Unschooling

I have been reading and hearing a slew of comments over the past 24 hours on homeschooling/unschooling. I thought I would take a few minutes to sort this out here. First of all, if I had to say what type of home educator we are I usually say we are "very relaxed" or that we are "learning (not educating) at home". However, we are deffinately considered unschoolers by many. I asked my son (Brian) yesterday if he felt having such freedom had harmed him in any way now that he is in college. He answered honestly that he hadn't even thought about it. He is happy, making good grades, landing research opportunities. I think he has "survived" our desire to let him choose his own path. I truly feel, if I had to do it again, I would have much LESS structure for all of our boys until they were at least 12. I think of how I often fluctuated between required instructional learning (usually lasts about a month each fall and summer) and total freedom. I spent hours worrying...and they are fine. I do feel at this point, tutoring the younger boys (12 and 13) an hour a day (mixed with volunteerism of their choice and an hour or two of plain old hard labor) is good for all of us at this time. We are surrounded by good books, lots of nature (river, hills, trees..and all the creatures that come with it), lots of games, people that provide good conversation and humor. I can't help but wonder how you can really go wrong with that? Okay. Technical stuff. Brian and friends posted on their blog last night...and nothing is showing on their page. I posted yesterday..and unless I go through my dashboard, nothing has published on my blog either. I am wondering how to make tags.....I really need to spend some time figuring all this out. But first? Breakfast with Cody. He is about to spend a few hours filling holes with gravel for a local neighborhood contractor. (making Christmas spending money). Want to visit with him a little before he leaves to work.

November Update

Wow. It's been almost a month since I was last here already. Somehow, this is more like I envisioned blogging at the beginning. It has been busy around here. Nothing huge, or major. Just the day-to-day learning on top of extra hours at work, soccer games, extra OM practices, etc. At the Club we ran our Career Launch program for every senior at the local highschool last week, completed our basketball league registration and had our annual Harvest Fest. (fundraiser/multi-cultural day of fun). This past week, we just opened for two days..and now all of a sudden we have 5 days off in a row! The kids have pretty much moved into the Club. They have taken over the snack preparing in the midst of all craziness. We have been averaging a little over 100 kids a day this month. That is a lot of snack preparing. Colt is keeping a guitar at the Club to practice on and a few good books. Austen is reading for hours a day there...and then falling asleep on the couch until we wake him up to get ready for kids getting off the bus. We are ALL ready for this little breather. Except for one week (when I was at the highschool) we have managed to still keep the mornings to ourselves. I really treasure this time together. We have spent most of this time reading together, discussing upcoming legislation (I.E...Leo's HB 28 and 29) Quite frightening! Which has oppened up lots of discussion on racism, oppression, constitutional rights..and the ethics of breaking unjust laws. Other than we have done a 5 minute math speed test daily and Spelling Power. Cody continues to write letters for aid to Darfur, Austen and friends raised enough money to adopt 2 baby and 1 moma gorilla. We spent one weekend up at TAMS with Brian, listening to presentations on various summer research projects, drinking boba tea, wandering around Fry street and finally getting to put faces and personalities together with the names of TAMS friends he mentions so frequently:) I had planned to watch Dr. Phil today (something I have never had the desire to do) since he was having an episode on homeschooling/unschooling/public schooling. However, after reading several posts on how he is handling this have chosen not too. Instead we are taking Brian (who is home for Thanksgiving) shopping for pants. Outgrew all the ones we bought him last month...and..we will set up our Christmas tree! Okay. Enough rambling. Time to wake up these shaggy boys and enjoy our day.