Philosophy of Education and bla bla

Home/Unschooling: there is little else on my mind lately– (well that’s not quite accurate- there is also bankruptcy, driver’s license test, birth control, on and on and on – but none of that I’m really ready to talk about with you all- nuthin’ personal )

So here’s another predictable Vivian-ramble! Skip if this topic is of little interest to you, lol!

In my homeschooling/unschooling reading I am a roll with a real classic – The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Homeschooling! LOL But you know what, its actually not that bad. Kinda just recaps the basics and then goes to grade/age levels. One of the things I was reading was about figuring out your “philosophy of education”.

I remember this term very distinctly from Intro to Education in college (for those who don’t know, I was an elementary ed major prior to journalism). I’d probably get a kick out of reading my final for that class (which was some kind of report about that term and defining my personal philosophy, based on the major ones out there and the history of education and so on and so forth) because I can only imagine that a LOT has changed about me since then. Seven years may not be a long time, but two kids later certainly IS.

When Ethan was not even a year old, I went to a gathering with some church gal’s every Friday morning. One of them was really inspiring to me, in many ways, including the way she homeschooled. I had known a few homeschooled friends in high school because of the large youth group I was a part of, and I was sooo jealous that they got to whiz through things that came easy to them, but were of little interest, like math, in order to practice opera or be in a play at the local community theatre. So not fair! lol

The thing that has struck me most since I began the research on this homeschool journey is that there is SUCH a variety of approaches to homeschooling. Some are very rigid and structured and require a ton of parental energy for curricula planning and reporting and testing and so on. It’s basically those who do traditional schooling, but at home. My impression from the kids AND parents who do this approach are the ones who enjoy it the least, and who often burn out quickly. That method of homeschooling never intrigued me, not only because it simply doesn’t fall in line with my personality type, but because I can’t imagine my kid being able to learn best with that approach.

Then there’s some others that I DO really like, bits and pieces of them. I’ve read a few books on the Waldorf method when Ethan was younger and I loved the simple natural toys, creative and imaginative play, and natural surrounding and Seasonal/Rythmic aspects of that. Some of it stuck with me but some of it didn’t.

Last week at the homeschooling potluck, we had a conversation about the Charlotte Mason approach and the “Twaddle-Free” term (all of which was new to me). I really like some parts of this method, esp the learning through “living books” and narrative. The Idiot’s Guide sums up this method as follows:

“According to Mason [an early twentieth-century British educator], living books are real books (as opposed to textbooks) that make the subject seem real and alive. Mason coined the term “twaddle” to describe books that contained second-hand, distilled information… [The approach emphasizes] good habits and basics (reading, writing and math) and exposes children to real-life learning through such experiences as nature walks, touring art museums, reading good literature aloud, and attending concerts.”

There are some great points in there that could work really well for Ethan and I. I think most people learn well through a narrative approach (in fact, this is how God and humankind have interacted from the beginning- in sacred books, the Bible for example.) And I have always gravitated towards the idea of real-life learning with him, as opposed to manufactured ones. So I want to do more reading of Mason’s and see which pieces of her method I’d like to implement at home.

Another approach you have heard me talk about on this blog is the unit method. This is what I am most familiar with as a formal method because its more or less what I’ve already done with Ethan. I’ll pick certain themes for the month or week or whatever, and we’ll study things through that lens. For example, “The Ocean” can be a theme, esp for kids his age, that provide us with all kinds of learning, from sea animals (biology) to waves/tides/currents (natural sciences) to colors and mediums for arts and crafts projects. Math is all up in there too, from how many legs does a crab have to numbers for temperatures and statistics of animal populations or WHATEVER. It’s kinda of endless, actually, and we could end up on the same theme a lot longer than I expected once we actually got into it!

One reason I like the unit theme approach is that it gives me something intentional to focus on with him, and we can learn all kinds of things that fall under that unit, and we can end the unit whenever he’s lost interest in it or we can keep going if he is curious and eager for more. It’s way more hands-off in comparison to the school-at-home method, can be pretty self-directed, and yet helps me as a work-at-home mom to have a little direction and motivation for how and why we spend our day the way we do (as opposed to me on my laptop all day every day, lol).

I’ve also written on this blog about another approach, called Unschooling. Folks who unschool seem to have varying levels of commitment to this approach, and it looks different in each one’s home. But the basic idea is that children learn from totally self-guided curiosity and real-life learning opportunities that present themselves each day. The parents job is not to teach, but to follow the child’s lead and inner time table/readiness and then simply providing them with the resources and materials to help them understand the topic (or sport or skill or whatever).

This seems like its basically how most kids were educated prior to mandatory schooling came about in the industrial age. Many famous figures were self-learners and did not attend traditional classroom schooling, some mentioned in the Idiot’s Guide include people as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Charles Dickens. These are folks who learned based on interest, and whose freedom to love learning and search always to fill their insatiable appetites taught themselves a variety of topics and skills, in depth, and landed them as very prominent figures in history. I like picturing little Thomas Edison’s mom who, when his teachers couldn’t handle him, taught him at home using games and adventures- encouraging his interests that later created some of the most famous inventions in history! Never look at a penny the same way again

How I choose to home educate Ethan this year seems to be determined largely by :

• my own personality and lifestyle, (and one might add budget and capabilities)
• my grasp on Ethan’s personality, developmental stage and learning style (which ultimately will determine how successful or unsuccessful a particular approach will be!)
• my view of my role as a parent and my ideas on what children are and are not (including my worldview/spirituality)
• my daily connection with my community, from family and friends, to church, to support groups, to homeless shelters, to community centers, to resources around me like libraries, museums and parks.

This topic, even the micro-topic of simply (ha!) defining my personal philosophy of education, appears for now to be so vast that I will never quite figure it all out. Which is okay with me, by golly I love that I have the flexibility to back off; redefine; plunge through; utilize team sports, private lessons, tutors and classes; pray; pray some more; observe the changes my kid is going through and recalibrate yet again. Basically, I love that this is a part of my journey, Chris’ journey, our kids’ journey, and our journey together as a family unit. It’s an exciting time with my child – to be considering who he is so much, to grapple with my own strengths and weaknesses in yet ANOTHER area of life

More to come…