No More Homeschool?

What if I give up completely on my objectives and curriculum?  What would happen if we un-schooled?

If you’re not familiar with un-schooling, it’s a homeschooling philosophy first described in the 1970s. Un-schoolers believe that through normal play, household chores, projects, friendships and family, children will grow, learn, and develop – all at their own pace and based on their own curiosity, talents, and desires.  Un-schoolers believe that children are motivated to learn and learn best in natural contexts, not in the artificial context of curriculum and classrooms.

Before you start shouting at your computer screen, let me tell you about an un-schooled family I met this year.  Their eldest son didn’t learn to read until he was a teen.  He did learn to dance, and joined a professional ballet company early.  Once he learned how to read, he devoured the classics.  Now he’s a successful scuba instructor.  His younger brother started taking classes at the Harvard Extension School when he was very young. The youngest boy loves the Revolutionary War.  He spends his days – and months and years – reading about the war.  He joined the Drum and Fife Corps of our local group of grown-ups who play war on the weekends.  He’s also, as Ezra likes to say, “the very best climber EVER.”  Three very different boys who were allowed to have three very different experiences and seem to be finding what works for them in the world.

The truth is that we un-school more and more.  It’s why I like homeschooling more and more.  Some days  – and weeks, but not yet months – we don’t do anything remotely related to what others might call school.  The boys spend the morning riding scooters and the afternoon canoeing around a pond looking for a snapping turtle.  We’ve been doing a lot of weaving and cross-stitching.  The boys have planted grass and corn and squash. And when you add in all of the exercise and occupational therapy and social skills work we are doing, there isn’t much time for anything else.  Except maybe a Wild Kratts episode.

Another homeschooler told me that lots of families have to un-school for a year to “detox” from school.  Maybe that’s what’s happening, but I’m not so sure.

And sometimes I worry.  I mean almost all of the time I worry.  But sometimes I worry specifically that my kids will be unprepared.  For what, I don’t know.  But it would be bad to be unprepared, right?

And I’ve forced them and manipulated them to do so much in their short, little lives. Would it be fair to change things up now?  I didn’t let Zach get the patent leather shoes he wanted when he was two.  I make them go to church every week.  I convinced Ezra that he wanted to learn Spanish.  More often than I can count, I end an argument with, “Fine.  If you’re too tired to ____________, you need to go to bed for an hour.”

Is it really possible that they could now follow their natural curiosity and develop their own passions?  Wouldn’t they just watch TV all day?  What do you think?  Should we give it a shot or have we already ruined them and it’s too late for un-schooling?