UnschoolMe

Holding On To My Kids

2019-02-24T21:45:37+00:00

I read Hold Onto Your Kids a few months back and I now realise how much of the ideas in the book place a strong foundation on how I think about our unschooling life.

I honestly wish I had read the book when I started out home educating. It would have given me the confidence to do more things with my family rather than worrying so much about the social and societal pressure to do things that just didn’t feel right.

The premises behind the book is how, in the standard modern way of life these days, kids get attached to their peers, aka ‘peer attachment’, because they are constantly around them. The author claims that kids cannot attach to parents and peers at the same time, so they usually end up attaching to their peers which has some not so great consequences.

The biggest problem is that kids can’t give other kids what they need, they are not able or mature enough the provide the basic human needs to other friends. Parents, family, mentors are people who children should seek to maintain longterm relationships with, as adults are more capable of providing the nurture, trust and relationships that children need.

Society is now structured with an obsession for children to be around other children almost constantly. We are made to feel abnormal if we do not pursue this path. And the reality is that this is a very new thing, something that has been increasing from around the 1950s.

We seem to have forgotten that it is completely normal to grow up in a family and community focused environment. To the extent that people genuinely can’t wrap their head around the idea of being together as a family and rejecting the concept of school.

This concept of living life with a focus on family first, just feels so right. It doesn’t mean it is easy. We have so many things that we need to rediscover and relearn. On top of that, we have to content with the modern world, trying to pressure and entice us into things that we don’t really want whilst also trying to figure out how to manage and balance all of our obligations.

I’m holding on to my kids with pride.

Global School Play Day

2019-02-01T23:21:43+00:00

I came across the concept of Global School Play Day last week and was curious. On a quick glance it was obvious that it was a positive initiative to encourage more play in schools. I get that, all is good.

I listened to the podcast out of curiosity. I couldn’t help but feel sad afterwards. It’s not that I felt anything was wrong with the play day, I think I just realised how much of a different world I currently live in.

I really was surprised that the teachers were not more aware of how important play is. Why is this not essential knowledge for educators of children? This actually concerns me.

Then, the teachers seemed all on board about the idea of more play is a good thing, sharing so many positive things that had happened on play days. They also talked about how the ideas of Peter Gray’s TedX talk on The Decline of Play just makes so much sense…

But they still obviously had real trouble truly wanting to figure out how to prioritise it and apply it practically as they still felt all the academic stuff was too important to drop.

They did honestly seemed convinced that more play would lead to better lives for children, even their own childrens lives. But I think there is still that underlying fear and insecurity of ‘allowing’ too much play.

Honestly, this is understandable. I totally see where they are coming from and I’m not here to tell them they are wrong. Most unschoolers will go through a significant period of deschooling just to get to a place they can start rebuilding and figuring out how and what they want to learn.

I wonder if it’s even possible to help teachers deschool a bit? Or get the permission to make changes to their environment in a safe and positive way for the children, the teachers and the school. It’s such a hard position to be in, not one that I would personally choose.

My sadness comes from where I’m standing and how I see things differently. I wish schools were more aware and could easily implement play. I also realise this helps me see how far we have come and how deep of an unschooling journey we are personally on.

The Decline of Play | Peter Gray

2019-02-01T22:18:25+00:00

Gotta love Peter Gray. Posting this video here as a reference and reminder for all about the importance of play.

</figure>

Educating for burnout

2019-01-31T10:50:00+00:00

Burnout, imho, is serious, misunderstood and often dismissed. Having experienced it myself, I’m very conscious of it and how it can be so easy to fall into traps.

When I think of unschooling, I think of the day to day learning that our children need to work towards. There are so many things, like burnout, that children and adults need to learn to live with too. These are new things that people don’t really know how to prepare for.

And these are definitely things that schools don’t actually cater for.

For me, the first step is being aware. I’d love to research and cater for more of these challenges that life throws in your face.

The messages that Millennials in the Western world were raised with, in other words, have taught them to work harder and better than ever before, in all aspects of their lives. And that work is making a generation miserable, as Petersen documents, as they strive to attain success and avoid failure, and are permanently attuned to the perceived expectations of others. They’ve constructed flimsy charades of identities based on what they think other people will want. They want to prove that their lives, as Frank says in Tidying Up, are things to be admired, and that their homes, vacations, children, closets all function as projections of their best selves: organized, attractive, authentic. Unattainable.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/01/marie-kondo-fyre-fraud-and-tvs-millennial-burnout/580753/

Alter Egos For Learning

2019-01-29T21:58:49+00:00

I learn so much about living and learning from ‘non traditional educational’ podcasts. The Good Life Project podcast is one that I dip into a lot.

Today I listened to the Alter Ego Effect with Todd Herman. I was skeptical about it at first, but I listened on and found the concept really interesting.

It essentially talks about how you can put yourself into roles to help you perform better. That’s my best effort summary of the concept.

Interestingly enough it also talks about how kids can benefit from this. Their character, grit or confidence can positively change, for example, when wearing a super hero costume.

This makes me want to go out and invest in more costumes for my kids!

There’s the Alter Ego Effect book coming out in March which I’m keen to get now.

Home Education Policies in Europe

2019-01-05T21:43:39+00:00

I count myself and our family lucky as people who live in the UK and ‘home educate’ we have so much freedom and little regulation in how we do our learning. The freedom is amazing and I’m thankful we are not burdened with stressful regulations. It allows us to be us and to focus, change and adapt as we see fit.

I mention this as I came across an interesting summary of a recent report of the state of home education policies across Europe. The UK and Netherlands are the only two countries without regulation.

I do worry that my grand kids won’t have the same freedoms and I have to admit that inspires me to continue writing here and to help grow a stronger community around who we are and what we do.

The heading “Home education is authorised at the request of parents in the majority of countries” could be read in a positive light, but it becomes clear as one progresses through the small print that the opening summary was actually more realistic: “In a dozen countries, it [HE] is possible only in exceptional circumstances. In many cases, parents have to ask for authorisation from top level or local authorities. The qualification or the minimum educational level of the educator is defined in half of the countries. Students’ progress is monitored and assessed everywhere except in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom where no regulation exist. Students must pass examinations at the end of the education level in some cases.”
https://he-byte.uk/gb/home-education-policies-in-europe/

The official Home Education Policies in Europe report/PDF can be downloaded here.

Civics education, and lawsuits

2018-12-27T11:39:30+00:00

An interesting article on civics education, or lack of it, from Alfie Kohen.

However, more interesting to me is the lawsuit, which I should probably research more. I’ve wondered for a while why there haven’t been more lawsuits against the education system? Not that I want or like them. But more of a case that there is so much obvious damage to kids, why isn’t the government being sued (more often)?

Of course, I don’t really want lawsuits, and in the UK lawsuits aren’t really as common as in the US. And I would fear that every day good people would end up getting harmed.

Some years ago, a group of teachers from Florida traveled to what was then the U.S.S.R. to exchange information and ideas with their Russian-speaking counterparts. What the Soviet teachers most wanted from their guests was guidance on setting up and running democratic schools. Their questions on this topic were based on the assumption that a country like the United States, where the idea of democracy is constantly invoked, surely must involve children in meaningful decision-making from their earliest years.

The irony is enough to make us wince. As numerous empirical investigations have confirmed, students from kindergarten to college are rarely permitted to shape their own education. Indeed, most American schools employ an assortment of rewards and punishments to make sure they do exactly what they’re told.

That story about the Soviet teachers came to mind recently when I read that a federal lawsuit was filed charging the state of Rhode Island with failing to provide students “a meaningful opportunity to obtain an education adequate to prepare them to be capable citizens.” The obvious question: What exactly does that last phrase mean?
https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/civics/

Don’t Question The Testing

2018-12-25T21:42:28+00:00

From the wonderful Michael Rosen.

High stakes, summative testing leaves no room for children or society to question the validity of reducing knowledge (and children) to people graded solely according to a right/wrong system of thought. They/we 'become' a grade that's based on this right/wrong way of thinking. And we are forced or conditioned to accept this grade as a final statement about ourselves - even though the test leaves much of who we are, how we think, how we work with others outside of the test, outside of the door.

I find that if I query the basis of a question on a test, or a test as a whole, there is always someone who will come back and 'explain' that the given question is in fact 'reasonable'. (You can find an example of this on the comments thread following my article about using a poem for last year's KS2 SATs 'Reading' paper
http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/testing-testing-dont-question-testing.html

Why aren’t kids being taught to read (in schools)?

2018-12-22T21:56:57+00:00

This is an interesting, somewhat longer than average read - why aren’t kids being taught to read?

It has left me a bit confused to be honest. And at parts felt like a sales pitch for the LETRS program.

I can also understand the science aspect of it. Plus, it is worth bearing in mind, this is very much focused on school environments, regardless of class, apparently.

But what troubles me is that, my gut says, that people are different. They learn in different ways. I’ve read so many stories of how children who are unschooled / home schooled / home educated learning to read differently.

My eldest (now 15) was an avid reader, once he was able to read he went off flying and read lots.

My 2nd, now 15, could read from 6/7, but didn’t show interest in reading until he was 10. Then read loads for 2 years.

My current 7 year old is a reluctant reader, but is getting there. He’s never been to school, my two eldest did. I do wonder if that made a difference. I think it do, for the best, or the worst!

I also loosely remember reading Rethinking learning to read a fairly long while back - which I can’t be completely sure of (unless I revisit it), but it had a huge emphasis on the many different ways that children do learn to read.

I’ve maintained a long running interest in how best to teach (my) kids to read/write.

It’s things like this that confuzzle me!

It would be great to be able to give practical guidance to everyday home eudcators / home schoolers / unschoolers…does this exist somewhere?

Unschooling undefinition :)

2018-12-21T23:25:23+00:00

I came across The semantic bleaching of ‘unschooling’ where Milva, the author, talks about her dissatisfaction at how people are using the term inaccurately.

Weeks ago I wrote about it on this blog. I’ve also seen and heard the topic discussed on social media and in conversation. One of the difficulties in talking about the definition of unschooling is that it’s never really had a formal definition. John Holt coined it in the 1970s upon hearing a 7-UP commercial dubbing the soft drink “the uncola.” he applied the prefix accordingly and came up with “unschooling.” In the late 1970s when he started the magazine Growing Without Schooling he said the word would be used “when we mean taking kids out of school.”
https://apotlucklife.com/2018/12/09/the-semantic-bleaching-of-unschooling/

I don’t really disagree with anything she says, I guess what makes me sad is she feels the need to stop using the word - going with the term home schooling. Of course what she writes about will still be ‘unschooly’ things, but I feel others may not understand or identify with it as easily.

Milva’s choice is to go with the term/idea of slow homeschooling. I love the term slow, and use it alot it all aspects of my life. In the UK I find people tend to use the term ‘home education’ rather than homeschooling.

I’m not really bothered much by any of it, it’s just words at the end of the day. I do want to define what unschooling means to me and my research and Milva’s article will serve as a good reminder.