Homeschooling Gives Me Blogger’s Block

I don’t want to blog about homeschooling, but that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately so I guess I have to puke it out so I can write about other things.

We went to Kalahari Waterpark and Resort for a few days with our friends and a bunch of other alternative educators for the Unschoolers Winter Waterpark Gathering. I like to go to those convention-type things and have veteran unschoolers pump me full of comforting sunshine right in the middle of winter. It might be my favorite thing. I’m not technically an unschooler because unschoolers are all about teaching everything through life and experience and connections and, well, I use a math curriculum in a box. I avoid math at all costs in my daily life, so it would be hard to teach just by living. A radical unschooler would say, “Well, that just goes to show that you can get by just fine without it.” To which I would reply, “But I don’t want to be the one who has to add up everybody’s points every time we play Uno.” To which the radical unschooler would say, “then play Uno more often so they can get the hang of it.” To which I would reply, “Uno makes me want to stab somebody. And so does this conversation.” The end.

So I use the curriculum (complete with script!) to teach the maths. So, while I’m not technically an unschooler, I’m generally more comfortable around unschoolers than school-at-homers. You will never catch me at a homeschooling conference for people who log school hours and have subject checklists and who are otherwise homeschooling for excellence. I just really do believe that a kid can learn 4 years worth of high school math, english, or anything in 6 weeks or less. I just don’t want to count the Uno points, so…math curriculum. Otherwise easy-breezy, so…unschoolers conference.

The conference was fun and I loved going to the Rethinking Education type chats while the kids were off playing in the waterpark or taking part in a DS tournament or watching a bunch of other unschoolers play Rock Band or getting a Leaf Village henna tattoo:

But I think what I loved most was not being the brand-new mom in the room with the “But what if they never learn anything?” question. I used to be that mom at least quarterly, if not more often, but now I have friends with bigger unschooled kids and I see how it turns out alright. And I have kids who are almost 10 and I can see it turning out alright. I can’t tell you how often their experience with certain things that might not be “educational” in other people’s eyes (*cough* graphic novels) has turned out to be the spark that lit the fire of (traditional) education under them in ways that a chapter from a textbook never could. I think interest and freedom in education are two of the most powerful tools we have.

We all have things from school that have stayed with us or left us right after the test. Me? Everything left after the test. Unless it was grammar, which was already part of my soul for the 17 years before I had my first real grammar class. See how my interest helped me? See? I hated being forced to read certain books and then write a  paper about them. I just think that’s mean and not at all helpful. And! And I never spent more than one night writing one of those papers. (I just made a long and boring list of things I hated about school, but I deleted it and I’m just going to say, all of those things I hated? They left me stained with contempt and uninterested in the subject for life.)

Oh, hi, I should say that this post is not to incite debate over school choices and whatnot because, really, I don’t care how anybody else’s kids are schooled because in the end, I think it all just turns out fine no matter what. You can send your kid to public school for 13 years and he’ll find an interest and turn it into a life or not, and I can homeschool like this and my kids will find an interest and turn it into a life or not. Either way, they grow up and make their way in the world and they gather the tools they need in order to make the way they want. I’m just saying the conference was fun, I see this life working for my kids, I’m glad I’m not worried about it anymore, and I’m glad I have friends who can support each other in this life, and Uno makes me stabby.