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Here's what I do when I have doubts about unschooling. I look over my life at the moment -- what am I doing and learning? I'm not just sitting there like a potted plant -- I'm thinking and reading and asking questions and looking for answers and making connections and trying new things every day. No one is making me, I'm not taking any classes and doing anything for homework or a grade. Now, I do know people who I wonder about -- who *do* just seem to vegetate from day to day. But if I concentrate on *me* and how I'm learning and interested in all kinds of stuff at the advanced age of 40, then I know my tender young children with their exuberant zest for growth and movement and knowledge are certainly learning "the great stuff"! I also think that when they become deeply interested in something, they put their full attention and energy to it, and it's almost impossible to divert them. We had our first big snow of the winter yesterday, and my 13 y/o spent the entire day building an igloo. Now that might seem a waste of time, and childish -- but she learned an awful lot today about albedo effect, insulation of heat and sound, weight, gravity, and balance. I'm mentioning this because your young children's interests may seem childish and inconsequential, and you may fear that they will never get past the point of playing around. But even when older children and adults "play" they are learning plus they are using everything they've been learning up to that point, so that the total combined effect is that they are building on previous knowledge, using well exercised, curious minds, and applying all this to learning way beyond what they would learn in a science classroom. Can you imagine how boring it would be to memorize the meaning of albedo effect in a science class? Wouldn't it seem so easy to build an igloo if you were just looking at pictures of Inuit people constructing one instead of feeling the snow and ice under your hands and actually making something needful? Life is short, and childhood is even shorter - goodness - let the children play and be curious and use their minds and bodies to do what comes naturally, to learn. Karen (Laslzm@aol.com) |