Reassurance

Boldface are the questions and concerns. Indentations are my responses (Sandra Dodd, in 1995).

Mine just wants to play and although I know play is valuable, I don't see what he has learned from it (academically). What about higher math, chemistry, writing, etc.?

Your kid is eleven years old! Do you play with him? Do you have pattern blocks or board games or card games or computer games you do together? There are LOTS of opportunities to discuss things during play, to explain how things work, why, what certain toys represent in the real world (playing Lego we've talked about real masonry, catapults, horses, armor, weapons---while messing with plastic representations).

Mine aren't writing, except in a rudimentary way yet. They see me and my husband write all the time, though. I'm not worried. We always answer their questions, and they'll ask.

I don't make ANYBODY look up words. I'll look them up for them. I'm a dictionary fiend, and nobody--adults, friends, relatives, nobody--gets away from me without at least FAKING an appreciation for dictionaries. 🙂

If she did art in front of them they would want to do it too. If she NEVER does art on her own, what makes her think her kids need to know how?

She can "expose" them to those topics without "TEACHING" them in a structured, scheduled way. The fine points of grammar are not necessary to those who don't want to write. To those who DO like that sort of analytical stuff, she just needs to offer them the vocabulary and they'll figure out on their own. There are computer games, paper-games...

I personally disagree with the limiting TV to 1.5 hours after 5:00. Some of the best stuff for kids is on PBS in the daytime. After 5:00 things get iffy. Helen, on the other hand, doesn't have a TV.

Videos. Novels. Ignore the periods he doesn't care about. He'll care later, or he won't, and the world will still turn, and he can learn what he wants WHEN he wants. History is NEVER all learned. It's all relative. "Knowing nothing" is impossible in this culture.

He's too young. Fifth graders in school are not reading "classic books" unless forced, and then they're not very hard ones (with a few exceptions, which being exceptions don't count). You should be reading to him, if you want him to "know" a certain book--"classics" are not easy, generally, and you could read to him.

Read them to him, or pay him to read them aloud to you.

I have a huge collection of non-fiction books, mostly history, and some of them I only look at the pictures in, but when I need to look up details I can usually remember by the pictures which books dealt with what subjects.

No big deal. He's young.

No big deal. He's young.

Did you read them? Did you tell him what was in them? Did you read any to him? Did you ask him to look something particular up? (He'd probably read other stuff on the side if he went hunting for a particular piece of information.)

No.

She thinks that but can't prove it, because she probably won't leave them totally alone long enough to see what they would do.

At Halloween our kids can eat all the candy they want, and if they don't like it we encourage them to chuck it in the trash. Other families ration it out, it lasts a month and the kids eat every last crumb because it is VALUABLE. Ours is cheap trash, and half goes in the trash.

It's a study in economics. I have forced my kids to watch TV if they weren't getting along, and they'd beg to get up and play and I'd say "wait until this show is over." "We don't like it." "I don't care. Just sit." I'm serious.

A couple of times, but it was all it took. If I use their room for punishment they'll see it as a prison.

Sandra

We don't channel surf. Even before we had kids, we subscribed to TV Guide and unless we know what's on and what we intend to watch, we don't turn it on. Kids have learned that from us.

It's interesting--we don't limit TV, but my kids have never seen either of those shows. 🙂

PBS has music, kid-shows, stories, science shows...

That probably isn't helping. Ricky probably just feels more self-conscious and might resist reading the books, feeling that when he does he's just "finally" doing what his dad wanted him to do, instead of what HE wants to do.

Could be a genetic thing, then. You have no interest in geology, biology, meteorology, chemistry, physics, oceanography, botany, entomology, astronomy, flight mechanics, electricity--NOTHING!? Did school ruin your joy in knowing how things work and what they are made of?

If they're that boring and uninteresting, don't make him do them. If you, knowing what they're good for, can't stand the thought of touching them, don't expect him not to pick up on that. Maybe it would be better to let him wait and get interested on his own than for him to sense that he's doing something you think is odious.

Ask HIM what he wants. Have you done the museum/bookstore/library circuit? Costume books? Foods of the period? Architecture of the period? Books on guns, cannons, bayonets--whatever of the period? I wouldn't petrify it into "a unit study," but be on the lookout for good stuff.

YES!

Next level to work toward: Forget about the concept of "homeschooling" and try to move toward the idea that your home/life/family is involved in learning all the time, so that you don't feel foolish learning all the time, and your son can't think of any other way to live.

Today, support group meeting (I updated the list, which involved some phone calls to get spellings of kid-names and verify some info), and I kept two kids for moms who had stuff to do (surgery for ovarian cyst, in one case), and picked up a kid in our group whose mom's car wasn't running. Took five kids to the video store to rent games (dollar day) and a movie, brought them all to my house, counseled a depressed friend in Toronto, discussed history and philosophy with a e-mail group from Ontario while the kids played video games, the little girls played with homemade playdough and watched their videos, played house.

Went back to the park hoping the jumpropes we left weren't stolen (they weren't), kids talked about adding numbers. 1+2+3+ (etc. and all the totals, as they went). I wasn't in that conversation, although I was overhearing it.

There was a big tag game in the front yard for a while, and a battle of knights in the backyard, treehouse was a castle, kids had "boffers" (padded toy swords)... My husband came home with some groceries, grabbed recorders and music and went to a Renaissance dance music practice. There's another one here tomorrow night (rehearsal for some dancing in three weeks), and I need to have the living room clean enough for that.

Sandra

Because teachers document stuff. You want to do your teacherly job and supervise and document. Even if he does them on his own and does NOT tell you about them he's still learning. You have to develop a faith and a trust which school conditioned out of you. You're not the only one.

AHA!!!! Good. There's hope for him not to inherit your problems. 🙂

So it's amazing. You remember LIKING science but you said science was so boring you would fall asleep hearing your own child read to you. That evil conditioning again! Don't think of it as science--granulate it. Think of it as "a book about birds," and "an article about volcanos" and so forth.

I don't even teach my kids the concepts of "science" and "history" and "geography"--we'll say "let's read about Rome" or "let's read about stars." They'll figure it out but by then they'll know the parts. School messes people up.

Sounds wonderful! I'll tell you what--I'm the way he is but about the middle ages. We've been involved in the Society for Creative Anachronism 20 and 19 years, my husband and I. By knowing the minutest details of one period of history you get the idea that there are similar minute details about every other one. When I talk to friends who do civil war reenactment, or Regency (they dance and play cards a lot 🙂 ), I understand immediately that there are certain foods, courtesies, superstitions, songs, etc. that they must have found out about, and that they know WHY people were doing what they were doing (i.e. that there are motivations out the wazoo concerning any historical period or event), and it's more the concepts than the facts which are important.

What I'm trying to say is if your kid wants to learn about the Napoleonic wars, it won't take him half a day to ask the important questions. He already has the grid in his head to fill out. What were they eating? How were regiments communicating with one another? Did their uniforms work for or against them? What was the command structure and how dedicated to their cause were they? What were their beliefs about the motivations of the enemy?

No, not yet. The 4-yr-girl wants to take gymnastics and the boys were signed up for a defense class which fell through and are kind of bugging us for karate. I have nothing particular against group activities except that I tend to get sucked into management, newsletters, etc. whenever I get near a group activity and right now I'm trying to avoid any more commitments on our time and energy.

You can eat just one!?

I was hit up about starting a 4-H group. Sound AWFUL. (I must really be in a commitment avoidance phase 🙂 ) I was in 4-H as a kid. Learned to arrange flowers and identify seeds, and sang songs. That part I could handle--leading songs.

Sounds like about six times as much as the best school in the country does 🙂.

I can't imagine having a husband who would threaten me that HE (yeah right) would put OUR children in school against my wishes. My husband knows I don't do things lightly, and he trusts me.

As to having been a teacher, I was a radical teacher. The things I believe about how children learn were taught to me in college. I was an English major, but had the requisite 24 hrs of education classes, and had a psychology minor. When I taught I was (as I can't help but be) very analytical about which teachers the kids liked and learned from and which were jokes. It seems the main factors are intelligence and enthusiasm, not method. If there's that electricity in the air of "THIS STUFF IS COOL!" then whether the kids are goofin' or answering questions at the end of the chapter, knowing that the teacher really understands and enjoys the subject makes the kids believe there is actually something there worth knowing.

I never used textbooks. I used dictionaries and made up my own exercises. I used a lot of humor. I tried to make things memorable (appealing to different learning styles, although I wasn't thinking of it in those terms in those days--I just remembered having vivid memories of days/lessons in my youth when there was an element of surprise). I wasn't able to get out of grading/scoring/comparing, and that was the worst heartbreak--"giving F's" and such. I will never, ever do that again. My children don't fail. I'll move the target to make them successes.

Wait. Ignore. Dodge. When he sees your kids happy and enthusiastic about things he'll know it's okay. He NEEDS to see other homeschool families. If he won't read the books, read him the good parts in some natural fashion. If he complains don't defend yourself, but ask things like "why does that concern you?" because he may talk himself into a corner and realize on his own that it's a kneejerk concern. If he pushes you might say that as you've read and studied and he hasn't, you feel insulted that he thinks he knows more about it than you do, and you'd be glad to discuss a particular book or article if he's willing to read it.

OH NO!!! 🙂 And here I am looking at your descriptions and thinking your life sounds much more interesting than mine! 🙂

There's one in California too. I've had friends who have been. The bad thing is that the people eating are wearing modern clothes, and the food isn't period. 🙂

When we have feasts the food is fancier and documentably medieval (usually), and everyone involved is garbed appropriately and we eat by candlelight. They don't do candlelit feasts around Virginia and Maryland, and the rest of the country thinks they're weirdos for eating by electric light 🙂.

I really like those things, but I'm so tired of IT (the organization, the amount of work I keep being expected to do to maintain it) that the magic fades and I take it for granted. Nineteen years is a long, long time. A lifetime! (Ask any 19-yr-old 🙂 )

Sandra

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Years later, I figured something out, concerning schoolkids and books. Much of the reading kids do (those kids who read) is escapism, or related activity. Books and Saxophones

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Huge Gambles (or small gambles)



What Proof is there that Unschooling Works?



Help for new unschoolers Barrage Q&A
(more questions like these, from those days)