Not Back to School Blog Hop :: Curriculum

I just came across this blog hop this morning and how can I not participate? Here it goes.

The reason I rarely refer to or use the words “homeschooling” or “unschooling” is because that’s what I’m writing about all the time. For us, unschooling is about acting like life is normal (because it is) and trusting that we are learning all the time (because we are) without necessarily labeling that we are learning x,y or z today.

In my eyes, the way to learn the most beneficial skills this life is to live a life full of fun and curiosity; a life that honors individual passions and interests, while learning how to co-exist as a family (who lives within a community, who shares the Earth with other sentient beings). We’ve thought about this for some time now: how do we teach our children how to dream big, follow through, live their best life and be life-learners, letting their enthusiasm guide them? We always come back to the same answer-only through modeling can we teach all of this and where, we started looking out at the children and wondering how to teach, we find ourselves looking back at ourselves and wondering how we can live a better, more fulfilled life. I want my children to grow up seeing their parents live to their full potential. I don’t want them to believe what I believe or what you believe-I want them to figure out what they believe. We teach them a model of learning and living, not necessarily information. Information is abundant and the world is giant skill share. The trick is retaining the enthusiasm for learning.

The math, the reading, the history….well, in my opinion, that seems so easy I don’t think about it much. Math and language happens all around us all the time–it’s a normal part of life. We talk about history all the time. We talk about homes, people, tools, technology, transportation and how we came to be standing here in this modern time; who went before us and how different perspectives lend different versions of history. My kids learn math the way they learned to speak English, by participating in family, community and life in general. If they want do something in life that needs advances math skills they will learn it voluntarily when they see use for it.

Stone never excelled in math classes, but you should see him now- the way he measures a project and applies the complicated formulas; the way he has to estimate costs, bills clients, deals with overhead and manages a business. He never knew how to do this until he wanted to, until he needed to, until it was a normal extension of his life.

When I was in school I avoided electronics and technology like the plague. Now I find myself learning micro-step by micro-step how to self-host web sites, how to use modern technology to network with like-minded people, and I’m self-learning simple design and computer technology. I never took an art or photography class in my life. Who would have known I would fall in love with photography and enjoy photo editing so much? Only when I was free from grades and have-to’s and curriculum have I found my passions. I found some old pictures I took when I was 7 years old with my first 35 mm kid’s camera. I lined up all my headbands and girlhood treasures on the rug and took pictures of them in different layouts. Sound familiar? I find myself doing the same thing except now I’m taking pictures of my home, my knitting, my children, and sacred spaces. My mother recently told me that I never really drew or colored when I was kid, but instead spent hours cutting out paper, stapling it together and writing squiggle lines with a pencil- all the while interpreting my “books” to her. Funny how I took the long road to get here, when my early child was screaming…..”I love photo-documenting and writing! I want to write books!”

I’m watching my children with curiosity, noting how one will spend hours building with blocks, while another keeps busy tying intricate knots into any piece of yarn or string or rope he can get his hands on. I think our talents, our mode of interacting with the world, appears early and then we develop and apply our passions to the world around us. My lucky kids are free from a form that attempts to know them better than they know themselves.

So curriculum? Let me see here–we’re figuring out how to efficiently maintain shelter through a four season climate, how to grow, locate and prepare highly nutritious and safe food, how to use tools to create the things we envision, how to make music that makes the whole family laugh and dance, how to provide for our family monetarily while maintaining a healthy and balanced focus on the family, how to be kind neighbors and globally conscious community members, how to mindfully monitor what we take and what we give to and from our natural environment, and how to create space for everyone in our family to feel respected and have time to explore their personal interests. Phew, I don’t think we’ll get there in one semester, but since this whole learning thing is infinite, I’m not going to worry about.

Tagged as: homeschooling, kids, learning, not back to school, parents, unschooling