26 July 2018

Undercover Homeschoolers

 

Have you heard our unschooling story? Just in case you haven’t, I’m reposting a couple of updated posts that tell the story of how we began our homeschooling adventure as unschoolers but then got distracted by other ideas before returning to unschooling.If you’d like to listen to the original versions you can hear them in podcast episode 93: Our Homeschooling Story.


When I was a child I loved playing school. Fortunately, I had two younger sisters, and because I was the oldest and the bossiest, I could order them to sit in front of my blackboard and be my students.

“Vicky, sit still and pay attention!” I’d say sternly, waving my chalk in front of my poor five-years-younger sister. “Now repeat after me, A is for apple.”

Vicky and Barbie would endure my games for a while and then they’d dissolve into tears or start to moan and my mother would come running. “They’re only little. Leave them alone.” And then I’d be reduced to teaching the teddy bears and the dolls.

Years later, Vicky admitted she’d learnt quite a bit from those childhood school games. They couldn’t have been all bad because she is now a mother of 8, homeschooling her own children.

Surprisingly, I didn’t become a school teacher. I became a scientist and then a mother. But those teaching ambitions must have been lying there dormant, not dead, just waiting. The year our eldest child, Felicity turned five, I saw my opportunity.

At that moment in time, all my friends were talking school. Where were we all going to enrol our children for kindergarten?

“I’m thinking about the Catholic school.”

“But the public one is closer.”

“What about you, Sue? Where are you sending Felicity?”

“Well…umm… I think we’ll hold her back another year. She’s not yet five. April birth, you know. Bit borderline. Probably better to wait until she’s a little older before sending her to school.”

And my friends accepted that and I kept my secret. My secret? My secret desire to homeschool.

I’d thought about it carefully. I knew the possibilities. My mother was homeschooling my younger brother. I’d read up on all the rules and regulations. I knew how to get registered. I just didn’t know how to tell my friends. I suspected they’d think me crazy. So I decided we’d be undercover homeschoolers. We would look like a normal everyday family in public, but when no one was looking we’d disappear behind the closed doors of our home and assume our secret identity: homeschoolers.

Sometimes I wondered: What if my friends were right? Maybe I was a little bit crazy. Could I really teach a child of my own? I questioned and answered myself: Who knew my child best? Me. Who cared about her the most? Me. Who had already taught her so much? Me.

What was so special about the magic age of five? Well, there was the issue of reading. But could it be any harder than toilet training? Maybe not. Would Felicity keep on learning if I kept on teaching? Probably.

Questions asked, questions answered. I convinced myself I could do it. But I had a backup plan. Just in case. I reassured myself that Felicity could always start school with the 5-going-on-6 year -olds the following year if necessary, and no one would ever know about our failed experiment.

I was so excited. I had a real live student, not a reluctant younger sister or a row of stuffed teddy bears but a daughter, and she was going to be brilliant. I just knew it. But I had a lot to learn.

I guess all my ideas about education were based on my own experiences of learning. I’d gone to primary schools, high schools, correspondence schools, public schools, private schools, religious schools, co-ed schools, girls’ schools. A lot of schools. The only thing I hadn’t tried was boarding school. I did beg my mother to let me try this out too, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to let me go. Anyway, I knew all about school even though I’d hated most of them. I knew nothing about homeschooling.

READ  Unschooling: Good Education

When we set out along the homeschooling pathway, we didn’t know any other homeschoolers, apart from my mother. So I looked for people we could connect up with. We heard about a homeschooling conference and, of course, we had to attend. I couldn’t wait.

The day came and we set off with three children in tow. What a day! I sat enthralled, soaking up everything I heard. The speaker talked at a million miles an hour, pacing around and around the room, waving her arms in emphasis and infecting us all with her bubbling-over enthusiasm. It was heady stuff. I came home buzzing. I’d seen the possibilities: homeschooling was going to be a huge enormous adventure. I’d learnt so much in the space of a day. I had so much more to learn. But one thing was certain: we wouldn’t be doing school at home. I wouldn’t be sitting our daughter in front of a blackboard. I wouldn’t be waving a stick of chalk under her nose as I ordered her to, “Sit still and pay attention!” There were other ways.

Yes, our first contact with homeschooling wasn’t at-home-school. It wasn’t classical education. It wasn’t even Charlotte Mason. No, we’d stumbled into a style of homeschooling that was out there right at the cutting edge of alternate education. We were going to be unschoolers.

I’d spent the day in the company of pioneer homeschoolers, those brave and forceful mothers who’d lobbied and fought to have the education laws reformed, the women who read John Holt and Growing Without School and whose children learned and played and discovered and were brilliant.

Words danced inside my head forming sentences: Children learn all the time not just between the hours of 9 and 3. They have a natural love of learning. Children don’t need to be bribed to learn. They don’t need to be threatened with punishment. Let children lead. Trust your children. Listen. Let them follow their passions. So much to think about.

We became unschoolers. The months passed swiftly. Soon it was the end of the year.

“So where will be Felicity be going to school after Christmas?”

“We’re not sending her to school. We’re teaching her at home.”

“Oh!”

We’d done it. We were no longer undercover secret homeschoolers. We had come out in the open.

Our friends sort of drifted away. It was inevitable. We were walking on different roads. But we didn’t want to return to the mainstream. We were headed out on a big adventure, our feet firmly treading the homeschooling pathway. We were unschoolers.

So have we unschooled forever? Unfortunately not. In the beginning, I didn’t understand unschooling very well and, although I loved the idea of it, there were some aspects of it that didn’t sound quite right. I heard about other ways of homeschooling. And for a time, we headed away from unschooling.

You can read more about my various homeschooling experiments in my next post!


Image: So our homeschooling adventure began with our first child Felicity. That was more than 26 years ago. It will end with our youngest child Gemma-Rose. Of course, unschooling never ends. We’ll be unschoolers forever!


Were you ever undercover homeschoolers? Or perhaps you had lots of supportive friends who encouraged you to follow this way of life? I’d love to hear your story!

Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

11 Comments

  1. When I was a teenager my mum began homeschooling my younger siblings. I totally and practically supported her and read many hs bks. I read John Holt, Raymond Moore, Mary Pride, the Colfaxes and Maria Montessori. These books all had a strong influence on forming my homeschool philosophy. I also attended a Natural Learners Conf in Brisbane when our dc were young. mmm I think I really need to write a blog post to answer your question and link back here. Lots more to say.
    Hey maybe you should do a link up with Mr Linky.

  2. Erin, all those names are so familiar! I guess you knew you were going to homeschool even before you had children.

    I've never done a link up. That's a great idea. You will have to share more about how I do that.

    Looks like it's one of those days. I can only comment on my own blog as Anonymous!

    Of course, I'm not 'Anonymous' but Sue!

    I'd love to hear more of your homeschooling story. Yes, we get started then realise there really is so much to say!

    Thank you for sharing!

  3. Hi Sue, As you know, my homeschooling journey started after meeting all your friends at Imogen's baptism. They were such gentle and holy families that I immediately pulled Megan out of kindergarten. It was the start of a really exciting journey which also included my conversion.:)

  4. Vicky, I'd forgotten that it was at Imogen's baptism that your great adventure began! Do you remember our childhood school games? We played school. Our own children play homeschool!

  5. I forgot to say the other reason I started homschooling, Sue – I wanted to keep my children with me. That always got such a negative response from people that it's no wonder I kept that quiet! And, yes – I do remember those games. Due to you , I knew so much when I started school that I was promoted (with a couple of others) to be taught by the assistant principal! (This is turning into an email:D)

  6. I was like you, Sue, in that I rounded up the local kids(I didn't have siblings) and tried gave them lessons with the girl next door. I taught the teddies too!
    A friend mentioned an article she had read in our dio. mag. about a Catholic homeschool family. I looked it up, called her for a chat and was hooked!

  7. Hi Tricia! Thank you for stopping by and sharing. The article in your diocesan magazine: that is really interesting. I didn't meet any other Catholic homeschoolers until Felicity was 9. I didn't know any existed until we moved house and met another homeschooler in our parish (Helen), who told me about the huge network of other homeschoolers from all over Sydney and other parts of NSW. And that was when I began to share not just homeschooling, but homeschooling in the context of living the Catholic Faith.

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