Twice Five Minutes on Friday: Does Unschooling Work?

I had a bright idea. A very bright idea. It was a halogen lamp of an idea which solved a problem. Let me explain…

I recorded my last video, What is Unschooling? in our family room, which was rather inconvenient for the rest of my family. Because we have an open plan house, they all had to keep very quiet while I had the camera running. After the 5th take, I felt like a nuisance: “Sorry kids! I’ll get it right this time (I hope). Just give me another ten minutes.”

I really wanted to make my videos in the privacy of my own bedroom, behind a closed door, where I could take my time without worrying. But I couldn’t. You see, there’s a magnificent hedge outside our bedroom window. It reaches high into the sky. It shuts out our neighbours. It also shuts out the light. My room is far too dim for video making.

“If only I had one of those lights that photographers use,” I said, and then I had that very bright idea. I remembered Callum once bought himself a double lamp on a stand. He uses it when he’s working on his cars. Would he let me borrow it?

He would. He did. My second son retrieved his lamp from the garage and carried it to my room, saying, “Be careful, Mum. It gets very hot!” He plugged in the lead and turned the lamp on and wow! The light was so bright, I couldn’t look at it. “They’re halogen lights, Mum.” That halogen lamp lit up every corner of the room. It probably lit up under the bed too!

The light problem was solved. It was time to get to work. I set up my camera facing one wall, and positioned the lamps so the light bounced off the opposite wall. And that reflected light was enough to allow me to record a video. Actually, the light was more than adequate, a bit too much in fact. It lit up my face far too well.

“I recorded another video today, in our bedroom,” I tell my husband Andy, when he arrives home from work. “I used Callum’s halogen lamp to give extra light to the room. You should see the result. All the lines and sagging skin on my face were well illuminated.” I don’t think I like that. I prefer the soft look. “What will people think?”

Andy grins. “Maybe they’ll no longer think you’re cute.”

Not cute?

“But then again,” continues Andy, “Yoda is cute, in a wrinkly kind of way.”

So this is Yoda’s latest unschooling video. What’s it about? Oh dear, I spent so much time writing the behind-the-scenes story, I’ve run out of time to tell you. Would you like to watch and find out for yourself? I can tell you the title. It’s called…

Does Unschooling Work? (Does that sound interesting?)

Talking about time, it seems I have a bit of a time problem… Sorry!

PS: chatting on camera is so different from writing a post. I’d have liked to have changed a word or two, here and there, but of course, I couldn’t. In particular…  I don’t think there’s any need to ‘teach’ our children how to learn. Given the right environment and opportunity, kids learn very well all by themselves. It’s funny how our sentences are never ideal when we are talking. I guess in real life we’d just backtrack and adjust them as we go.

Image: A bunch of unschoolers? Do they look happy?