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Unschooling or
Just Living Life? – April 15, 2004
I haven’t
been posting to this blog as often as I’d
like. That’s because I'm
too busy – trying to do too much, as usual. These days, both life and
business are getting in the way of much thinking, not to mention putting
those thoughts down on paper. So there has gone the intention to try and
define the term “unschooling” that I mentioned
a week or two ago.
A large portion of my time and emotional
energy has been taken up with trying to find a satisfactory living
arrangement for my 95-year-old mother. But that process has provided me
with a great deal of learning...about how the bureaucratic system works,
about how I want to prepare myself emotionally and financially for old
age, about the health issues of the elderly, and many other things. I
have even added a few new words to my vocabulary as a result!
It occurred to me yesterday that my
current path is no different from the one my children walked as they
grew up. By that I mean they learned by living their daily lives,
through experience...both that which found them and that which they
sought out. They reacted to a need, a duty or an interest by exploring,
researching, asking questions, listening to others, testing their ideas
and putting them into motion, getting feedback, making the odd mistake
and correcting it, and so on. Along the way, they learned how to read
and write, how to research and communicate effectively, how to do math
and think strategically, how to dance and play guitar, and about
science, history, geography, art and computers. Nobody taught them what
they learned, although many people contributed to their store of skills
and knowledge. Nobody tested their knowledge or measured it against
someone else’s idea of
what was appropriate for them to learn, although it was tested daily by
the success of their various projects. It hardly seems appropriate to
confine such a rich way of living through the use of such a narrow (not
to mention semi-negative) term as “unschooling”!
Posted: 4/15/2004 7:45 AM
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