This is an abridged and illustrated version of the talk I gave at ALL Adelaide and ALL Melbourne. Mostly, it’s the same!
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I discovered there was a possibility called homeschooling when I was around 14, when I saw an interview on a very cool Channel 4 show (in the UK) with a very young Cailtin Moran (who had been homeschooled). I declared there and then that I would homeschool any children I might have in my future.
When Kai was 2, I first heard of the word unschooling. I looked into it, and when we moved to Colorado, when Kai was just 3, I found a large group of unschoolers and our life changed forever.
Although we haven’t since found a group as big, or as active as that one in Colorado, we’ve nevertheless been a part of unschooling and homeschooling groups in all the places we’ve lived since – in Tasmania, and here in Adelaide, and we’ve been to homeschool and unschool meets on trips to other states too.
Throwback – Unschool Park Day Colorado! Little Kai with his Star Pants on!!
One of the concerns when people learn that you homeschool, is that your child will be ‘missing out’? Often, when quizzed what this actually means, they don’t actually know! But sometimes they’ll say ‘diversity’ – meaning, I guess, that homeschooled kids won’t be exposed to as many different people, as many different experiences, as children in school would be.
That seems to be the view particularly in the case of an only child; people imagine Kai shut up in the house doing maths at the kitchen table all day, never seeing any other kids or doing anything much else.
Early on, I had similar concerns – particularly because Kai was likely to be an only child. I was also an only child, and very happy that way, but I was in school – I saw my school friends every day. I worried he’d feel isolated, lonely, and that might lead him to seek school in order to find more friends.
I’m happy to say our experience so far has been nothing like that at all, but I won’t say it doesn’t take effort to make sure Kai has a wide range of friends, social outings and experiences.
Kai is a very social kind of child – he’d be classed as an extrovert for sure. He thrives around other people, other kids, and enjoys being in large groups. Absolutely nothing like I was as a child.
He is also enthusiastic and passionate about many things. Some of those passions have lasted years – like dinosaurs, and medieval history, others seem more fleeting. But his passions have led to a massive diversity of experiences and people over the last 5 years since we began incorporating unschooling principles, experiences I would never have had either, had it not been for unschooling.
Unschooling has given us the freedom to follow courses and passions that just wouldn’t have been possible if Kai were in school and I was at work.
Last year, Kai became interested in surfing. He wanted to sign up for the Surf Groms program down at Moana beach (although admittedly I think that was more about the backpack and hat he got in the sign up package!). It was a week of intensive surfing every morning for two hours – early, for us – 10.30am! Kai enjoyed it, made lots of new friends, and wanted to keep surfing afterward so we got him a board.
During the program, I received an email about a photo competition – send in a photo of your surf grom, and you could win a trip to the Quiksilver Pro on the Gold Coast, and a camera! Heck it was free and I had plenty of photos, so I sent a few in.
This was one of them….
Not long later we got a call telling us we had won the trip to the Gold Coast (with the above photo!), and the camera, and a bunch of other goodies. The trip was soon, but – with no work and no school, we could leave at the drop of a hat!
The weekend on the Gold Coast was hectic! The kids were pushed around for ‘photo opportunities’ eating plates of Vegemite – one of the sponsors, with famous surfers, climbing up climbing walls…but the second day was the best – the kids got one-on-one surfing instruction with famous surfers at a beach on the Gold Coast.
Kai surfing on the Gold Coast…helped by Mark Richards and Tom Carroll!!!
I was so impressed with how Kai handled all the pressure, all the photographs and direction, and how he interacted with the other kids who were winners. It was an exhausting weekend, but so amazing. He still surfs regularly, though didn’t do the program this year.
The surfing world is something I never expected to know anything about, let alone go to watch a pro-competition, it’s just one of the many ways unschooling has opened up not only Kai’s world, but mine and Brett’s too.
A few months down the line, we saw another competition advertised – nature photography. The prize was a $100 JB-Hi-Fi voucher – which was a strong motivating factor for Kai, who wanted the money for new games.
We had the time and flexibility to take lots of different photos to enter in the competition, and – thanks to the surfing competition – Kai had his own cool camera! We experimented mostly with plants and macro and using the mini-tripod. Well. He won that competition as well! His macro shot of a carnivorous sundew won in the primary section for plant or fungus.
The winning image – Dew of Death!!
We were invited to attend the opening of a ‘Kids and Nature’ photo exhibition in the city, which was going to feature the winners of the competition. There were 8 winners, the cards beneath the photographs identified that three of the children, including Kai, were homeschooled. I thought that was pretty amazing, although probably not that surprising really – homeschoolers have the time to photograph all day if we want. Choose the best lighting. The best sunny days. Watch for when the flowers bloom. When the carnivorous plant catches an ant (in our case). Just another plus of the flexibility of unschooling.
The winning images at the exhibition – huge percentage of homeschoolers!!
When we found out Kai had won the competition, someone in the family expressed some concern to me – ‘You must let him know that it’s not this easy to win competitions, Jo.’ they said. ‘He needs to know its not real life to win every competition.’
I understand that concern. I think they were worried that he’ll think that winning competitions is easy, and wanted to save him from disappointment if there came a time when he lost something. But, in essence, they wanted me to tell him something that , in his experience, isn’t true. Kai’s real life experience is that he has won in competitions, and that winning doesn’t have to be that hard.
I thought about where that idea comes from – that children need to taught about negatives, or possible disappointments. It’s like the way some parents quash dreams or aspirations – by saying it’s too hard or you aren’t smart enough or it’s not for people ‘like us’. Brett’s parents told him he wouldn’t get a job from catching lizards, his lifetime passion, but that he needed a trade. They were understandably worried about his future, they didn’t know any herpetologists. But lucky for him, he pursued it anyway, and now does indeed have a job studying (and catching!) lizards!
It seems to be a very-schoolish idea – something that needs to be taught – that kids need to learn that things don’t come easily. That life is hard. Perhaps to protect them from some imagined failure or disappointment in the future.
I recently discussed this idea with Schuyler Waynforth – trying to clarify my thoughts for this talk. She mentioned a quote of Meredith Novak’s that fits well with this seemingly schooly idea of avoiding failure.
‘If you’re thinking in terms of lessons, you’re not thinking about decision making or learning. With lessons, there are right and wrong answers. But in real learning, a “wrong choice” isn’t inherently worse than a right one – in fact, it’s often more valuable.” – Meredith Novak
Aside from the extra time we have, on reflection, maybe that’s why so many homeschooled children entered the photo competition. Perhaps homeschooled children don’t have the deeply engrained fear of failure that many schooled children have? Schuyler suggested that maybe homeschooled entrants were less likely to think competitions were a losing endeavour.
An addition to these thoughts came from Sandra during the Melbourne ALL – she suggested that homeschooling/unschooling parents might also be more willing to let children use a decent camera, while other parents might see good, expensive cameras as only something adults would be allowed to use…
I don’t want Kai to ever think there is something he can’t do. But he doesn’t live in a vacuum, he lives in a world where he knows you don’t win competitions every time – even from playing Daily Spin on Animal Jam – which he’s never yet won!
Before we’ve entered any competitions, we’ve discussed the fact that he might not win. In fact, together we came to the conclusion that we should focus on local, small competitions, where our probability of winning is greater simply because less people will enter. A real life example of odds and probabilities!
Anyway, I digress. Back to the flexibility that comes with unschooling. Recently Kai went through a period where he was intensely interested in dinosaurs. He has always been interested, but this phase was full-on for weeks – we had every dinosaur book from the library, dinosaur models and kits, dinosaur DVD’s and you tubes.
Because Kai doesn’t go to school, because we don’t require ‘school-at-home’, Kai was able to completely immerse himself in dinosaurs and related learning for weeks. He watched Walking with Dinosaurs, Walking with Beasts, Walking with Monsters and Prehistoric Park over and over and over. He poured over the Dinosaur encylopedia…the amount of information and learning that occurred over those few weeks of intense dinosaur research was staggering.
That same week someone, somewhere, posted a quote from John Holt, that resonated so well with our experience during that time…
Children do much of their learning in great bursts of passion and enthusiasm. [They]….rarely learn on the slow, steady schedules that schools make for them. They are more likely to be insatiably curious for a while about some particular interest, and to read, write, talk and ask questions about it for hours a day and for days on end. Then suddenly they may drop that interest and turn to something completely different, or even for a while seem to have no interests at all. This usually means that for the time being they have all the information on that subject that they can digest, and need to explore the world in a different way, or perhaps simply get a firmer grip on what they already know.” (paraphrased from How Children Learn, by John Holt)
Unschooling and our flexible schedule has also allowed us to go on numerous field trips with Brett to catch lizards – we’ve been to Alice Springs, up to Queensland and in the back of beyond for weeks on end – we help Brett dig in pitfall traps and check the funnel traps for lizards. Kai and I have been able to spend long periods overseas in the UK, and the US, visiting friends and family…time we wouldn’t have if he were at school, or even if we did school-at-home.
Kai releasing a goanna, Alice Springs, 2012
When Kai won the photography competition, he rushed out to JB-Hi-Fi to buy some new games. Gaming is a big part of our life, and the flexibility of unschooling means we can play and skype with local friends, and overseas friends, and not worry too much about time-zones, bedtimes and having to leave the computer for dinner. In our house, dinner and snacks go to the computer. Or the couch.
Kai has a good friend who lives in Arkansas. They’ve never met in ‘in real life’, although they’ve spent countless hours playing Minecraft, Animal Jam and Pirate 101 and skyping together, so if that’s not ‘real life’ I don’t know what is! People sometimes ask how homeschooled kids will learn to work in a team situation. This is just one way Kai works as a group to achieve a real aim, not one made up in an artificial school situation. Listening to them working as a team to solve problems in games, and to help each other get to new levels and get prizes, truly is wonderful.
And in the process, without even really realising it, we’ve learnt about time zones, about American states, where Arkansas is, as well as all the learning and co-operation going on in the games. Kai’s friend is also unschooled, and the flexibility at her home means that she can skype Kai throughout our day, and then she goes to bed in Arkansas pretty late.
The flexibility and choices that unschooling bring have, I’m happy to say, pervaded every area of our life. From food, to sleep, travel, dinosaurs, surfing, photography. Kai’s world is big. Huge. To steal a line from Sandra – his world is ‘bigger and more sparkly than school’ – bigger and better than school could ever be. I have no doubt.
People new to unschooling often ask what a typical day looks like. They wonder what we actually do all day. But we’ve found that there is no typical day when you follow passions and make better, happier choices. Or maybe every day is typical – typically happy, full of fun and learning. One day may be full of Prehistoric Park and the dinosaur encylopedia. The next month a typical day might look like skyping and gaming with Caitlyn most of the day. Still other days might be hiking, going to the zoo, the museum, visiting friends. Long hair, short hair. Soccer, sword skills class, stunt monkeys. Adelaide, Arkansas. We have the flexibility to explore the whole world. I’m always excited to see what our next ‘typical’ might turn out to be.
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