Changing Perspective

All my life I associated cribs with babies. In fact, I couldn’t imagine a baby without one. They are such a ubiquitous part of our baby-raising culture that they practically symbolize the concept of “baby”. When I discovered the practice of cosleeping, studied the science behind it, and decided to cosleep with my (then not yet born) baby it seemed like the most desirable thing to do. Cosleeping has been amazingly successful for us. It is such a natural, normal part of our home and life that I now find the concept of crib-sleeping rather bizarre, as though I were a visitor from a foreign culture who has just stumbled upon the idea of placing tiny babies to sleep in a little cage, separated from Mama and Daddy and any other warm, loving, human body. Of course I recognize that crib-sleeping is by far the norm in our society, but that doesn’t change the fact that my perspective is now completely different than it was before. What once was taken for granted without any thought now seems rather strange to me.

And so it has become with homelearning. The idea of segregating children by age and lumping them together in large groups with only one or two adults to guide them seems a completely unnatural and bizarre concept. I grew up in our system of age-segregation. I never gave it a second thought in all the 12 years I was in that system, nor did I when I became a parent. It was, however, one of the first things I learned about when starting down the information path that eventually led us to choose homelearning.

You often hear people say about a child “They need to be with children their own age”. But why? I honestly believe that most people have never thought past that statement. What possible reason could their be for kids to “need” to be around other kids who are just as immature and inexperienced as they are? Looking back on human history, from the tribes of early humans that lived 100,000 years ago, right up until the turn of this century, where would you ever have found such a system? In what evolutionary context can one declare that children have a developmental need to be around other children who vary in age only within a 12 month range?

And yet surely these people have not missed the nature of older/younger child interactions: how little girls look up to and idolize and mimic the older girls, how older girls love to “adopt” younger boys and girls, take them under their wing, and behave in an almost motherly way towards them. How many have not witnessed the look of hero-worship that younger boys direct towards those several years older than themselves? And yet the significance of this dynamic seems entirely lost on our society: children have evolved in the social context of small tribal or societal groups where there are unlikely to be enough children to segregate by age. Instead, when a child was weaned (naturally occurring around age 2 or 3), the child joined in with the group of all the other kids, who ranged in age from newly weaned to pre-pubescent. And what do you get when you have older children who are naturally protective towards the younger ones, and younger ones who look up to and model the older children?: a natural model whereby young ones learn social skills from those who are older and more experienced, and where older children protect the younger ones.

Compare that to modern society where children are packed together with groups of their peers. It’s the blind leading the blind. There is nobody to model proper social behaviour, problem solving skills, etc. because everybody is equally ignorant. Instead, what develops is a “Lord of the Flies” dynamic whereby children break off into groups as defined by various criteria such as the kind of music they listen to, what they wear, what their interests are (sports vs. science), and so on. When listening to a radio program about anti-bullying campaigns one day I became very frustrated when nobody, not one of the so-called “experts”, stopped to question whether or not the very nature of age-segregation was, in fact, creating the problem of bullying. I mean, they all admitted it was “ubiquitous” in schools, clubs, sports teams, etc. and yet not one of them put two and two together to see that what all these things had in common was that they segregate by age. The experts admitted that despite being aware of bullying for some time now (I’d say it really hit the public’s attention after the Columbine Massacre), and despite having put several varieties of anti-bullying programs into play, they haven’t met with such success. As a scientist, I’m offended on an intellectual level by the fact that none of them have stopped to check the assumptions inherent in their programs, the largest, unspoken one being that age-segregation is a normal and natural thing and thus any issue with bullying must be due to some other factor or factors, such as a lack of empathy (so they bring babies into the classroom), or a lack of emotional fitness (so they teach anger-management lessons) or a lack of awareness (so they teach kids to “tell a teacher” when they witness bullying). It’s simply bad science.

And so now I find myself in the unusual (yet also exciting) position of viewing so many things I took for granted before as strange. I hear parents talking about homework like it’s a good thing and I wonder, doesn’t anybody question why 7 hours of school a day, 5 days a week, is still not enough time to teach an 8 year old what they need to know? I hear kids everywhere talk about how much they hate school, even the media reflect this! (I heard on CBC kids today, of all places, a song about Autumn that included lyrics along the lines of how it sucks that our fun days are over and now we have to spend the day in school), and I wonder “hasn’t anybody stopped to ask why school has to SUCK so bad that pretty much every kid hates it??”. I mean, would THEY stay in a job that they hated for 12 years? (okay yes, some of them would, but is that the kind of person we wish our kids to be?).

Yes, it is a strange feeling being on this other side of the fence. But MAN, I am SO happy to be here!

the Zealot phase

When I first discovered Attachment Parenting I was so excited about finding something that meshed with my general view of Life, the Universe, and Everything. I was thrilled to find I could be passionate about the subject of parenting (I was pregnant with my first), since it was something I was going to be involved in for some time. Anyways, as a “new Disciple” I was rather fervent about it all and, looking back, I admit I probably had moments where I sounded extreme and judgemental.

And I recall one day reading a thread that spoke about the “judgementalness” (I’m sure that’s a madeup word!) and competitiveness that some felt the board was plagued with, and a woman wrote a very eloquent post about the Zealot phase, and how exciting it can be to find something that is just so powerful you want to share it with everybody. I shuddered to hear this feeling compared to Jesus Freaks (aka: rabid christians) but I’d known enough of the “newly converted” to recognize the big, fat grain of truth in her words. Seems whether it’s salvation for your soul, or your baby, the zeal of the new Disciple is universal.

Now that I’m on board with homelearning, I’m finding myself feeling the same energy and passion and drive. Right now on my MDC forum there is (yet another) discussion about homelearning. Most of us on the board are doing it. One mom of 3 who battles depression wrote about how she wants to do it, how she feels it would be best for her eldest son (school age), but she is afraid it will be too much for her. She said there is this thing in the “Depression community” where being with your kids is considered to be a huge contributing factor to depresssion. In that context, homelearning is looked upon as some kind of psychological death wish. It really irks me that the parent-child bond is treated as some sort of pathology, but at the same time I’m not surprised since that attitude still permeates our society in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways. I’m guessing that what is really meant by it is that stress brings on depression and looking after children is a bloody tough job that you are usually on for 24/7. The answer isn’t “send your kids away”, but anyways, I digress…

So this mama is getting lots of sage advice from the other homelearning mamas, and of course I couldn’t help but pipe in. Frankly, schools are really little more than daycare in disguise, given that the kids really don’t learn shit, or at least nothing they couldn’t have learned faster, and with more enthusiasm, on their own given access to the right resources. Whenever there is a strike around here what is the number one complaint? Parents who don’t know what to do with their kids. Not “they aren’t learning anything!”. And the kids? They are almost universally thrilled to be out of school, unless of course they are in Grade 12 and worried about jumping through the hoops of graduation and university requirements. So let’s just be honest and admit that we, as a society, need somewhere to put our kids so we can get mama back to work, and so we have school.

The point of my rambling is this: if mama wants a break, instead of school, why not just hire a babysitter once a week, or a Mother’s Helper? And let’s not forget that the kids grow up pretty quickly. Once they are five or six many are ready to go off to the planetarium with another homelearning family, or attend a program without mama there. And voila, free time!

There was talk on the boards of moving the homelearning discussions to a separate thread, lest we make the few schooling families “feel bad”. The schooling families all said no, we love the discussion. And we are a pretty great group (I think the fact that we all meet up IRL is a bit part of that). And I realized that I had been in danger of viewing the schooling mamas as being either “unenlightened”, or just unfortunate because for whatever reason (jobs, etc) it just wasn’t an option they could make work. Or at least, of coming across that way in my posts. Luckily, I have caught myself from falling into that trap again. Because being excited and passionate about something is great, but not if it means making other people feel as though you don’t respect their choices, too.

What’s in a name?

I recently came across a wonderful post in a homelearner’s blog about the use of terms like “homeschooling”, “unschooling”, and “homelearning”. Unfortunately, the blog seems to be gone so I can’t link to it, but I’ve taken the liberty of quoting some of it here (from a cached page) because it was really helpful to me in trying to figure out where I stand among all the terms and definitions. These are taken from a post by APKimberMama on her blog Holistic Learning:

“I like to think that there are really only 2 things going on out there – schooling or unschooling. Homeschooling as a term is ambiguous at best. If you are doing “school at home” then you still buy into the educational philosophy of schooling. If you choose something else, something alternative that takes away the structure and rules of school and school-based learning, then you are unschooling. Or call it home learning, life learning, holistic learning…the point is that we aren’t schooling. We may use the term “homeschooling” so that other people understand what we mean, but for most of us home is not school. We aren’t ringing the bell at 8 a.m., saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and then spending 30-45 minutes per subject, breaking for lunch, and finishing at 2:00 p.m. Yes there are people out there doing that, but it is schooling, and the fact that it is at home probably doesn’t mean much.”

Being fairly new to the commitment of homelearning I am perusing boards and forums and am surprised at how many homelearners follow what I consider to be a fairly strict schedule of “doing lessons” whether scheduled by time of day, length of lesson, or a list of subjects to be covered. I wondered what the point was of doing it this way, but of course there is so much more to homelearning than just the learning part. In fact, it was the social benefits that first attracted me to the philosophy – the belief that the social dynamics arising from peer-segregated, mass-educated institutions are abnormal and serve as the fundamental “disease” that spawns the “symptoms” of bullying, cliques, peer-orientation, etc. rather than such institutions being a benign “host” to the “viruses” of said issues. Based on that belief alone, there is much benefit to be had in choosing to “do school” at home. So I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised that many people do just that.

But it makes me feel that I fall in the more “radical” camp of homelearners because I buy so fully into the unschooling idea. And the irony of that isn’t lost on me: I have 3 university degrees, including a Ph.D. I spent a total of 12 years at university and believe it was a wonderful way to have spent that time of my life. You’d think I’d be all for “schooling”. I still think post-secondary education is a extremely valuable, but I no longer think that holds true for everybody. I don’t believe that post-secondary education should be considered a critical component of any concerned parent’s plans for their children. It is not true that one requires a university degree to be “successful”. Indeed, in seeking a definition for “success” I’ve come to appreciate that being fulfilled and content in what you do is more important that what it is you actually do. Thus, surprisingly to some perhaps, I’m not really concerned about whether or not my children go to post-secondary institutions. I’m willing to bet that DD will end up there because she is already showing the same penchant for, and keen interest in, science that I had as a child. But if she doesn’t that is okay with me, too. What matters is that my children find something that drives them, fulfills them, ignites their passions and that they follow the path that enables them to persue that thing. If it involves college, great. If not, that’s fine too.

So, lest there is any doubt, I fall into the “unschooling” category. Which isn’t to say that, if one of my kids wants to try Singapore Math or Five in a Row that I’m going to say “no honey, we don’t do that”. The key is that it is child-led, and suited to that child’s learning style. But honestly, I have no desire to “teach” my children or to schedule lessons or construct curricula for them. I’m not that way inclined to start with, and I have total faith that they will lead the way. I’m not sure if that means I fit into the “strict” definition of an unschooler, and I’m not sure I want to restrict myself by thinking I need to adhere to what others decide “unschooling” means. So I use the term “homelearner” hoping it doesn’t squish me too tightly into any one pigeonhole.

And….we’re off!

I only recently realized that homelearning was the only real option for our family. I had already embraced the philosophies of homeschooling and unschooling, but looking back I realize that I was still too afraid to take that plunge and say “yes, this is what we are doing”. Since DD is only just 4 there was no pressure to make a decision yet, but I did so nevertheless after realizing one day that I’d already made the decision, I just hadn’t known it yet.

I started perusing the Homelearning Forum of my fave parenting board, hosted by Mothering magazine. There was a thread asking people to describe one thing your child does that you wouldn’t expect them to be doing if they were in school, and one thing they would be considered “behind” in not doing. In writing my response to that thread I realized that we have already begun homelearning. Indeed, if you follow the unschooling philosophy, it began the day my first child was born. After all, think of all the things your child learns between the ages of birth to 3 years (when many start preschool). Why is that not considered an education?

I am lucky to be surrounded by a wonderful community of homelearning families, a group I had already integrated myself into long before the issue of schooling even came up. We came together through MDC, united by our philosophies on parenting: attachment parenting, gentle discipline, natural living and so on. Through these families, both online and IRL, I learned what homeschooling was not (i.e. it’s not creating a miniature classroom in your living room) and what homelearning could be for us. So I am blessed with access to resources I might never have found on my own, and ideas that have stood the test of time in other families. One idea that I loved right away was keeping a record of our homelearning days. This is especially helpful for unschoolers, who try to avoid setting curricula and meeting goals that other people have set for their children, and who generally tend towards an unstructured, child-led approach to learning.

My DD has recently come through a phase of being obsessed with ladybugs. We go to our local library almost every week, and during that time it was all books about ladybugs. She learned what a ladybug larvae looks like (I’d seen them before, but never knew what they were) and that ladybugs love to eat aphids. She pointed out an aphid to DH one day on a walk when he hadn’t been able to identify the insect. At the time I hadn’t thought of it as “schooling”, and hadn’t thought of us as being a homelearning family. Now I realize that I could have used that interest in a variety of ways, such as painting rocks to look like ladybugs, or bringing home one of my mother’s aphid-infested houseplants and treating it with a box of ladybugs (you can buy them at a nursery – release the ladybugs and when the feast is over they’ll fly away). We could have put together ladybug costumes, and written a play about a ladybug. And we could have collected a few ladybugs and made notes about their size and shape and colour, etc. Of course, this would all have depended on whether or not DD was interested in such things, but I never even suggested them. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not beating myself up about this and I don’t consider this a lost opportunity. My point is simply that learning is happening NOW for us. I thought homelearning was something we’d “begin” at some defined point. But now I see that the opportunities for me to turn interests into learning are happening already and there is no need to wait. Right now she is really into dinosaurs, so I’m going to try and incorporate the above ideas into that subject and I’ll let you know what we come up with.

So, I hope you will stick with us as we begin this amazing journey. And, if you are homelearning yourself or just considering it, I hope you will find it useful for the links, ideas, and resources I will pass on as they have been passed to me. And perhaps it will serve as an inspiration, too, the way so many homelearning mamas and blogs have been for me. I am truly excited about what lies ahead for us!