I wanted to start today's blog with some quotes that might inspire you, as they did me:

"I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught." -Winston Churchill

"Schooling, instead of encouraging the asking of questions, too often discourages it." -Madeleine L'Engle

"Before children go to school in the first place, all of their natural learning systems are intact. This is what we can see from families who have homeschooled their kids from the very beginning. However, once children are in school for about three years, they are forced to shift over to a very unnatural system to survive the emphasis on memorization and the daily stress, rigidity, and humiliation of classroom life." -Judy Garvey in GWS #76

"You cannot teach a person anything; you can only help him find it within himself." -Galileo

"The child who attends public school typically spends approximately 1,100 hours a year there, but only twenty percent of these -- 220 -- are spent, as the educators say, 'on task'. Nearly 900 hours, or eighty percent, are squandered on what are essentially organizational matters." -Homeschooling For Excellence

"Most people, most of the time, learn most of what they know about science and technology outside of school." -National Science Foundation

"The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught." -Vauvenargues

n the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself." -Grace Llewellyn

“Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.” – Ivan Illich

“Our rapidly moving, information-based society badly needs people who know how to find facts rather than memorize them, and who know how to cope with change in creative ways. You don’t learn those things in school.” – Wendy Priesnitz

“If we taught babies to talk as most skills are taught in school, they would memorize lists of sounds in a predetermined order and practice them alone in a closet.”  Linda Darling-Hammond

 The next thing I would like to share is a video that may just have the most accurate and plausible explanation of what Unschooling is. It is long but, after watching the first 15 minutes, both my mom and I had an "Ah, Ha" moment where it finally clicked.


http://youtu.be/LwIyy1Fi-4Q?t=3m39s


I hope that these quotes and the video will help you, as they did me, to inspire confidence that "unschooling" can make sense and that it can work for your family. I am not trying to convince anyone to go out and begin unschooling. What I am trying to do is open your mind to the possibility that there are other options that both the brick and mortar school based system and the conventional homeschooling methods that we normally hear about might not offer. Since I decided to home school I have been plagued with fears about "not doing enough". I don't think I am alone in this. I think it's pretty common. What if, just what if, I am doing too much?

Day Two- "Unschooling Experiment"
Yesterday went pretty well for the children. Andy and Lexi went swimming most of the day while Nikolas watched "Liberty's Kids"( a video series that covers a vast amount of historical information through cartoon characters) most of the day. In the morning they each explored topics that they were interested in. The most unusual part of the day was when the boys decided they wanted to explore different languages. They picked French and German. They watched Pocahontas in French then they watched Sesame Street in German. I don't think I have ever seen my sons laugh as hard as they did when they heard German!!!! German, in my opinion, is a rather coarse sounding language. In contrast, they both fell in love with French. So much so, that they watched nearly the entire movie, regardless of the fact that they couldn't understand it. On a positive note, the children got along exceptionally well, despite the lack of structure.In deep contrast to the children, I went to bed nervous and uncomfortable that the kids didn't learn "enough"(whatever that is!)
Today, we went to our HS coop and learned about Picasso. While I can't say exactly what was learned today by each of the children, I can say that, I know that what they did pick up, was useful. Looking at this situation from an Unschooling perspective, I saw my son Andy playing so beautifully with children who were much younger than him. He gave them piggy back rides and acted like a unicorn and was the most patient, I think, I have ever witnessed him being! My daughter, Lexi, who is painfully shy, opened up and played and talked. If you have seen my normally boisterous and playful daughter go completely mute when spoken to, you know what an accomplishment this is. My son Nikolas played with his friend Jacob for over an hour, peacefully and without incident. They were so quiet, you might not know that they were there. This, to me, is also a special part of our day because, it's so wonderful to see my son "click" with someone. Anyone with a really good friend who "gets" you, knows what a wonderful feeling that is. So, did we learn our times tables today? No! We did not. However, it would be a hindrance to my family if I failed to take notice of the happenings I mentioned. For today, I am at peace with Unschooling and it's magic.