The best unschoolers are doing more with and for their children than school-at-home families are. Unschooling parents need to understand MORE about how learning works and keep their family lives rich.
photo by Cátia Maciel
Food can be an experiment, a social activity, and even art!
What it never is, anymore, is a battlefield.
May all your meals be joyous ones!—Shan Burton
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It's not like moving to another planet. You'll still have the same house, same car, same phone number, you'll still be sitting in the same chair. It will just be different. And everytime I've ever said that to anyone, they seemed somewhere between totally relieved and shocked. . . . .
They were flipping out. They were really spinning out, off the planet. Like, "Where will we be? What will happen? How will we ever get back?"
Back to where? You're in your own house.
"Much of what they're learning as unschoolers is the 'true grit' of living: communication, interaction, observation, exploration, etc... and it shows!"—a mom named Sandy
Below is part of a response by Robyn Coburn to a doubtful mom saying if ALL her kids wanted to do ALL day EVERY day was..., that she would have a problem. After creating some other all-day-interest examples, Robyn wrote:
Families with rules have a lot to fight about. Couples with a lot of rules have a lot to fight about.
There is no academic degree that would enable you to answer all your children's questions.
Don't think of your brain. Think of your mind and of your awareness. A little tiny brain can hold a LOT of information. A big fat one can fail to do so. It's not size, it's peace and use.Shan Burton responded:
OH! This just resonated through my mind and awareness.What a concise, clear way of expressing it. It feels to me like this is the difference between unschooling learning and school learning. School learning is focused (and not so well, maybe) on pouring things into brains.
Unschooling is about learning, and engagement, and connections, and awareness of things that can get deeper and deeper, throughout life. It works that way for kids and for adults.
Peace and use. I feel like bit is going to be connecting to lots of other things in my mind and awareness for some time to come...
—Shan Burton,
most of that
"Eating decisions"?
Choices. If ALL of that is changed to a model in which there is food, and people make choices—lots of small choices, not big "decisions"—a hundred hard problems disappear.
In one small moment, if a child can pick up a food or not; smell it or not; taste it or not; keep that bite and chew and swallow, or spit it out; take another bite or not; dip it in something or not; put another food with it or not—EVERYTHING changes.
"There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?"
—Dick Cavett
Let's try it, or
I'll help you, or
Okay, yes.
Progress toward respectful parenting doesn't come all in one great leap from anywhere to peace all day and all night. It's a step at a time toward "better."
"Every person's learning about the world will be piecemeal - so it might as well be serendipitous and interest based."—Cally Brown
(original, on facebook)
Learning requires a sense of safety.
Fear blocks learning. Shame and embarrassment, stress and anxiety—these block learning.
So don't pressure, coerce or confuse your children.
Smile and laugh and provide.
Keep them safe and fed and warm and they will grow all sorts of ways.
It's kind of schoolish, the idea that the more one reads the more one knows. Unschooling is one of those things that isn't accomplished by recitation or test-taking, but only by changing thoughts and actions, beliefs and relationships. It's not easy, it's not quick, and it's not for everyone.