Unschooling

I have been reading, off and on, Penelope Trunks blog. Mostly the ones on homeschooling. The subject comes up more often then one would think. I would consider it if I were not so happy with our local school. I am friends with many of the teachers and know that the science teacher doesn’t believe in the theory of evolution. Got to love that.

Penelope talks about doing not just homeschooling but unschooling. Apparently it is just what it sounds like, not forcing them to learn any thing but to allow them to explore and decide what they want to learn on their own. It goes so completely against everything in the modern school systems and seems so very extremist, I am not sure I can agree with her. Not completely at least. But, wow, it makes me think.

She proposes that if there is something that we really want the children to know that it should be important to us and prominent in our house. By the prominence of what ever it is the children will naturally pick it up and continue it further if they are at all interested. I know that our particular child even at her very young age, watches every move we make and mimics most of them. Reading her writings made me think about that and the importance of acting in the way we want her to learn to behave.

This was made all the more obvious when she began to pick up my napkin off the dinner table and place it in my lap for me from her position in her highchair. One time growing tired of helping her spoon feed herself, I ripped the spoon impatiently from her hand. When I offered her the next spoonful she wrested it impatiently from my hand. Everything I do now I try to think what it will look like to her. From going to church, almost, every week to speaking kindly to the dog and even that drat cat.

I think I will leave schooling to the schools, for the most part, but child rearing does seem to be much like horse training. Every time you are near a horse, or apparently a child, you are training it. For good or bad that is up to you.