September 16, 2012

Measuring Sticks

I went to school.

As an unschooling family life is never status quo. As an unschooling mother I have a lot to learn or rather unlearn. I've read all the literature, picked a million peoples brains and have seen many success stories of grown children who have unschooled. It all makes sense, 'let a child explore and learn naturally without any restraints put upon them and they will flourish'. I know I do when I'm left to be the person that I want to be. Why is it then, with all this knowledge, it is still hard for me to fully embrace this for my kids? I watch my children every day explore their world around them. I engage with them. I see their delight in discovering something new. I see their lives unfolding exactly the way they want it to. I watch them making their own decisions about the world around them, what they want from it and how they can contribute to it. They have no baggage. I have baggage. I have insecurities. I have self-doubt.

The rest of the world is busy shuffling their kids off to school, seeing results in report cards and extracurricular activities, and enjoying a constant barrage of evaluation. Be it good or bad these parents walk away with a portfolio to show the world. As an unschooling parent we have nothing to show because can't measure unchooling with the same yardstick.  All we have is trust and faith in our kids which according to the world is not enough.

So where does an unschooling parent go in a world of measuring sticks?

We go to our kids.

On the days I feel like I'm failing my kids by not keeping up with 'can they read?' 'can they write?' can they count?' 'do they know π ?' I drag the workbooks out and see where they are at. You would think after 8 years of unschooling I would be beyond this, but I am not. I have a lot to learn. I have a lot to learn about myself. When the workbooks come out my kids look at me with the kind of look that says  "don't you trust me to learn all that I need to learn in the way that I what to learn?"  I go to sleep at night with the shameful feeling that I was seduced by the portfolio that the rest of the world has, the measuring stick.

Then tomorrow becomes another day and I right my wrong. I follow my kids. I listen to my kids. I observe my kids. They inspire me and help me to open my eyes and I realize that a measuring stick is only my security blanket.

Time to let the blanket go.

• • •


I've pondered this topic on and off over the past several months, but it seems especially timely now. Kids are going back to school and for the first time, my always-unschooled 13 year old is among them.

We live in a highly academic community. DH and I have bachelors degrees and are among the lowest-educated people in this town. The huge majority of our friends have advanced degrees, and most of their kids go to school. Much is made over whether the kids get into the gifted and talented program or not, which classes the kids are taking, whether they play sports and participate in extracurricular activities and do "community service." (I have to put the latter in quotation marks because it so often is motivated by a desire to look good for college applications, not by any true desire to serve.)

DH recently said he finds it funny to hear parents all paying lip service to not overscheduling their kids, even as their kids to a one are incredibly overscheduled. Parents moan about being too busy and are quick to say that this is what their child wants, that they are only going along. These statements are always made with a thinly-disguised pride in how much the kids are doing.

In this atmosphere the hardest part of unschooling is deflecting the pressure to Achieve with a capital A. And while it's easy for DH and I to mostly ignore all that, our kids are not as immune.

One of the reasons S wants to go to school is that he doesn't want to be behind. I have wondered if there is some inherent desire that we all have to know how we stand against our peers, or if this is the result of living in a culture that is constantly judging children by their achievements in school. I will never know. All I know is that it is important to S right now to know where he stands, and so we are trying to provide that support for him. In some ways this is no different from how it's always been: he is where he needs to be, and where he is is exactly right for him.


• • •


Why is it that every September I feel the intense gravitational pull of Back To School? It's like a gale force wind, blowing down the street and my hair is being sucked into its wake. Everyone seems to be rushing in a herd to soccer practice, swimming lessons, ballet class, pre-k, first day of kindergarten, first grade, buying new school supplies, seeing all their school friends again...why is it I feel a bit like my kids are missing out on something?

It's sort of like peer pressure. Societal pressure, to conform. Everyone else is doing it, why aren't we?

I know unschooling is right for our family. We are totally down with the whole philosophy of mentoring self-directed learners. It's a lifestyle choice, not just an educational one. We love that we have stepped off the treadmill of over scheduled mainstream family life. Outside forces like school don't infringe on our flow of daily life. We set our own pace. It's sort of like summer holidays, always. 

Then September rolls around and the barrage of images and messages from the whole world are of starting anew. It's bigger than New Years! Next grade, new clothes, new haircuts, all new supplies, new books, new shoes, themed backpacks. Gotta get to bed early to start early.... 

...and we just go on at the same pace as always. We sort of look up at everyone rushing around and wonder why? Why do they have to do that, and perhaps, a bit, why are we not doing it too? Then I shake my head, and look around at our slow paced life of staying in jammies, reading books in sunbeams, listening to podcasts while sketching and letting the kids make their own breakfasts because we are not rushed.

This feeling happens to me every September and in another week, the back to school honeymoon will be over. We will be doing what we always do, exploring the world and all it has to offer.