Jun 8, 2011

Deschooling and unschooling

I'm just tired of fighting with her attitude about learning. I don't know how she'll learn anything with the attitude she has now. She told me the other day that she doesn't want to get up in the mornings because she knows she will have to do school work. But she likes to get up on the weekends or when we are doing a special project, because then she has something to look forward to.


I have an idea-- let her take a month off of everything but one project of her choice. If she's avid about Pokemon, I can't help you think of ideas, but if she's an avid birdwatcher, let her revel in it. Find books with tons of pictures about birds, help her build bird feeders for the yard, etc. I know my son hates to write, so after the first week or so I very gently mention something like counting the birds, which land at the feeder one morning. Just let her go and very surreptitiously note how much time she'll spend on an activity that she enjoys.

If you keep track of the time she spends working over this "project month" you may be surprised to find that she spends much more time on it than is required for your state, and there may be small gaps in things like mathematics or social studies, but who cares as long as she is learning?

Your daughter may be older but she is definitely in need of the chance to discover for herself that she can learn, that she is smart, and that other people can value her learning. My advice would be to totally remove the burden of "school" from her. As she has just come out of traditional school she may need a time of decompression or deschooling.

This time is usually just a time relaxing and finding out what their interests are all over again. From discovering their interests they are able to launch off from there and begin to learn about what is important to them thus enjoy learning and education once again. Her first idea on school is that it is a lot of work, no fun. No matter how wonderful or dedicated of a teacher you are, her ideas have taken root. She needs the soil to be re-tilled with some fresh air, some added nutrients, lots of variety, and lots of time.

My daughter was a phenomenon to me. It seemed like we would work and work on a concept and then finally out of frustration let her have a two week break and she would come back with it mastered! My method would be to let my daughter know that you are done for the rest of school year with workbooks, or whatever it is that is making school drudgery for her. Then I would read aloud to her, I would take her ice skating, to plays, museums, cook together, walking each day if she is open to that, see what you see. Collect things along the way. Talk about life, answer her questions, and enjoy each other’s company, no pressure on either of you. Walking, nature walk, pressed some flowers in a book, flower identification, read a historical novel aloud, history, read some silly Shel Silverstein books (my favorite), talk about different forms of poetry, watch some ants scurrying about, insect identification, ant lifestyles and habits (ants really are interesting little creatures.) This way you can be sure that some learning really is going on, and hopefully feel good about the time off from what would seem to be more traditional schooling. Last but not least, if you both find joy in this, keep it up. Let her pursue her interests. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain!

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