Unschooling: Boring or Maybe Not

Do you find certain things boring? Do your kids? I used to tell everyone I disliked science. I found it boring. This was sad because I did a Bachelor of Science degree. On paper, I’m a scientist. In real life, I’m a writer.

The other day, I set out across the Internet, hopping from link to link and ended up having a wonderful adventure. It all started when I found an image of some Great Barrier Reef corals that I liked. It was drawn by a scientist, many years ago, while he was out in the field (or in the sea!) exploring an environment that was, at the time, not very well known. The drawing caught my eye because of its colours and shapes. I decided to download a copy of it to use as inspiration for my own drawing.

Then I wondered if there is a public domain source of flora and fauna images. Could I find other old drawings that I like? I ended up on the Biodiversity Heritage Library site, and soon I was wading through thousands of pictures of all kinds of living creatures.

Years ago, when I was a university student, I waded through the sea off the coast of Ireland, searching for seaweeds. It was winter, and the water was icy cold. I turned blue. My body was one continual shiver, and my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I was miserable. Fortunately, a friend noticed my uncomfortable state. She kindly donated her woollen gloves, and I gratefully put them on my numbed hands. I was very relieved when our field trip came to an end, and we could return to the warm building where we were staying with our collected specimens.

The best part of my science degree (majoring in botany) was drawing the plants we spent many miserable hours collecting. I enjoyed sitting on a stool at my bench in a warm lab, carefully recording with my pencils what was in front of me before adding some labels. If I could have done that all the time, I would have said, “I love science!” I wouldn’t have classified it as boring.

I certainly wasn’t bored the other day when I discovered the Biodiversity Heritage Library. I spent hours looking at the images, searching for ones that particularly appealed to me. And while I was looking at them, I thought about how we can learn a lot about science by approaching it from the direction of art. The drawings show the structure of different plants and animals. I can see how a fish breathes, and how birds’ beaks are adapted to different environments, and a thousand other interesting scientific things.

So, I used to think science is boring but, of course, it’s not. I just hadn’t approached the subject from the right angle for me. Lab work and field work aren’t my thing. But art? Although I’m not an artist, scientific art fascinates me!

Years ago, my daughter Sophie told me that she didn’t like her friends asking about her favourite ‘school subjects’. (They were structured homeschoolers.) Sophie thought their question implies that there are things she doesn’t enjoy. Maybe things that she finds boring. “Everything is potentially interesting, Mum! We just need to find the right angle.”

Yes, the world is a fascinating place. It shouldn’t be divided up into things that are interesting and those that are not. If we’re curious people, we’ll see the possibilities. Of course, some things will always excite us more than others. We all have our particular passions. But that doesn’t mean that everything else is boring. Oh no, if we look at the world in the right way, we’ll see it’s not boring at all!

Some extra thoughts

When my kids were registered homeschooling unschoolers, I had to write learning plans for them based on the school syllabus. (I kept a strewing unplanning notebook.) I also had to keep records of all the science, geography, history etc that they’d learnt. Even though I never forced my kids to learn anything they weren’t interested in, we always had plenty of notes covering the required school key learning areas, to show our Authorised Person at registration time. I tried to find an angle that appealed to my kids for each subject. There are more ways than one to learn about something. We don’t have to replicate the school model. And we don’t have to absorb the same facts!

Another way to learn about science (and geography and history too) is to read stories about scientists and their discoveries. There are lots of exploration and field notebooks available on the Biodiversity Heritage Library site. Of course, you and your kids might not enjoy reading such stories. You may prefer setting up a home science lab and doing some experiments. Or doing something else. That’s okay, isn’t it? We don’t have to learn the same things in the same way. Staying curious is the important thing!