School is on my mind these days.
It seems that anytime an adult mentions anything involving their child, I counter with my own questions: "Where do they go to school? How is it working for them? How involved are you?"
I haven't abandoned the idea of public schooling at this time, although I do take the view of it being a small component of my child's overall love of life and interest in learning.
However, reading about other peoples experiences with unschooling has been very inspiring to my own role as a guide and educator of the two small faces residing in this house.
From the website Joyfully Rejoycing:
"Science, math, history, literature, writing, reading are all tools.
Science isn't the important part. It's the questions that are important. Anyone can look up the answers. But asking the questions is what's important. Not "Why is the sky blue?" science questions. But any question. Wonder about things. Why do pigeons walk funny? Why did my friend do that to me? Why does the cat behave that way? Why do people believe that?
History is a tool for helping us understand why our favorite characters lived in the society they did, and why the things that happened to them happened.
Math is a tool for helping us to compare things to other things so we can make better decisions: This deal is better than that one. I need to save for 3 more weeks to get both toys. It's 11 AM and Daddy will be home at 6 so that's 7 more hours or 14 of my favorite half hour shows.
Literature is a tool for helping us answer the questions we have about humans. But without the questions, literature is just a bunch of words on paper.
Writing is a tool for putting our thoughts down on paper and potentially getting them into someone else's head. Without the need to communicate thoughts, there's no need to write.
Reading is a tool for getting information we need. It's one of many tools. It's a really useful tool but unfortunately it's worshiped at the expense of other tools. Not because reading is light years ahead of the other tools but because reading is the most efficient tool for mass education. Which unfortunately gets interpreted to mean it's the best tool. But the best tool is whatever matches a child's needs and learning style. Movies, videos, hands on, talking, nature, listening can all beat reading if they work better for the child."