quote of the day and more on unschooling

We were at the playground the other day and there was a mother there with her four girls. I overheard her tell her girls that they were going to be leaving in five minutes. Kuddos to her for giving her children time to transition because no child appreciates being ripped away from a playground without warning! They were obviously homeschooled because it was 11 am on a week day and they were not in public school and I heard the oldest girl, who looked to be about 9 or 10,  ask her mother if she had to do English and math when they got home. The mother said yes and named off the other subjects they were going to study, the little girl groaned. They were still discussing it as they were leaving and right before the girl got into their van to leave I heard her exclaim that she hated school.

THIS is the difference between unschooling and homeschooling. We do not have school at home. We do not have a curriculum in which we study certain subjects everyday. Yes, my six year old knows how to read and do math but he didn't learn these things by us forcing him to sit down and study. We talk, he asks a LOT of questions, we read books, we watch a lot of science shows on Netflix, we go on nature walks, we work on the farm, we live life together and discuss it along the way.

Here is a question that I have heard many times- How do you know that he knows everything he should at age six and aren't you afraid you're going to leave something out or forget to teach him something? First of all, I am not his teacher. I am his mother and I trust that he will learn everything he needs to know with my guidance. I'm not sure who said it but this quote has always stuck in my mind, "Everything you've been taught is someone else's thought...Go ahead and create your own." I don't think it's important for him to memorize a bunch of crap in a text book and I certainly don't care about some standard list of things that a six year old should know. He is not standard, he is unique. He doesn't know how to tie his shoes but he can tell you what a black hole in space is or how a hearing aid is made. In fact, as I'm typing this at 10 o'clock tonight I can hear him in the other room telling his daddy about how it's not right for people in China to have to work for such little pay.

Anyways, I'm a firm believer that we should trust our children. If they "hate" school how much are they really going to learn there? Children will learn things when they are ready and when they need to. How much do you actually remember from school? I've learned more with Jude in the past few years than I did in all of my elementary education!