Dr. Marie-Claire Moreau

Educator, Coach, Life Strategist

Time to get rid of unschooling

Darn you, unschooling. I wish you never existed.

You’re a misnomer and you’re terribly misunderstood.   You send incorrect messages and just confuse people.  From what I can tell, hardly anybody understands you.  Except for your close friends, people don’t really seem to like you, either.

It’s not your fault.  In fact, it’s not about you at all.  You inherited this problem.  It was a good idea at the time.  But times have changed.  Nobody meant to hurt you or anything…it just, kinda…happened.

I’ll get right to the point…((deep breath))…it’s your name.  I mean, unschooling? It’s so wrong.  I’m sorry, but your name just makes a big mess of everything.  You might as well call youself nonschooling for gosh sakes.  I mean, that’s what a lot of people think you are anyway.

Don’t get me wrong, I know what you’re doing, and I really, really, really like you for it.  Really I do.  But not everybody “gets” you the way I do.  Did you ever think about that?  I think that’s why you’re always getting yourself in trouble on TV and everywhere.  I mean, you’re already a little bit hard for most people to understand.  And then — with that name – it just makes things even worse.

Plus — and I don’t mean to be selfish or anything – but having you in the same room as homeschoolers gets everybody gets all worked up about what I do, too.  So, really, you’re not just harming yourself.  By association, you’re kinda hurting me, too.

See, here’s the thing.  To most people, unschooler means NO SCHOOL.  As in, THE OPPOSITE OF school.  You know, like un- anything.  And that wouldn’t be so bad if that’s all it was.  So, you don’t like school.  People could probably handle that.

But the problem is, that most people think that no school equals NO LEARNING, too.    There’s the problem.  It doesn’t send the right message.  So now, if you keep that name, you’ve got everybody all mixed up, thinking unschoolers aren’t going to school so they’re automatically not learning.  Get it?

So I have a plan.  I notice other people use terms like child-led, interest-led and curiosity-driven to describe what you do.  Those are kinda nice words, don’t you think?  I mean, they’re sweet and cute, they’re positive and upbeat, and — most importantly – they definitely imply learning.  Don’t you think?

So, I’m thinking we stop calling you unschooling.  Since that’s not really what you are anyway.  And instead, we start calling you by some other name.  I personally like interest-led the best, but I can even come up with a few more if you don’t like those.    In fact, I scribbled out a list the other day.  Here it is so far:

  • Freedom to learn
  • Learning without boundaries
  • Learning when I’m ready
  • Learning because I want to
  • Researching stuff I want to know
  • Loving to learn
  • Doing my thing
  • Cultivating my skills and talents
  • Living my real life
  • Learning as I go

I know a lot of those don’t sound like real names and they aren’t really official or anything, but maybe it can help you pick the one you like best.  The thing I liked about my list was that it kinda makes every child seem like an unschooler in a way, doesn’t it?  Heck, by those definitions, probably every human is an unschooler, too.

Bottom line, we seriously need to change your image.  You’re not helping yourself by holding on to ancient history.  Plus, you’re bringing me down along with you.  Give it some thought would you?  And if you come up with any better names, would you add them to my COMMENTs, too?

Much love,

 

Author’s note added 17 October 2012:  This post is about the term ‘unschooling’ — the word itself – and is not an opinion nor a commentary on unschooling itself or those who consider themselves unschoolers.  The message is about public perception, image and home education PR.  Click the ‘tongue-in-cheek’ tag, the ‘unschooling’ tag, or others to find additional posts of this kind, should you be inclined to continue reading.  For the reader’s information, unschooling is legal and practiced in all 50 states, and around the world.  ‘Natural Learning’ (just another term) has occurred since the beginning of mankind, and is as fundamental a trademark of being human as are other natural behaviors.  Perhaps the only ‘problem’ with unschooling is its name, if this is indeed a problem, as the benefits and outcomes of unschooling have been amply demonstrated and are evidenced daily by the grown children raised in unschooling families.  As with everything homeschooling/unschooling/anyschooling,  however, there is no universal best choice.  Readers are encouraged to choose the lifestyle that works best for them. 

Why homeschoolers make bad parents

I confess.  It’s true.  The end.

Well, perhaps I should explain.

If you’re a homeschool mamma or daddy, or know someone who is, you may find this utterly hard to believe.  But, there are actually folks out there who think that homeschoolers make bad parents.

Okay. Seriously?

Have you ever met a harder working set of parents? Or single parent? Or grandparent?  Or family? Give me a break.  I mean, I haven’t slept a decent night or had a shower lasting more than 45 seconds in decades — have you?  But I am joyful and so are my kids.  They’re smart and ready to take on the world.

But, I digress.

The truth is, I really have no idea how it happened.  It all started somewhere 20-some years ago.  That little face looked up at me, all pimply and blueish and I was in love.  Deeply in love with that tightly wound bundle the midwife placed in my arms.  I was both alive for the first time and scared to death.  Because at that moment, and for the rest of my life, I couldn’t ever imagine passing that little body over to anyone else to care for or bring up.  How could anyone possibly love that boy more than me?

So it was around that time that things started going downhill.  And I guess that’s how these kinds of rumors start.  For me, my story went something like this…

I spent weeks, months even, searching for a pediatrician.  One that wouldn’t question my every move but would give me information when I asked and keep my boy healthy in case of emergency.  The first one made comments I didn’t like.  A second chided me on my extensive list of questions.  But the third didn’t mind my ideas and actually, kinda, sorta, at least a little bit, seemed to agree with me on some points. He got the job.

I bought all of the books.   Back then, it was Spock, Leach, Brazelton, Sears and people like that.  I didn’t agree with them all, no sir.  But I read them dutifully cover to cover.  And tabbed the important pages.  And made a special spot on the shelf so I could grab them often.  Which it turned out, I didn’t do very much, except for big stuff like illnesses and the healthy recipes at the back of each book, because they just didn’t know him as well as me.

I breastfed the boy.  A long time. I mashed his organic foods. I sewed his clothing. I sang and read, played music and explored, attached him to my front, my hip and my back.  I took him everywhere there was to see and filled every one of his waking moments with something loving, useful, valuable.  Things that would nurture and expand him.  Things that I knew could only compliment what his father and I could offer but important stuff nonetheless.  For this was our boy, and nobody knew him more than us.  And nobody but nobody could do a better job.  He was ours.

I worked, too, by the way.  With a cooler permanently affixed to my waist, I pumped in lounges, offices and restrooms.  I reorganized my schedule so that his father and I could alternate days away from home.  When it was my turn, I called home every hour.  I sped home at the end of each day to see my guys.  And I blissfully wiled evenings away on the couch in absolute paradise, watching the home videos my super-hero husband had filmed all day long, so that I wouldn’t miss a single moment of my boy’s life.

Some years passed and I received another tightly wound bundle.  And then other.  And the pattern continued for a while.  And at the same time, things got worse and worse.

I stopped working for pay and came home permanently.  We were broke and it was all my fault.  Lo and behold I began teaching these children, too.  I set up a classroom, spent months with tiny scissors and blisters, cutting through felt and yards of clear vinyl.  I hung brightly colored posters on every wall to hold their constant attention and subliminally implant things into their tiny little brains.  Useful things.  Stuff they’d need.  And I loved them more and more each day and we spent our time reading, wondering, discussing, drawing, recording, and discovering the world.  I become more and more the bad parent as the years went on.  And the sad part was that I didn’t even know it.

There was nothing my kids could do to defend themselves from me either.  Their smiles and laughter hid what they were thinking.  Their healthy bodies and creative minds concealed their unhappiness from me, I guess.  I had no idea that blowing bubbles, drawing pictures and building castles wasn’t a good thing.  They hadn’t said that in my books.  I honestly thought I was doing a great job.

When I broke off our relationship with the family whose child who couldn’t wait to spill the beans about stuff like bad words and where babies came from, my kids were without recourse.

When I switched swimming classes because the teacher in our class didn’t have the patience to answer my kids’ occasional questions, my children had to put up with reorganizing their little schedules.

When I politely excused myself from talking to the museum docent who couldn’t answer my kids’ questions and decided to take a self-guided tour instead, the kids had to deal with my explanations instead of hers.

When I fixed their favorite little finger foods and brought them to parks and beaches to mingle with other homeschoolers, there wasn’t anything they could do about that either.

And when we fashioned little Beatrix Potter-inspired scarecrows and inserted them into our flower boxes, and caught and identified little things from the tidal pools, and made up songs and stories about states and colors and numbers and words that were very hard to spell, my children were defenseless.  They were required to accompany me on bird-watching tours and water-sampling excursions, forced to endure hours of discovery at science and history museums, made to sit quietly during art lessons and piano instruction, and run ragged by kicking soccer balls and splashing endlessly in friend’s pools and water parks, too.

Looking back on those days, it really must have been torture.

Adding salt to their wounds, I controlled much of what they learned, which included reading, writing and mathematics each and every year.  I decided what they wore, requiring them to share outgrown clothing with younger siblings and even help the littles dress and tie shoelaces, too.  I was vigilant about what they saw on television and learned the only satellite TV command I still remember to this day — the block/unblock feature.  I forced them to learn to make pizza in our kitchen and stir-fry in our wok instead of ordering out.  If they were hungry, they sometimes even had to cook for themselves.  I refused to allow them to purchase T(een) and M(ature) video games, and determined if and when they were allowed to interact with the neighborhood brat or the foul-mouth bully two streets over.

Sadly, there were other signs of bad parenting, too.  I can hardly believe I required:

– brushing teeth daily and getting regular dental checkups, even an occasional set of braces

– doing daily chores and helping adults with other things they asked, too

– hitting the pillow at a decent hour every night, and rising before the day and all of its possibilities had slipped away

– having physical education every day or some kind of movement activity to stay active and healthy

– eating a healthy diet without a constant stream of sugary or pre-packaged snacks

– making lists of goals and setting limits on the amount of time they goofed off

– living without an allowance and being denied gadgets and electronics like the ones other kids had

– acting like ladies and gentlemen at all times, even when it was hard

and even stuff like:

– taking classes at local schools, colleges and education centers

– redoing papers and assignments if they didn’t really understand

– finishing their work even though they had other things to do

– studying for exams like SATs and applying for scholarships and colleges

– volunteering in the community

– doing things for neighbors and for animals — for free

I was tough.  I see it now. And with this list of flaws and faux-pas, is there anyone that wouldn’t agree?

Homeschoolers do make bad parents.  But, alas, no amount of wishing can change the past for my kids.

Maybe this post will help you…before it’s too late.

 

Other posts you might like:

On homeschool moms and letting go

The floors and dirty and the bathroom smells

Moms who hurt

The future is secure

Voted off the island

In homeschool, there can be a difference between what mom (or dad) likes, and what the children enjoy.  Although the most important educational decisions are best left up to the parents, there are times when kids should be heard, too.

It can take homeschooling parents many tries before learning this important lesson.   Some parents never learn it at all.  I am ashamed to admit that it took me years to figure out, and that still today I occasionally need to remind myself to pick only the really important battles and not sweat the small stuff when it comes to outside experiences for my kids.

Take the bird unit I undertook with the children when they were all quite young.  Or the “endless bird project” as they now refer to it, shuddering at the memory of apparently one of the most unpleasant homeschooling experiences they ever had.

It began when I learned there was a nearby bird rookery, where families could go to observe large numbers of shorebirds nesting, sitting on eggs, caring for babies, and ultimately watch the fledglings (and later their parents) fly off until the following year.  The location came highly recommended, as people from all over, including scientists and researchers, nature photographers, teachers and others, would come to witness this annual ritual and rather spectacular local phenomenon.

Sounded like a can’t-miss project to me.  I was all over it.  So, good homeschool parent that I was, I went ahead and plopped down a rather large sum of money (for us, at the time) and purchased the season pass so we wouldn’t miss a thing.

And so we began the bird project in January of that year, making the trip north 2-3 times per week, for several hours a pop, until the end of April when the birds had completed the cycle for another year.

Our visits not only included observation.  Puh-leez.  In my over-zealous, new and compulsive homeschooler kind of way, I way overdid it.  I photographed as they dropped quarters in the machine and scanned the area.  We identified.  The children sketched.  We counted.  I catalogued.  We all graphed.  We noticed the changes taking place in the female birds (shape, coloration) and all manner of little details observable from the narrow and treacherous platforms on which we stood (over alligator-filled swamps, by the way, stench and all).   I held hands and strollers, backpacks and little pint-sized water bottles.

It was educational and, darn it, we were going to get our money’s worth and learn.

Did I mention I also purchased a bird workbook, downloaded a set of birdie worksheets for every child, and laminated a couple dozen charts and posters that I’d tote in the car and hang around the house, just in case the children happened to forget about the project (and, believe me, they tried)?  And all I could think of the whole time was, Wow!  Am I just the smartest homeschool mom or what?

And so when somewhere into the second month of bird-watching, when the kiddos expressed a slight disinterest in packing up the lunch kit and setting off with their little binoculars, I ignored it.  This was good stuff, and I wasn’t going to let them miss it.

And then during the third month of our rookery visits when the kids began vocalizing their desires to stay home and doing something else — anything else – but go bird-watching, I ignored that, too.  Education was still taking place, doggone it.  So, we continued.

And it was only finally during the fourth month of the bird unit, when the children flat-out refused to put on their tiny little sun hats, sing all of the bird songs we had learned by then, and hoist their now noticeably heavier “L. L. Bear” junior-backpacks onto the third seat of the minivan, that I finally realized they were done.

How could I have missed it?

So I asked my husband to watch the kiddos and I wrapped up our bird studies that day – on my own, camera around my neck and clipboard in hand, sheepish look on my face and a boat-load of guilt in my heart.  All day, and for many days after that, I thought about how I had dragged my sweet babies all over town for weeks and weeks, all for the sake of learning.

And what had they learned?  To hate birds, that’s what.  And alligators, by the way.  And anything having to do with nature studies for a long, long, long time.  And even now when they smell cauliflower cooking in the kitchen or hard water coming from the well pump, they begin twitching uncomfortably and experiencing all kinds of horrible associations and flashbacks to the days at the rookery.  And I can’t say I blame them.  In all honesty, I feel it too, just differently I guess.

So where did the bird unit get us?  As bird-watchers and lovers of the outdoors, at least for a while, not very far.  But as a homeschooling parent, a lot wiser.  Because I learned not to over-do it on behalf of education, and to listen to the children just a little more the next time.  And there were next times.   Like the rock unit.  And each time I listened a little bit harder.  Like during the IMAX educational film run.  Until eventually I got it.  Right after the reciprocal museum passes expired, that is.  What I like isn’t always what my kids like.  And — big shocker – sometimes their attention spans last just a moment, and sometimes their interest levels wane long before mine does.

And so finally at some point, when I found myself brainstorming ideas for outside projects, I started talking them over with the kids first.  We adopted a voting system, whereby the children could choose projects they might be interested in, and then “vote me off the island” if my ideas stunk, which (at least to them), they apparently often did.  And I was frequently voted off the island and still am from time to time, even today.  Because the kids remind me of the bird project (really they use another name that I’m too embarrassed to post) and it brings me back to the misery I put them through so many years ago.

So the lesson here is, of course, to listen to your children.  Make decisions on their behalf, certainly.  But know when a project is over.  And leave it at that.

I talk about this lesson just a little bit here in THIS VIDEO about nature schooling.  That’s because the sting is still fresh in my memory and comes back to bite me when I least expect it.  I don’t want it to bite you, too, so I am sharing this story with you hoping it won’t.

Have you ever gone completely overboard on a project?  Did your children tell you so?

Share your story with others.  They can learn from your experience, too.  And their kids will thank you, too.