are going to the Sugarloaf Arts & Crafts Festival in our area on Sunday. Last year when we went the kids got to see literally over 300 artisans and artists, craftsmen and musicians who are doing what they love and making a decent living doing it, and sharing it with others who are interested.

The people showing their work were so happy and animated, really enjoying talking to the people who would visit their booths about their passion for whatever it was. It was really inspiring, and showed that a college degree isn’t necessary to be successful, happy, and comfortable.

There were musicians who made their own instruments, then recorded their own music, and sold CDs. There was a man who made lawn sculptures out of discarded metal. There were people who made their own candies, artwork, beautiful tapestries, jewelry, purses, stuffed animals, paper making, wood carving, pottery, fancy salsas, soap making, candle making, and yes, even basketweaving! And that barely touches on the incredible diversity of talent housed in one place that day. There are so many other types of things there too!

My daughter walked out of there affirmed in her desire to be an artist, and the boys had a great time exploring all the options too. Their heads were full of ideas about what to do and try and explore.

Attending sparked an interesting discussion about college, and how none of the things we had seen that day had been learned in such institutional settings, but were instead the direct result of these 300+ people following their passions and sharing it with others. It was an important step in breaking free of the “college is inevitable” mentality that society seems to live with, when in reality, only about 31% of all people ever even finish a 4-year degree…and that number drops quite a bit depending on the ethnic group being studied.
We can hardly wait to go again this weekend!

I recently had a conversation with another homeschooling mom who wanted to know about how to get their children to do housecleaning and pick up after themselves without prompting from the mom. The children are happy to help when asked, but don’t initiate cleaning up on their own. The mom was frustrated and bugged by the lack of intrinsic motivation in her kids to clean.

My thoughts:

I don’t think, until the stuff is really theirs and they care about it, will it become important to the kids.

You know, my mom had very high standards, and forced me to clean my room and help around the house, and help in the yardwork. If my mom found a bread crumb on my floor, I would come home from school to find the contents of every drawer and closet in my room (I had two, one for clothes and one for toys/junk), and my school desk, all piled on top of my bed. I was told I wasn’t going to bed until it was clean. It didn’t make me a better cleaner, or better at taking care of the yard, either. My yard looks horrible to this day. Oh, we mow it, and trim the bushes once in a while, but I don’t care for it.

I think it isn’t until it becomes important to the individual they just won’t see it, and we can’t *make* it important to anyone else. Modeling responsibility, asking for help when you need it, and realizing that it is your own standard and not theirs is all you can do. It is up to the Holy Spirit to impart that cleaning conviction into their hearts. Honestly, I don’t think you can *make* them care. You can *make* them clean, but the damage that does to your relationship with them isn’t really worth it.

Here’s the thing I learned from Sandra Dodd about this subject: Being frustrated, bugged, upset, annoyed, or angry about it is a choice you make. You can choose to look at the stack of dishes in the sink and have dark thoughts about the thoughtlessness of your family, or you can look at the dishes and remember what fun everyone had laughing around the table and how good the food was, and how wonderful you can stand at your sink and wash your dishes and look out into the backyard at the children playing there.

What if you think of the cleaning as another part of your job as an unschooling mom, to make the house clean and inviting, making sure that craft supplies and art supplies are kept well stocked and accessible, and cleaning up after they are done is your opportunity to reflect on what they have been learning and doing?

You know how after you have had a party at your house, the guests aren’t there to clean up, but you go around picking up the paper plates and cups and seeing the 1/2 eaten cake and the huge collection of bottles and cans in the recycling bin, and you have that satisfaction of having had a great time and giving the gift of a great time to your friends? Do you feel resentment at your friends for leaving a mess for you? Or do you feel grateful that you have friends and can’t wait until the next opportunity to have them over?

Now transfer that attitude to your home. Your job is to provide *and maintain* as cool and rich and interesting an environment for learning as you can for your kids. Look at the bits of yarn and paper and fabric and paint blobs and half-created things as a snapshot of unschooling. Think about what they were working on, how they were learning, their laughter and fun and discovery, and how they didn’t clean up because they were running out the door to look for the neighbor’s lost kitten…

As you wash their clothes think about how they got so dirty at the park because they were exploring the creek. When you trip over their jeans on the floor think about how they spent all day out building a fort in the backyard and had to hurry to change clothes for Grandma’s birthday dinner, and what wonderful hugs they gave her.

Of course it is perfectly okay to ask for help when you need it. And if it is given willingly and cheerfully, be very grateful!

And also see if you can free them as much as possible from expectations of orderliness and cleaning so that they can be free to learn and discover and grow. Watch what they are doing, and consider what you would be taking them away from, to come help you clean the living room.

I learned to care for my home by having my own home, not by all the nagging and punishing and chores my parents made me do. I learned to use cleaning supplies by reading the bottles, because you can be sure they had changed a lot by the time I was grown. Like every other aspect of unschooling, when it becomes important to us, then we learn and remember and use that knowledge.

Someone on one of my e-mail lists wrote: “I was just reading a quote from a book by Shulz, I think. He was saying the importance of teaching a strong “work ethic” to boys. He said that with out it they will sit on the couch playing games all day? What do you think? Is work ethic something caught, taught, inherent? It makes the assumption that children who play a lot of video/computer games are lazy and will grow up to be lazy and not have a work ethic.”

Well, first of all, “work ethic” refers to a societal standard, not to individuals, as I understand it. It is a moral standard, which is dictated by a group, not an individual. Individuals just uphold/conform to the societal standard, or don’t.

Secondly, that is a bunch of hogwash. Just last week my 14 year old spent two days working long hot hours in the sun and pollen to help my friend’s father build a huge playset in the backyard for her kids. And her father was so impressed with Andrew’s attitude and willingness that he told him if he ever wanted to work for him, he would be glad to hire him! That he worked harder and without complaining than any of his adult employees! LOL!

Andrew spent all day Saturday at another adult friend’s house helping him make several huge batches of chili for a chili-party that night.

Last Wednesday his 15 year old cousin David was over, and they played video games and computer games about 1/2 the time. The other 1/2 they went down to the creek and caught tadpoles for Aaron, horsed around in the woods, played sword fighting with Aaron in the front yard, ate tacos and talked.

Andrew has no limits put on his video game playing, or his tv time, or his computer time. He has no assigned chores, and yet willingly helps around the house, often cleaning the kitchen or taking out the trash without being asked. He cooks, reads, goes outside, mows the lawn, takes care of his animals, does his own laundry, picks up his room when it strikes his fancy. And yet there are many days when he chooses to stay on the couch watching tv or playing video games. That is just as valid and right as any other choice.

I think the difference is that he is free to choose. And without restraints put on him, he can freely choose to walk away from the tv or game, knowing it will still be available in a couple hours when he returns.

It sounds to me, not having read the book, just this one person’s comment on it, like this Schulz guy is afraid. Afraid of kids, afraid of teens, afraid of what might happen if they aren’t controlled. They threaten his ability to control his own world, and their choices aren’t valid if they conflict with his own. He is putting arbitrary values of worth on different activities. Pah-tooey! He needs to loosen up and learn how to play Halo 2 or Battlefield 1942 or Animal Crossing. LOL!

Seriously, though, the difference is freedom. People seem to believe that most adults are not free to choose what they do or when they do it, so children must be taught to accept such limitations and controls from an early age so they won’t question it when they are older. But that simply isn’t true. It takes no external motivation to get someone to do something that they have freely chosen to do. There is no slavery in this country any more; someone who is working a paying job is just as free to either do the work required by the boss or to quit and find a new job.

And who would you rather have working for you? Someone who is there of their own free choice and wants to be there, or someone who is there and feels they have no choice? Which employee do you think will give the best work? Which one will complain about everything, and only do enough to get the boss off his back?

Someone on a homeschooling e-mail list recently asked, “How do unschoolers learn Math and Grammar?” I can only answer for my own kids, as other unschoolers will learn in ways that are unique to them, and probably look totally different than how my children have.

They learned basic math when they were younger through playing board games, card games, video games, having their own money to spend, cooking, building, gardening, sewing, playing legos, swinging on swings, listening and playing music, etc. All those things helped them learn multiplication, division, fractions, percents, and the infinite number of mathematical concepts, both theoretical and practical, and also sparked their interests to know more, and to seek out ways to learn what they needed. As they needed to know, they asked questions. Answers to those questions led to newer, better, deeper questions, experiments, and hypotheses, that led to even more questions.

Andrew, at 14, loves to cook. He makes the best pot of chili ever. He watches science and cooking shows all the time. And one of his favorite shows is “Numb3rs” now, so he now wants to learn algebra. He spent two days this week helping a friend’s grandfather build a huge wooden playset in their backyard, so he used math all day long in so many different ways…the cost of lumber, the time needed, measuring, estimating, number of and size of nails needed, how to space railings, degrees of angles and planes and levers and joists…

Sarah, at 16, is an artist and is interested in geometry because she feels it would help with her art. She is learning about chemistry because she wants to go to cosmetology college then on to art college someday, and feels that at least having a basic knowledge of chemistry will help in those areas.

Sometimes they want to use a workbook or textbook or reference book, sometimes they just want to be told how, sometimes they look it up on the internet, sometimes they spend hours just observing and thinking, sometimes they ask a friend, sometimes they ask a parent. Whatever meets their needs at the moment.

They learned language usage by using language. Playing word games, reading, writing letters and e-mails, IMing with friends, things like that. Language surrounds us and it is almost impossible NOT to learn language if it is something you care to notice. At the age of 12, Sarah decided to write a book, and she spent many hours writing, looking up things like punctuation, how to write dialogue, etc. in the reference books we have here.

All I have to do is provide a rich environment with lots of opportunities and supplies, and be willing and available to help them do the things they want to do, and they seem to thrive that way.

Our days are always different and interesting. A few days ago…

I got up and went to Curves and exercised while the kids all slept in. When I got home I took a shower and checked my e-mail, and the 8 year old got up about 20 minutes later, then the 14yo, and the 16yo stumbled out of bed at about 11am. Everyone got something to eat.

My 8yo is really into hot wheels cars right now, so we went to Toys R Us to buy some extra track. His $ limit was $20. So we looked at all the sets and the extra pieces, and he compared the boxes and contents and decided to get a really cool set that was actually 2 sets in one box plus 6 extra cars, so he got twice as much for the same amount of money. It took about 30 minutes for him to make up his mind, and I think he made a really wise choice.

Then we went to PetSmart where we got pet supplies for our menagerie. (We have 4 guinea pigs, 2 dogs, a rabbit, a hamster, two birds, 3 hermit crabs, a lizard, and 3 fish.

When we got home, the 14yo watched the History Channel and Discovery Channel, then read a book for a while, then played some computer games. The 16yo got ready for work and IMed her friends, and the 8yo proceeded to build an elaborate city for the hot wheels cars in the living room.

At about 3:30 some friends came over, and the 14yo played video games with the 11yo guest, and the two 8yos went outside and played with the hose all afternoon, getting thoroughly drenched and loving every second of it. They figured out how to rig it up into the tree with the swing so they could swing through the water. Then they painted themselves with mud and became Indians, and then army commandoes. Then they filled a small dip in the yard and made a little splash pool to play in.

The 16yo spent an hour or so writing her resignation letter for her work. But when she got there, the boss told her how impressed they were with her work since she started 6 months ago, and gave her a raise and a promotion, so she decided to postpone quitting for another month and hang in there to make more money for the summer. That evening Sarah and I went over the information from the Corcoran College of Art & Design, and are trying to decide when she should apply, or if she should wait a year or two and possibly go to cosmetology school first. She wants to have practical skills to live on while she works on her art until she is sure she can support herself with the artwork alone.

The 8yo and I spent the better part of 2 hours that night playing with the new track and cars, figuring out all sorts of ways to make the cars go the fastest, adjusting our designs and problem solving, estimating and re-testing our ideas. We also discovered that evening that our little girl bird had laid 4 eggs in their nest, and is sitting them. So lots of internet research about that!

Later that night, the two older ones and a friend were in the kitchen cooking and watching a tv show, and the 8yo was in the shower washing the pollen out of his hair before bedtime. It was later than usual for him, but since a family friend was here, we were all staying up later than usual. Each day brings a new set of fun and adventures…learning happens all the time!

We are a Christian family that has embraced radical unschooling as a lifestyle, believing it is the best way for us to Glorify God as a family, to represent Him through our relationships with each other, and serve as examples of Christ in our community.

What is unschooling? It is, simply, the absence of school. It is living life as if school and school-related activities didn’t exist. It is believing that children will learn better and grow better when they don’t have to conform to someone else’s agenda and timetable for when they should learn anything, but are instead free to choose how, what, where, and when to learn. It is learning that happens every day, all the time, through the pursuit of one’s own interests and daily living, without assignments and tests and textbooks and workbooks.

For the Christian, it is believing that God has created us to be learning beings, to seek out what we need to know when we need to know it. It is making a conscious decision not to interfere with God’s plan for our children’s education, but instead to facilitate and mentor them along the path God has already placed before them since they were in the womb, by letting them discover and pursue their interests.

So what is radical unschooling? It is realizing that children can be trusted in other areas of life as well as academics, and that there is no need for coercion with regard to bedtimes, chore charts, food consumption, television watching, computer time, or any other area. If we can trust them in an area as important as knowledge and learning, surely we can trust them to know when they are tired or hungry and when they have had enough of the tv.

But how can a Christian radically unschool? What about those verses about “training up a child” and “a child left to himself is a disgrace to his mother”? Well, those are certainly real bible verses, and should be taken very seriously. Thankfully, unschooled children are not left to themselves, nor are they untrained in social and moral issues. Unschooling can much more intense, much more involved than any other form of parenting. Unschooling parents provide their wisdom, experience, and knowledge as the child seeks input and feedback about the choices he/she is making.

How about when a child makes what the parent feels is a wrong choice, then? Say to eat too many cookies, or to watch too much tv, or to stay up too late? The child will learn from the negative effects of such things, much more clearly, than if the parent had restricted them. What really will happen? Does a child really need to be protected from that fourth cookie, or that third hour of tv, or that late night? No. He will experience the tummy ache, the restlessness, and the groggy next morning. The parent is there, to supply information, to help them cope with the aftermath of such choices, and the child will *own* the learning.

And what about those times when conflict arises between the child’s desires or needs and the parent’s or other siblings, or even with people outside the family? That, then, is the perfect opportunity to walk out the Gospel, to model Christ-like behavior for our children, to discuss everyone’s needs and to make them part of the solution, to demonstrate cooperation and consideration.

It takes longer, it takes perseverence, and it takes patience, but in the end the result is that our children have experienced in a very practical and personal way, the applicable Gospel. They have witnessed first-hand Christ in Action. They have had a front row seat while moral and social issues are applied to something that is very important to them, and they have been a part of creating the solution.

The main reason unschooling works so well is because the parent is always nearby, willing to give immediate feedback, to listen, and to participate in and facilitate the exploration of the child’s interests. There is no separation of school-time from the rest of life. It is discipleship living, 24/7.