When we first started unschooling, I used to read John Holt’s magazine Growing Without Schooling. Every couple of months or so, a new copy would land in our mailbox. I’d make a cup of coffee and then settle down to devour each edition from cover to cover.
I read wonderful stories about children who were doing amazing things such as rewiring their family homes. I got excited. I couldn’t wait until my kids did similar things. Would they research electrical wiring? Perhaps they’d build furniture. I was sure our walls would disappear under a thousand diagrams and pictures. Our house would become one wonderful big experimental and creative mess. A place of fabulous learning adventures.
So I stepped back and waited for something to happen. And I waited some more. But my kids didn’t do any of the amazing things I was hoping for. I was so disappointed. I concluded that unschooling doesn’t work.
Of course, unschooling does work. So what was the problem? I misunderstood unschooling. I thought I had to step back from my kids and not interfere with the natural process of learning. Leave them alone to learn completely by themselves. But that’s not what unschooling is all about. Even though parents shouldn’t take control, we can still be involved with our kids’ learning. We can enrich their environments by strewing. Open up the possibilities. Share our own learning. Listen and discuss. Help our kids get to where they want to go.
None of my kids was ever interested in rewiring our home which is unfortunate because we could do with some extra electrical outlets. However, Gemma-Rose has been repainting the interior of our home by herself. So far she has painted the walls, skirting boards, ceilings, and architraves in our family room, living room, hall and kitchen.
I share more about how I discovered what unschooling is really all about in my book Curious Unschoolers.
And if you’d like to know more about strewing you could read my story Time for Some Strewing. (There’s an updated version of this story in Curious Unschoolers.)
You could also listen to episode 114 of my podcast. It’s called All About Strewing.
In the above photo, Gemma-Rose and my husband Andy are replacing the wooden frame around the sliding door in our kitchen. We discovered that redecorating a home involves more than paint. Sometimes things such as door frames and skirting boards have to be repaired first!
I love seeing my kids working with Andy. He shares his skills and they share theirs. And sometimes no one knows what to do so they learn new skills together. Does that happen in your family too?
So I’m wondering if you ever misunderstood unschooling. And have you had any strewing successes recently?
Hi Sue,
Just wanted to say that I’m reading and enjoying your posts even though I don’t comment much. I get to the end of your posts and frequently want to say, “But what about…” but don’t want to derail the conversation.
I always want to ask about unschooling kids like mine who is 2e (twice-exceptional which is gifted with learning disabilities). It seems like your younger daughters are all very reading and writing oriented. I can see how that would make it much easier to unschool them if they are already wired and motivated in that direction. I always ask myself, but what about kids who struggle with the act of writing? or processing information when they read? or find math confusing and overwhelming and can’t memorize basic addition and multiplication facts even well into middle school?
I finally answered my own question because I just Googled “unschooling 2e” and there is almost nothing written. I know there is a reason for that. It’s just not a good fit for these kids.
So, all that to say, I really do enjoy your posts. I don’t feel like I can add much because even though I love the idea of unschooling in theory, I have one of those kids who needs something else.
Have a good day!
Sallie
Sallie, I just wanted to say hi. I have a 2e child myself and for us unschooling is the perfect fit. There are quite a few 2e unschoolers around. I am not very active on Facebook anymore, but there’s this group for gifted unschoolers and I used to love reading what other 2e unschooling families were up to. I especially like Amy Harrington’s writing in terms of unschooling and gifted and 2e kiddos. I hope you find what works for your family
Sallie,
Please feel welcome to say, “but what about…?” I probably won’t always have the answers you need, but maybe someone else will. I’m glad Calla saw your comment. Maybe you googled Amy Harrington’s writings. I’m going to do that even though my kids aren’t 2e. It’s always good to learn more. We can share our experiences and chat and then decide what works best for our children, can’t we? That might be unschooling. If it isn’t, then that’s okay too.
It’s always good to chat with you. Have a happy week!
Hi Sallie! I did a quick google search for 2e and unschooling. Have you seen this post? I haven’t read this blog, only this particular post.
https://giftedandlearningdisabled.blogspot.com/2009/03/unschooling-adventures.html
I love what Sue said in her comment below: “We can share our experiences and chat and then decide what works best for our children, can’t we? That might be unschooling. If it isn’t, then that’s okay too.”
I’ve actually been thinking about the concept of unschooling and what it might look like with my daughter. I think that sometimes, it can be hard to figure out what works for gifted and/or gifted/2e kiddos. At least, it has not been easy for me. I recently spoke with a therapist and she suspects that our daughter might be on the spectrum (aspergers) and at the same time, our daughter tested as gifted on an informal assessment. There is a lot of overlap in characteristics with gifted and aspergers kiddos.
My daughter definitely is a motivated, self-learner. Especially in things she’s interested in. Or maybe mainly so. 😉 For example, yesterday we took off for Labor Day. Some of things she chose to do on her own were to work on writing her book (she’s writing a series of fish stories) and also work on digitally drawing illustrations for that book. Think of all the learning involved in that! Writing, reading, drawing, planning, organizing, typing. At the same time, my daughter likes routine. So she seems to do best generally when there’s a rhythm and routine to our day and she knows what to expect. She also likes to keep a checklists. So she likes having a planner to plan school work each day. Also, she can get deeply involved in things she’s interested in too.
Bear with me as I kind of process my thoughts while I’m typing this. 🙂 I love the idea of unschooling. So in some ways, I think unschooling could work for my daughter. But on the other hand, I think it needs some structure to it. She loves a homeschool co-op we are a part of and that requires regularly scheduled work. But it can be adapted as the parent sees fit. I am finding this seems to work well for her (right now anyway) because she gets the structure of the scheduled work but also
we can work in unstructured time. And the co-op is good for her to work on social skills and learn how to be in a class. Also, as I’ve introduced various books and school things this school year, I’ve chosen things she really loves. My daughter actually really loves textbooks and workbooks and learns really well from them. She loves a particular science textbook series that has notebooks with them. She loves to use them for her science and then always keeps them and reads them again and again. So she chose which one she wanted to work on this year. I also asked her what history she was interested in studying and picked things for that, following books I know she really likes and making a workbook for her (which is what she wanted)…so that translates to Story of the World history book and a notebook filled with activities she can choose from that to go along with what she’s reading about. In some ways, I feel like this is our version of unschooling. 🙂 Our co-op incorporates all the key subjects so we also do math, grammar, writing, etc. But I find this to work out well. It’s structured learning and contributes to that structured learning aspect. And like I said, can be tailored/adapted as we feel needs be.
It is such a learning process for me. And I feel that I am still trying to figure it all out! 😉 But I continue to learn….and my daughter and I continue to learn together. 🙂 I wonder if the next step in our journey would be to even unschool a bit more. 🙂
Personally, I still struggle a bit with full unschooling because I wonder how you make sure they are getting to all the things they need to learn. Especially in the area of math. How do you make sure they are learning all the basic math skills they need? I know this is a common question. 🙂 Sue, I really enjoy reading your blog and often feel inspired to continue moving toward more unschooling as would fit for us. 🙂 I also really appreciate that you share a lot of how-to posts. Like creating the Evernote unschooling notebook. I would love to continue reading more posts about how you make sure your kiddos are learning all the things they need to learn (like math, etc.). I think for me, the concept of just strewing or asking them to join you in learning about something specific makes me feel like the learning is scattered. And therefore, skill subjects like math, that build concepts upon each other, seems to me that it might be hard to achieve well. That doesn’t mean that’s how it is….just how it seems to me. 😉 I think for me it feels scattered because of the way my mind works in that it helps me to see things clearly laid out or things to have a progression (I am not a big abstract type person). That doesn’t mean it is scattered of course. But just how it seems to my linear mind. 🙂 I think that’s where something like the Evernote unplanning notebook could be helpful. Or some kind of planner that could help arrange all the learning into some sort of order for the subjects. Does that make sense?
Anyway, I’ve rambled on quite a bit. I am interested in seeing how more unschooling could be incorporated as fits us.
Oops….I said “in Sue’s comment below”…but her comment is actually above my comment. LOL
Karen,
Thank you so much for your comment. It’s good to see what learning looks like in different families. By sharing our experiences, we might help someone who’s in a similar situation.
I used to struggle with some aspects of unschooling too, especially maths. You might know this if you’ve read some of my older blog posts or my books. I really didn’t want to unschool maths. Like you, I thought it was better to learn maths in an organised way. Also, this is what’s expected by the education department. In the end, I had no choice but to let go and allow my girls to learn in the way that works best for them. I knew if I continued to insist they learn maths in a formal way, they’d end up thinking they couldn’t do it. When my daughter Sophie told me she hated maths and was no good at it, I made the change. Despite my fears, all my kids have good maths skills!
I guess we do what we feel is best for our kids. If what we’re doing doesn’t seem to be meeting their needs, we adapt. It’s a continual learning experience, isn’t it?
How do we know if our kids are learning all they need to know? Of course, in schools, kids all learn the same things and then are tested to see if they’ve required the required knowledge. But we don’t need to use this approach. I think that each child needs to know different things. Can we trust that children will learn all they need to know when they need to know it? I guess that’s the hard bit. It gets easier to trust as we watch our kids grow and develop. It’s amazing where they go and what they learn when they’re not restricted by someone else’s ideas!
It’s been lovely to chat. I’m glad you stopped by!