what will they do all day?

To continue my series of common questions that I began on June 18th, I would like to discuss another question that I am asked quite frequently.

Usually after I explain to someone that we are not following a curriculum, and we discuss the reasons why, the question of our day-to-day happenings comes up. It usually goes something like this: "But what will your kids do all day? I think if most kids were home all day, they would just watch TV and play video games (*insert nervous laughter here*). They would never learn anything on their own."

Well, let me ask you this: when you come home from a day of work, what do you want to do? You probably don't want to make dinner, get your kids to do their homework, give the baby a bath, wash the dishes, and put in a load of laundry. And, chances are, you definitely don't want to sit at the kitchen table and do some more work that your boss sent home with you. Personally, sitting on the couch and watching "The Nanny" sounds like a pretty good evening to me. So why shouldn't kids be the same?!?! Schooled kids have essentially been locked up in a classroom "learning" all day (OK, fine, they get 45 minutes of playtime at lunch), so the last thing they want to do when they get home is more "learning." So when we see our child at the end of a long day, we see the tired-lazy-TV-watching-video-game-playing version of that child. If this is what we see day in and day out, it is hard to imagine that if we pulled this kid out of school, he would do anything other than that.

But I would like to suggest that every child, given the freedom, would choose to learn. However, the problem with sending kids to school is that we are training them from age 5 (and some even age 3 at preschool) to believe that learning is something which primarily happens in the classroom, with a teacher. And by about age 7, they believe that learning only happens because the teacher requires it. They believe that the reason for learning is to pass the test, do the worksheet, or complete the project. Sure, some kids enjoy the busywork of school, but many more kids see it as either boring, or pointless, or something to just get done so they can can get on with their real lives.

But what if children were never exposed to this "learning because I have to" mindset? Think about your kids (or any kids that you know) when they were babies or toddlers. Learning was as natural as breathing. Every moment of every day was spent learning something important, and they loved it! Before school age, children learn to walk, talk, play, explore, think, reason, run, jump, pretend, share, create, dance, perform, and so much more. So why is it that when a kid turns 5 years old, we think that now learning needs to begin? The child has been doing it all along! If we just leave these toddlers alone, they will continue to learn as they grow, and they will enjoy it.

I offer some examples from my own children. As you are probably aware by now, I do not require them to learn anything. I do not have workbooks that they must fill out every day, or textbooks they must read, or mandatory subjects for them to study. They have been learning from the day they were born, and as they have grown, their learning has become increasingly more complex. They have shown interest in a huge variety of topics, and I have been a facilitator, allowing them the freedom to explore, and offering them help when they wanted it. They have amazed me time after time with what they are capable of!

Liam, at age 3, knows all his letters. I had no idea he knew the letters until the other day when he wanted to make a magazine for his daddy for Father's Day. He asked me to tell him the letters to spell out the words he wanted to write, so I told him the letters as well as how to write each of them. After I had explained how a few of the letters looked, he turned to me in frustration and said, "I KNOW how the letters look. I just want you to tell me what they are. I will write them myself." So I did just that, and he wrote them. Because I never required him to sit at a table and write out the letters, I had no idea that he even knew them. But all along, he has been watching and learning, on his own, because he obviously saw the value in knowing the letters. He chose to learn them!

The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse
(an example of Pre-Raphaelite art)

Another example of our learning comes to mind. Just the other day, I was playing "house" with the kids. Ella decided that she was the mom, Liam wanted to be the 10-year-old "big boy" and they both wanted me to be the 3-year-old (Gavin, of course, was the baby). For some reason, it was the "olden days." Ella told me that there were no cars, no planes, and no wrapping paper or tissue paper for gifts. I added that there would have also been no microwaves, as she started to prepare a meal for the family. We talked more about the "olden days" and I suggested that the period she might be thinking of is the late 1800s. After a while, Ella asked me, "How do you know so much about the olden days?" I told her that I have read a lot of books, and watched documentaries. Incredulously, she asked, "Did you read those books when you were a kid?!?!" When I told her that I did indeed read many books as a kid, she decided that she better start reading some books right now. Fortunately, I had just unpacked a book about the Pre-Raphaelites, so I asked the kids if they wanted to look at it. We looked at the paintings in the book (which both kids discussed with more insight than I would have thought a preschooler capable of), and read some poems. I told them a little about the people and the time period, told them the story of The Lady of Shalott, and answered their questions as best I could. After a while, they decided they were done and wanted to play house again. It was a learning moment, but not a teaching moment. In school, they may have been required to draw a picture in the style of the Pre-Raphaelites, or analyze a poem (in later grades), but I think that would have taken away from the fun of it. They enjoyed looking at the book and talking about the olden days. They weren't looking for a lesson, but an experience. They enjoyed it far more than an episode of "Go Diego Go."

John Holt has said that all his work can be summed up in just two words: "Trust children." If we can trust that children know what is best for them, and allow them the freedom to pursue it, they will amaze us. I see it in my own kids already, and I am excited for what is yet to come. If Ella, at age 5, can decide to write a book about the heart and circulatory system (because it's fun!), what will she be doing at age 10? At 15? If she can teach herself to read, there's no reason she can't teach herself algebra, or biology, or whatever else she might be interested in.

And I have every confidence in the world that my children will continue to choose to learn.

how will they learn everything they need to know?

Whenever I talk to someone about our educational choices and methods, certain questions come up time after time. I plan to do a series of blog posts discussing the most common of these questions, mainly for those of you that I don't have the pleasure of talking to in person. If you ever do talk to me in person, however, I love discussing these issues, so ask away!

When I tell someone that we are home educating, they are usually enthusiastic at first, "Homeschooling? Good for you! Ella is so smart! She'll be able to whip through the curriculum in no time!" When I go on to explain that we're not really homeschooling, their enthusiasm usually drops a little. When I explain that we are taking a more natural approach to learning, that we will not be following a formal curriculum, and that the kids are going to be directing their own learning, the question that follows is usually something along the lines of, "If you don't tell them what to do, how are they going to learn everything they need to know?"

This questions holds the following assumption: there exists a set of facts which every person should know, and that without which, no person would be successful in life.

I don't blame anyone for making this assumption. The vast majority of us were schooled (either in a school building or at home) to believe that the things they were teaching us were of the utmost importance, and that we would not be successful in life if we didn't know these things. Think back on your own grade-school days. Do you actually remember anything you learned in elementary school? Do you remember any of the "facts" they taught you? Do you remember any of the answers to the reams of multiple-choice tests you took in high school?

I bet what you're thinking right now is, "Sure, I remember some of it! Not everything, of course, but I definitely learned some stuff!" Now think on this: what specifically do you remember? Do you remember anything from the subjects you had no interest in, or is most of what you remember from your favourite subjects? I would hazard a guess that for most of us, the things that stick with us through the years are the things that we enjoyed, the things that interested us, the things that were fun, the things that we found to be useful.

Let me give you an example. I was good at math. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I got good grades. I did honours math in high school, and I even took "calculus for the biological sciences" in university. (To this day, I have no idea why I chose that course; I was not majoring in the biological sciences, I didn't love math, and the lectures were Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8:30am. I think I skipped most of the Friday lectures.) Now, at 31 years old, I wouldn't even be able to define calculus, let alone perform any calculations. I hardly remember anything from high school math. And I bet you can guess why: I didn't really enjoy it, so I learned it well enough to pass the test, and then I forgot it. No big deal, though, because I don't need to use any of what I "learned" in my real life. My husband, Joel, on the other hand, uses math every day in his work. He enjoyed it as a student, he took many math courses in university, and he remembers nearly everything he learned. It actually amazes me that he can recall formulas he learned 15 years ago and still know how to use them. But it makes sense: he enjoyed it, it interested him, and he now uses it on a daily basis.

I believe that there is no universal set of facts that every person needs to know. I firmly believe that what one person needs to know is different than another person's set of necessary facts. Sometimes vastly different. For Joel, higher-level mathematics was on his need-to-know list. For me, not so much.

Given the chance to pursue his or her own interests, I believe that every child will learn what he or she needs to know to become a successful adult. If a person has no interest in math, chances are he will not need to use much of it in his future career choice. Why would he choose a job he hated? So beyond basic calculations and concepts necessary for everyday life, why should he be forced to "learn" a bunch of concepts that he will later forget? Perhaps what he loves to do is write, and his personal journey is leading towards a career in journalism. Wouldn't his time be better spent reading, writing essays, putting together newspapers, producing his own news show, traveling, taking photos, talking to interesting people, perusing newspapers, doing crosswords, or interning at a magazine?

Don't get me wrong, here. I do believe there are some things that every person should learn. Everyone should know how to read and write. (In fact, one of my biggest pet peeves is poor grammar.) Everyone needs to understand basic math to get along in life. Everyone should know how to think critically, research source documents, and come to his or her own conclusions, rather than taking someone else's word for it (ironically, and unfortunately, this is not something that is taught in school). Everyone needs to learn how to learn, because as an adult, the facts you learned in school do not matter as much as the process you went through to learn them.

In conclusion, to answer the question, I am quite confident that my kids will learn everything they need to know. I am also confident that it will look different from what other kids learn, but that's just fine with me.

more homeschooling in BC

Here's a short UPDATE to yesterday's post.

After meeting with some other homeschool moms last night, I realized that I missed one of the reasons that parents would choose to enroll their children rather than register: funding. If you enroll your child, the government gives you $1000 per year to spend on "school" stuff like curriculum, ballet lessons, art classes, drama lessons, karate, etc, etc. If you register your child, you only get $150.

At the meeting of moms that I attended, a very well meaning mom tried to explain to me that it would be much better to enroll so we could get that extra $850. She told me that there are some online schools that we could enroll with that are very lenient, and would basically let us do whatever we want. Of course, we would still have to submit reports every week to a certified teacher so she could make sure my kids were learning what the government wanted them to learn. Hmmm...

An extra $850 sure sounds nice, but is it worth the freedom that we would have to give up? I mean, isn't freedom the whole reason we decided to home educate in the first place? Am I willing to sell out for $850? Do my kids really need to take all the fancy lessons and classes that this $850 could buy? Wouldn't they have just as much fun (and learn just as much) exploring the forest behind our home, or playing on the playground, or attending programs at the library, or having playdates with other homeschool kids, or going on hikes, or playing pretend, or visiting a farm, or mountain biking, or doing any number of things that are available to us out there in the real world?

So, thank you, Ministry of Education, for the generous offer. But I think I'll pass.

homeschooling in BC

This weekend I attended my first Homeschool Convention & Expo, and it was awesome! I listened to some great speakers, learned a lot about learning, bought a bunch of used books, talked to some experts in the field of homeschooling, learned a lot about myself, met my new hero, David Albert, looked into some karate classes (Liam's new passion), bought a stack of books that will probably take me forever to read, ran into some old friends, met some new people, and thoroughly enjoyed my two days there.

I will be blogging about some things that I learned and discovered, and about some of the speakers I listened to, later this week. Stay tuned!

For today, though, I want to write a bit about homeschooling in BC. Since we are new to homeschooling, and technically won't be starting until the fall (although I am a firm believer that learning happens all the time, and doesn't just start when you open a textbook), I spent a lot of time talking to different people about the nitty-gritty legal stuff. What I found out shocked me a little bit!

In BC, we have what are most likely the best homeschooling laws in all of North America. That I already knew, but it was confirmed to me by a number of people this weekend. Basically, if you want your kids to learn at home, you have two options: enrollment or registration. If you are an enrolled homeschooler, a BC teacher helps you either purchase or create a curriculum that meets the provincial standards, the teacher directs and supervises the learning, your child is regularly assessed, and your child receives regular report cards and a Dogwood diploma. Essentially, if you choose this option, your child will learn exactly what the kids at school are learning, on the same timetable, and be assessed by the same authorities. On the other hand, if you are a registered homeschooler under sections 12 & 13 of the School Act, you are free to provide your child with "an educational program" of your choice, there is no interference or supervision by a teacher and/or the Ministry of Education, your child is not required to take standardized tests, you do not have to meet the provincial learning outcomes, and your children will not receive a Dogwood diploma. Essentially, if you choose this option, your children have the freedom to learn at their own pace, you have the freedom to teach them whatever you want, and you have the option of allowing them to learn about things they are interested in rather than things that the government thinks they should be interested in.

If you have read any of my posts, or have talked to me for even 10 minutes on the topic, you can probably guess which option we will be choosing in the fall. Yep, registration. We are so blessed in BC to have the option of complete educational freedom, and I plan to take full advantage of it. Since I am philosophically opposed to the whole idea of school, it makes no sense for me to even consider enrollment, because it would put us under the thumb of the Ministry of Education. No thanks!

Now, here is the surprising part. At least, it was surprising for me. Among homeschoolers, I am in the minority. It turns out that most people homeschooling in BC are enrolled rather than registered. When I first heard that, I was flabbergasted. It seems absurd that someone would want to teach their kids at home, and yet choose to deal with all the trappings of the school system. When I thought about it, though, I realized that there might be a number of valid reasons. We have been schooled to believe that "experts" know so much more about educating our own kids than we do, so we feel inadequate and ill-equipped to teach them all they need to know. We have been schooled to believe that there are specific things that every kid needs to learn at specific times in their development, and we are worried that we might not be able to teach them everything on our own. We have been schooled to believe that learning happens only in a specialized place at a particular time, so we feel that we need to recreate that atmosphere at home. We have been schooled to believe that learning requires some authority figure pouring facts and knowledge into kids' heads.

I think that if we take a step back and really think about learning, we would realize that none of these things are really necessary. No one loves your kids as much as you do. No one knows your kids like you do. And I think that if we give our kids the chance, they will amaze us with what they are capable of doing with out being "taught" or "assessed."

One thing I know for sure is that I want my own kids to grow and learn in freedom.