Unschooling- a home-school education with the child taking the primary responsibility instead of a parent or teacher;
also called child-directed learning, self-learning Example: Under unschooling education, parents may act as "facilitators" and may provide a wide-range of resources to their children.
Since discovering the unschooling philosophy and having the privilege of meeting parents who have unschooled for years I've realized something. Unschooling is not simply an academic philosophy,but a way of life for many people. And many of these people who live it do it unintentionally and without the label.
My unschooling journey actually started when I became pregnant with my daughter and watched "The business of being born" for the first time. I had no idea that so much information about birth was not readily available in mainstream society. The more research I did the more I realized that knowledge is powerful and can determine your future! Not to mention the fact that I felt capable and competent enough to learn what was necessary to make my own decisions. This drive to own my birth decisions rippled out into every area of my life after Angel was born...birth,parenting,education,employment,religion,church, etc. etc. And funnily enough my religion that is based on the teachings of Christ supported the idea of self-directed learning. Jesus seemed to think everyone was capable of understanding salvation and repentance no matter what social class, race, or gender they were. Christ was quick to let people know how they are responsible for their own actions and that our will plays a large part in coming to God. I cannot even begin to quote scriptures that talk about this but I would say most of the new testament speaks of the need for Christians to CHOOSE love, service, and ultimately loving God the father. Yes the Spirit plays a part but I believe the Spirit simply uses what we give Him. (can you tell I'm no calvinist?) I could turn this into a sermon...
So anyway unschooling ,which to me is the process of a person taking ownership and responsibility of their life learning experiences, has changed the way I think and learn. I've realized that it is necessary for me to learn things for myself and not have someone else process and break it down for me (otherwise I just absorb info temporarily). I also see the need for me to process what others say through the filter of love (most importantly) and patience. I've observed through unschoolers that persecution is alive and well and I so desperately do not want to contribute to persecution of others (on either side) but rather build unity and possibly promote understanding between main stream society and us on the margins. I'm starting to see the need for promoting awareness on issues but also having the tolerance for those that are simply satisfied with being neutral. Jesus did an amazing job of letting people know what they needed to do BUT giving them the freedom to NOT choose Him (rich young ruler). I am hoping that as I go through this unschooling journey, and encourage my daughter to do so, that we can become whole people that can love and yet hold our own convictions when need be. I gotta say trying to be understanding is hard but I know it's essential to living the way Christ did. There's so many things about unschooling that have resonated with me and I wish I could list them all on here but for some reason I can't list them off the top of my head! Hopefully I can write more blog entries on this topic : )
also called child-directed learning, self-learning Example: Under unschooling education, parents may act as "facilitators" and may provide a wide-range of resources to their children.
Since discovering the unschooling philosophy and having the privilege of meeting parents who have unschooled for years I've realized something. Unschooling is not simply an academic philosophy,but a way of life for many people. And many of these people who live it do it unintentionally and without the label.
My unschooling journey actually started when I became pregnant with my daughter and watched "The business of being born" for the first time. I had no idea that so much information about birth was not readily available in mainstream society. The more research I did the more I realized that knowledge is powerful and can determine your future! Not to mention the fact that I felt capable and competent enough to learn what was necessary to make my own decisions. This drive to own my birth decisions rippled out into every area of my life after Angel was born...birth,parenting,education,employment,religion,church, etc. etc. And funnily enough my religion that is based on the teachings of Christ supported the idea of self-directed learning. Jesus seemed to think everyone was capable of understanding salvation and repentance no matter what social class, race, or gender they were. Christ was quick to let people know how they are responsible for their own actions and that our will plays a large part in coming to God. I cannot even begin to quote scriptures that talk about this but I would say most of the new testament speaks of the need for Christians to CHOOSE love, service, and ultimately loving God the father. Yes the Spirit plays a part but I believe the Spirit simply uses what we give Him. (can you tell I'm no calvinist?) I could turn this into a sermon...
So anyway unschooling ,which to me is the process of a person taking ownership and responsibility of their life learning experiences, has changed the way I think and learn. I've realized that it is necessary for me to learn things for myself and not have someone else process and break it down for me (otherwise I just absorb info temporarily). I also see the need for me to process what others say through the filter of love (most importantly) and patience. I've observed through unschoolers that persecution is alive and well and I so desperately do not want to contribute to persecution of others (on either side) but rather build unity and possibly promote understanding between main stream society and us on the margins. I'm starting to see the need for promoting awareness on issues but also having the tolerance for those that are simply satisfied with being neutral. Jesus did an amazing job of letting people know what they needed to do BUT giving them the freedom to NOT choose Him (rich young ruler). I am hoping that as I go through this unschooling journey, and encourage my daughter to do so, that we can become whole people that can love and yet hold our own convictions when need be. I gotta say trying to be understanding is hard but I know it's essential to living the way Christ did. There's so many things about unschooling that have resonated with me and I wish I could list them all on here but for some reason I can't list them off the top of my head! Hopefully I can write more blog entries on this topic : )
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