Unschooling: Clock Watching

I used to watch the clock a lot.

Many years ago, when I was at school, every classroom had a clock on the wall. And each of those clocks had leaden hands that moved so slowly that I often thought I’d go crazy before they reached the half-hour or hour position. At those magical points on the circle, a bell would ring, releasing us, sending us into a flurry of activity. We’d thrust our books into our bags and race for the door. A few minutes later, we’d flop onto chairs in an identical classroom in front of another teacher. Soon we’d all be looking at another leaden-handed clock.

All those half-hour and hour and even two-hour lessons that had to be endured each day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Years of watching clocks and waiting for bells.

I have to admit it wasn’t all bad. Occasionally, a teacher’s enthusiasm was contagious, and I forgot to look at the clock. And sometimes I made a real effort as I tried to take an interest in the lessons that I was forced to attend.

For example, when I was about 13, I disliked art, mostly because of the teacher. She was always complaining and finding fault with my work. I was sure she didn’t like me. I wondered why. One day, I decided to do an experiment. I did extra work on my homework assignments. I read and researched. I formulated a list of curious questions. Then, instead of enduring the lesson as I waited for the bell to ring, I looked as if I were very interested in it. The teacher noticed. She paid attention to me. She started to like me. My marks rose significantly. I suppose there’s a lesson in there somewhere.

Teaching isn’t easy, especially in a system where everyone is ruled by clocks. Learning has to be efficient. Facts have to be packed into small spaces. There’s little time to be curious and ponder and be fascinated by the world. Although my teachers did their best, were they sometimes just as eager as me for the clock hands to reach the right position for the bell to ring?

In our early years of homeschooling, I discovered Charlotte Mason. I got very excited about her ideas and decided to try them out on my kids. I drew up a plan for each week, and included all the required subjects such as maths, English and history. I left time for regular drilling of maths facts and spelling too. I thought my kids would be delighted because we were going to read good books, recite poems, investigate art, keep nature journals and do all kinds of interesting things. Looking at my plan, I could see that my kids would have to do a lot of things each day, but that was okay because each lesson was going to be short.

Short lessons sounded sensible. I could present many subjects to my kids in a day without their attention wandering. Lots of variety. They only had to focus for a few minutes at a time, so they wouldn’t need to watch the clock, hoping its hands would move very quickly.

It was me who ended up doing lots of clock watching. I had to know the exact minute to say, “That’s it! Time to move on.” I felt it was important to keep moving through the day’s timetable and not get behind. We had to tick off all the boxes. Get the school work finished as quickly as possible. We couldn’t spend all day doing it. We had much more interesting things to do. We wanted to get to the part of our day when we were free to do what we wanted.

Looking back, I wonder why I thought short lessons were a good idea. I know kids are capable of focusing for long periods of time. I’ve observed small children looking at worms or leaves or caterpillars or shadows or even a drop of water. They are captivated, absorbed. It’s adults who want to rush past all the fascinating things. We’re the ones in a hurry. We don’t seem to have the same patience as our kids.

If kids are good at concentrating, why are they presented with short lessons? Could the lessons be the problem rather than the kids? Are traditional methods of teaching failing to capture a child’s attention? Are they foreign to a child’s natural way of learning?

I soon abandoned Charlotte Mason and her system of short lessons. I stopped making my kids learn what I (or Charlotte) thought was important. I threw my plans into the bin and bypassed all the boxes waiting for ticks. We headed straight for the good stuff. And we stopped watching the clock.

We immersed ourselves in whatever interested us for as long as we wanted. We focused on our passions. No clocks. No bells. No moving on at an arbitrary moment in time. No getting behind. No having to keep up.

The funny thing is my kids ended up learning about many of the things Charlotte Mason approves of. I suppose that’s not really surprising because such things as poetry, literature, art and nature aren’t the exclusive property of a method or curriculum. They’re part of the world. They’re waiting to be discovered by curious people who are free to learn.

So, we no longer watch clocks. Unless, of course, we’re boiling an egg!

Photos

My husband Andy is doing some old fashioned clock watching. He’s looking at a sun dial!