Two Month Check Up

    This blog is brought to you by the misfortune that my husband, a carpenter, had a run in with his saw requiring 4 stitches and 7 days off of work.  He took the kids to Friday shinny=two and a half hours of quiet time for me alone at home sans enfants.  Afternoon is such a better time to write (or do anything at all) coherently as opposed to 9:30 after the daily ordeal of bedtime.  By now I've proven to myself that there is a legitimate list to be written that testifies to the significant learning moments that naturally, and supernaturally present themselves each and every day.  And so I've slowed down my nightly blogging and spent more evening time on the couch beside my husband either reading or watching TV or drooling on my shirt while staring at the wall.   I'd still like to take some time to reflect on some of the more macro lessons that I've learned through our experiment so far.
     Soo many people have approached me and said things like: "Unschooling sounds like it's so much harder than traditional teaching" .   I don't get that.   We spend our days reading books, talking, looking at articles, playing, trying science experiments, baking, crafting, doing household chores, meeting with friends, hiking, and yes, completing a short list of 4 daily exercises --piano practice, writing entries in our gratitude journal, Rosetta stone French and 5 minutes of computer math fact drill.  We don't feel hurried and I don't fear, as I did more so at the beginning, that a day will go by with nothing to feed our thoughts.   It's a joy!  What's so hard about joy?? Before I go on, I want to make abundantly clear the fact that this joy doesn't mean that everybody's happy all the time.  Joy and happiness are two different things and we've got unhappiness aplenty, on certain days, just like any other normal family.  The kids still fight,  I still get fed up with asking people a hundred times to do  simple tasks, and moodiness puts a damper on creativity and curiosity on many days.   And yet, I feel a whole lot less uptight because so much less of my day is spent "shoving boulders up hills" in order to get a long list of subjects done by 4 kids of different ages.  That's hard!!
     And the next inevitable question:  "Well, there must be gaps in the education, if you're completing so many fewer school related lessons throughout the day".  Honey, I used to live in desperate fear of those gaps before, back when we were  scrambling to get all those pages, and prepared lessons done in the hours allotted to "school-time".   I remember when I noticed that my 7 year old son could tell a Matisse from a Picasso and state his opinion of Hammurabi's code but could not spell his own last name while all his school peers could manage that 3 years ago.  And icy fear would pierce my heart when my daughter couldn't say what came after Thursday, but could tell you who was the unifier of India and could sew a nine-patch quilt.   This came as a surprise to me, but these gaps freak me out a lot less, now that we are "getting less school done".   Taking this time to set aside the curriculum has given us ample pause to actually recognize which things are essential to higher problem solving and effective communication and focus on these things without the distraction of whatever was being presented on the next 2 pages of the workbook.  For example,  we've used lots of different methods and language programs with the oldest, but he still struggles with basic sentence structure.  So,  drop everything and develop that specific skill without drowning in abstract exercises that assume that sentence structure is already firm just because we've got to get that blasted Gr. 6 book done by June.   Done.  I feel like we've been given a gift of more time to focus on the basic building blocks of the three Rs  which will definitely make success in the more complex lessons much smoother.  I no longer worry that I'm not doing enough things.   Now we can focus on whether we're doing the right things.  
     Are there days when motivation is low and seemingly nothing gets done?   Yes.   This is another thing that used to really disturb me and make me into a crazy woman.  I found that this reaction was a less than effective motivator to inspire a love of learning.  And it's only been two month, I'm not completely over this, but I have  begun to recognize the value of boredom.   My kids are not allowed any screen time until just before supper so if they can't find something constructive to occupy themselves, they usually end up sitting around in the living room and eventually getting on each other's nerves.   From a mom's standpoint, this sucks and there's no getting around that.   We'd so much rather see the children become passionately involved in some newly discovered interest and emerge from their bedrooms, hours later, having developed the solution to global warming or composed a sonnet about the cat.   Instead, they're sitting on their screaming brother's head or spending too much time in front of the heat register watching the dust settle.   I used to instantly get on their case about how they needed quit being lazy and use their imagination to use their time more wisely.  This is useless, I've discovered.  It creates guilt and pressure which breed more restlessness and bratty behaviour.  I've found that boredom is it's own motivator.   Sometimes, a body needs to sit and do nothing, gather thoughts and make plans about how to make life more interesting when being bored gets boring.   And it happens.  Every time.  Don't we adults have creative energy in bursts with sluggish, unproductive days in between?  How annoying would it be to have someone stand behind you and prod you with "inspirational messages" about how we should "be more creative",  "amuse yourself",  "get something done!"   These moments have become opportunities to read the next chapter in our read-aloud or go outside when they don't launch into building Olympic ski runs out of lego, or sewing pigs or making chemical concoctions in the kitchen. 
     Will I go back to curriculum-led learning?   ...Not sure yet.   Having trouble figuring out why we would, in some ways.   We have until September to decide.   Until then, we'll endeavor to enjoy this oasis in time and childhood.  Already, both I and the kids have a new appreciation and mindfulness of the opportunities to learn, even in the most mundane things.  We'll decide, together, which sequential book learning needs to be brought back in to provide the kids with the tools they will need to become the people they are meant to be.    And I emphasize the word people, persons, rather than the engineers, scrap-metal dealers, teachers,  carpenters that they may become.   Charlotte Mason, a nineteenth century maverick of living education, emphasized that kids are persons first, then future job-holders.   Hopefully these persons in our house will not only be solid men and women of character, but also be somewhat employable in the future that none of us can predict.