Sophie’s Unschooling Holiday
On the official last day of the school term: Sophie: No more learning for two weeks! Imogen: No more learning? We learn all the time, not just in term time. Charlotte: What are you planning to do for the next…
Be Brave and The Unschool Challenge
Sometimes we have to be brave, don’t we? We might need to ignore people’s opinions and possible criticism and do whatever fulfils the needs of our kids. We could need courage to ignore our fears about how our work will…
My Unschoolers’ End-of-the-Year Reports
My husband Andy is a primary school teacher, and twice a year he has to write school reports for all his children. For a couple of weeks, we see nothing of him except his back, as he sits in front…
Unschoolers, Chores and Rosters
How do parents encourage kids to help with the chores? Is the example of parents important? Do parents have to be willing to do everything they want their kids to do? Do they need to have a generous and loving…
Is It Working? Wrestling with Doubt in Unschooling
A grey day arrives that completely blots out the memory of all the preceding good days. We feel overwhelmed, tired, worried and lost. We wonder why we ever decided to unschool. A puddle of doubt about unschooling forms around us.…
How Younger Siblings Learn by Listening In
On Sunday Father S began his homily: “In Hamlet, it says, ‘To thine own self be true’.” Gemma-Rose dug me in the side and whispered loudly, her eyes wide with excitement, “Hamlet!” We are halfway through reading this Shakespeare play and Gemma-Rose couldn’t believe Father knew about Hamlet too. Later around the table, while we ate our Sunday cereal and crumpets, we had a good discussion: “Which character said, ‘To thine own self be true’?” “Polonius!” “I wouldn’t agree with…
How Children Learn According to Sophie
I’ve been pondering how children learn. So has Sophie… Sophie: If you want to learn something you have to be interested in it… like the elephants I was reading about today. That was really interesting and I remember so much. Sue: What happens if you’re not interested? Sophie: Then it all goes straight out the door. You don’t absorb it. Sue: Can you learn something like times tables even if it’s not interesting? Sophie: Yes, because you can use those.…
A Little Unobtrusive Help with Reading
Many years ago, I taught my first child Felicity to read so quickly and easily, I was sure I was a brilliant homeschooling mother. What was everyone else doing wrong? Teaching a child to read? Easy! Or so I thought. Then Duncan came along and the word ‘frustrated’ became part of my everyday vocabulary. He could remember the sounds of letters, but running them together to form words was a slow and laborious process. I suddenly realised I hadn’t taught…
Handwriting Matters or Maybe it Doesn’t
Some of my children have beautiful handwriting and some don’t. “What are you going to do when you go to university? Your tutor won’t spend time trying to decipher your essays. If he can’t read them, you’ll fail.” My eldest children went to university. “Handwritten assignments aren’t accepted, Mum. See, I didn’t need good handwriting after all!” So I was wrong. Times have changed. Good typing skills are now more valuable than beautiful handwriting. Even I don’t handwrite much these…
Learning about Punctuation the Lewis Carroll Way
I never used to bother with the finer points of punctuation because I wasn’t sure how to use such devices as colons and semi-colons. For a long time, I didn’t even know their proper names. To me, they were two dots, or a dot and a comma. And I’m supposed to be an educated woman. But one day, help arrived in an unexpected way. I started reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland out loud to my children, and I became very excited.…
Listening
Gemma-Rose’s turn to read. My turn to listen. When I was an eleven-year-old student, our teacher got out her tape recorder and played us a current affairs radio program. It was a hot summer’s afternoon, late in the day, and I felt sleepy. I didn’t even try to concentrate on the program. I spent the half hour I should have been listening, daydreaming instead. Apparently, almost all my fellow students did the same thing. And the teacher must have suspected that our minds were not on world news…
Why I’m Not a Good Homeschooling Teacher
Everyone thinks I homeschool my fourteen-year-old daughter, Charlotte. I don’t. She homeschools herself. I try to help her: “Charlotte, I have a new book we’re just about to start reading. What you like to join us?” “No thanks, Mum. I have something else planned.” “Charlotte we’re going to watch this DVD. Do you want to watch too?” “Not right now, thank you Mum. I’m in the middle of something else.” So Sophie, Gemma-Rose and I settle on the sofa together…
Education Doesn’t Have a Use-by-Date
Yesterday Imogen was peering over Charlotte’s shoulder, looking at all the interesting things she is learning. “You are giving yourself a much better education than the one I gave myself,” Imogen complained. “Look at all those wonderful books you’re reading. I haven’t read any of them.” “Well, it’s not too late,” replied Charlotte. “Your education isn’t over even though you’re doing uni work rather than homeschooling. You could read these books too.” Then she added, “Education doesn’t have a use-by-date,…
Glimpsing the World through a Child’s Eyes
“Do you want to watch a movie? We’re having a boys’ movie night.” A movie night? That sounds like a relaxing way to spend…
Helping a Child Discover Her Talents
If a child has a talent won’t it just appear without any encouragement? If you’re meant to be an artist, it will be very…
Unschooling: Dishes
This evening, after dinner, I didn’t want to help with the dishes. I just wanted to relax on the sofa and leave everyone else…
Unschooling: Trust, Autonomy, and The Realities of Learning
The Ladies are Fixing the World again! Cecilie, Sandra and I are discussing the words ‘self-regulation’ and ‘limits’. When we say, “I’ve let go of control, and now I’m waiting for my child to learn how to regulate his time playing video games (for example),” do we have expectations about what that regulation should look like? Do we want…
Unschooling Isn’t Freedom Gone Wild: Why Choices Matter More Than Ideals
My husband Andy returned to work today after two weeks at home. Holiday time is over. We’ve now moved into term time. A whole term of possibility days stretches before me. I’m free to do whatever I like with my time while Andy is at school. My eyes light up with delight. But then I remember there are many…
Unschooling: A Lifestyle of Curiosity, Flexibility, and Trust
I’m a Lady Fixing the World! Cecilie Conrad kindly invited me to join her and Sandra Dodd for Season 2 of her podcastThe Ladies Fixing the World. We recorded our first unschooling conversation together in November 2024 before life got extra-busy with Christmas, and it has just gone live! The audio version. Here’s the audio version: You can also listen…
Christian Unschooling: Disciplining With Unconditional Love
If our children misbehave, what do we do? Make them sit on the time-out chair? Punish them? Perhaps we should withdraw our love. Be cold and distant. Make things unpleasant for our kids because they need to know how upset we are, don’t they? We want them to feel bad because then, maybe, they’ll remember to act in the right…
Losing Time
I’ve been reading a book called A Time to Die by Nicholas Diat, who visited eight monasteries to talk to the monks about the experience of death. Here’s something that caught my attention: One monk described how he cares for the old and sick, and how he has to guard against doing things in a routine way, trying to complete…