And so it goes...long
Penn Acres
Unschooling is finally really becoming our way of life. The ggd,s are 9. We have been on this path for a year and a half now.
We took them out of a bad situation in K. and tried homeschooling where some of it was great and where in the end I really blew it and in remorse said they could go back to public school if they wished. Steph jumped at it and I didnt blame her a bit-I was a real jerk .she really liked most of it -still fondly remembers a lot but the bad parts for her really made an impression.She went from late October of that year (grade 2 ) to the first week in May and spent lots of time at home when she wanted.
Kara tried it in mid Feb for part of two weeks. The damage to her self esteem still lingers and colors her view on formal writing and arithmatic to this day.
Kara has been firmly declaring that this Unschooling is her preference for 6 or 8 months now. she is more sure of it all the time.
Steph has had me worrying for a long time. I always had the feeling that if I actually asked her if this is her preference she would hesitate and wonder if public school might be something she would like to try again. During a casual conversation about her friends going back last week I bit the bullet and said something like...so what do you think..do you like this unschooling way of living and without hesitation she said yup, I sure don't want to go back in school.
I can't express my relief. I had been carrying the dread around like a rock around my neck.
I woke up constantly at night wondering if they felt that they really wanted to go back but were worried that I might think they were wrong to want to.
I had to wait till I had come to a place in myself where if they really wanted to go back again I could deal with it.
I spend a lot of late nights reading on lists like this , reading and learning-trying and trying harder and doing well with the girls and failing miserably sometimes.
It struck me early on-especially reading on "homeschooling" lists that it was more about the Mom, this was her new flavour of the week-getting all excited about this or that new curriculum, unit studies-worksheet site -field trip-what she was going to get the kids to do . and lots of moaning about how the kids wouldnt co operate and what were other parents doing about how to make the kids do the work and it really started to give me the creeps. Here were these kids who couldn't get away from it all now. at least in public school they got to leave and go home.
Like so many of you have said on this and other unschooling lists-I can't imagine doing it any other way. Every day there are new insights.
well enough, just had to blither on.
Grace
In the wet as usual Rockies of BC. where the girls are still playing Harvest Moon-or game boys or both and came in for more paper and questions on how to spell some more words to name some animals.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
We took them out of a bad situation in K. and tried homeschooling where some of it was great and where in the end I really blew it and in remorse said they could go back to public school if they wished. Steph jumped at it and I didnt blame her a bit-I was a real jerk .she really liked most of it -still fondly remembers a lot but the bad parts for her really made an impression.She went from late October of that year (grade 2 ) to the first week in May and spent lots of time at home when she wanted.
Kara tried it in mid Feb for part of two weeks. The damage to her self esteem still lingers and colors her view on formal writing and arithmatic to this day.
Kara has been firmly declaring that this Unschooling is her preference for 6 or 8 months now. she is more sure of it all the time.
Steph has had me worrying for a long time. I always had the feeling that if I actually asked her if this is her preference she would hesitate and wonder if public school might be something she would like to try again. During a casual conversation about her friends going back last week I bit the bullet and said something like...so what do you think..do you like this unschooling way of living and without hesitation she said yup, I sure don't want to go back in school.
I can't express my relief. I had been carrying the dread around like a rock around my neck.
I woke up constantly at night wondering if they felt that they really wanted to go back but were worried that I might think they were wrong to want to.
I had to wait till I had come to a place in myself where if they really wanted to go back again I could deal with it.
I spend a lot of late nights reading on lists like this , reading and learning-trying and trying harder and doing well with the girls and failing miserably sometimes.
It struck me early on-especially reading on "homeschooling" lists that it was more about the Mom, this was her new flavour of the week-getting all excited about this or that new curriculum, unit studies-worksheet site -field trip-what she was going to get the kids to do . and lots of moaning about how the kids wouldnt co operate and what were other parents doing about how to make the kids do the work and it really started to give me the creeps. Here were these kids who couldn't get away from it all now. at least in public school they got to leave and go home.
Like so many of you have said on this and other unschooling lists-I can't imagine doing it any other way. Every day there are new insights.
well enough, just had to blither on.
Grace
In the wet as usual Rockies of BC. where the girls are still playing Harvest Moon-or game boys or both and came in for more paper and questions on how to spell some more words to name some animals.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]