The danger of having a teacher

Robyn Coburn, on Jayn learning very young how to swim:

I think homeschooling as a plan crystallized for me when Jayn was about two and a half years old and she had some swimming lessons. We had this very nice lady that came to our house. Jayn loved the water, we had a swimming pool that was part of the apartment complex. She was playing with the lady, it did not seem like she was learning to swim. It was all about putting her face in the water which she did all the time anyway. I thought, well, I do not actually know if she is getting anything from this. You can tell this was before I started unschooling or I would not have even started with it.

After about roughly five or six lessons it did not look like we were doing anything. It seemed like we were spending money unnecessarily and I said, "You know (winter was coming too), I think we will just stop with the lessons." Then the following summer, I just played with Jayn in the pool and she learned to swim by herself with just playing over the course of the whole summer.

Then somebody said to her, “Oh you are such a good swimmer,” and she said, “Yes my swimming teacher taught me.” My jaw hit the floor. I was like, “WHAT?” I said to her, “No she did not. Where did you get that from? You did this yourself.”

So that just crystallized to me the danger of having a teacher. That not only will the teacher take credit for your learning, you might give the teacher credit for your learning. It struck me that maybe this is something Jayn was susceptible to and so at that point I really became determined to unschool in a way that I had not been quite as determined before.

—Robyn Coburn

From an interview by Pam Laricchia—
you can read the beautiful intro, and listen to the whole thing here: SandraDodd.com/robyn/interview
photo by Bea Mantovani, of her daughter
(used here in 2015)
Both girls are grown now, but these are about their childhoods.

Evidence

So what do we need besides seeing things in a new light, trying to be more understanding about noise and mess, and being our children's partners? I mean tools for moving toward being with children in new ways?

Maybe LOVE the mess.

See it as evidence of health and joy and learning, and then it's not "mess," it's proof.

SandraDodd.com/chats/being
photo by Julie Markovitz

Deschooling and Games

Lyle Perry was one of my favorite unschooling-volunteer-helper writers, and the following were his responses to someone who shall remain nameless, who was complaining about Yu-Gi-Oh. The indented sections are Lyle's pull-punches-gently responses. —Sandra

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I wonder when he will ever learn anything!

Maybe he's wondering when you will ever SEE what he's learning. Maybe he's wondering when you will join him in what he's learning, or at least express some joy and satisfaction that he IS learning. (He IS learning, you know.)

That's all he talks about. Yu-Gi-Yo Cards

What do you talk about? Anything BUT Yu-Gi-Oh cards? It sounds like you're waiting for him to get through a "phase" or something so he can really get down to some serious learning. The problem is, he's already there, he's just waiting for you to catch up! You're the one that's behind. He's doing the learning, he's moved on, and you're still stuck on the same chapter. It's time to turn the page. Or better yet, put that book down, wrap it in some gasoline soaked newspapers, and offer it up as your last sacrifice to the School Gods. Their powers are obsolete now. Break free from the academic death grip they have on your mind and set yourself free!

And he doesn't know how to play the game, and I am so not interested in trying to teach the game.

Well, that's a pretty depressing attitude. Would you be interested in teaching him geography? Biology? Seismology? Are those the important things? Your things are important and his things are crap? If that's true, I don't blame him for not being interested in your stuff. Why should he get excited about your stuff when you look at his stuff with disdain and revulsion? Don't forget that he's learning something about the signals you're sending him too. He's learning ALL the time. Don't let him learn that his mom thinks what he does is stupid.

—Lyle Perry, the responses
(more here)

SandraDodd.com/focus
photo by Colleen Prieto

Snobbishness vs. Godzilla

Carol/Sognokids wrote, in the middle of something a little longer:

One day Colton and Bud returned from the library, thrilled with what they had found. A video copy of "Godzilla!" I snorted derisively and suggested that our time would be better spent with a book. I was ignored. They made some popcorn and started the movie. I sat with them on the couch, or to be more accurate, on my moral high horse, with an "uplifting" book in hand. I rolled my eyes and sighed with gusto to point out how they were wasting their time. Colton and Bud continued to ignore me.

Something finally penetrated my self-imposed role as the chief of the culture police. A voice whispered in my ear: Look at them, Carol. Just LOOK at them! I studied my son and my husband for about five minutes. They were totally engrossed in the movie, yet they never stopped touching each other. Colton would lean against Bud's shoulder as he giggled helplessly, or Bud would squeeze Colton's leg during a particularly intense moment. They were totally connected to each other through their movie experience, and it was a joy to watch. I knew that they were making a memory together.

—Carol / Sognokids@...

SandraDodd.com/t/godzilla
movie still respectfully borrowed from a website
(this page)

Affirming, accepting, embracing

Amy Childs wrote:

What I do give unschooling complete credit for is that instead of spending Jonathan’s adolescence fighting with him, shaming him, trying to make him do things, judging him, punishing him, or trying to “teach” him anything, instead I spent those years affirming him, accepting him, embracing him, and supporting him in being who he was.

I would never trade those precious years, that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, nor the relationship that was born between us during those years, for anything in the world.

—Amy Childs

SandraDodd.com/teens/amychilds
photo by Sandra Dodd

Your own certain knowledge

Vague interest can turn to trust in others' accounts of learning and of parenting successes. Trust in those stories can give us courage to experiment, and from that we can discover our own proofs and truths to share with newer unschoolers, who might find courage from that to try these things themselves. Faith in others can only take us a little way, though, and then our own children's learning will carry us onward.

Some ideas become theories. A few theories might turn to convictions. Some early thoughts will be abandoned; others will gain substance. After much thought and use, what is left will be what you believe because you have lived it.

SandraDodd.com/knowledge
photo by Cátia Maciel

Simple and very difficult

Pam Sorooshian wrote:

An unschooling parent needs to be fully present with their kids, sensitive to their kids' needs, and extremely respectful of their kids' interests. This is simple and very difficult, at the same time. It is so simple, it really asks so little of us, as parents, to pay attention to what "is" right in front of us. But it is very very difficult to do, sometimes, especially when what our kids are presenting to us appears to us to be negative or dull or unproductive.

—Pam Sorooshian
(more, with examples)

SandraDodd.com/being
photo by Jihong Tang