🪄Unschooling, Easy As ABC!
Unschooling is as easy as ABC!
A bold statement for some, but for those in the know, it's just a fact of life.
Truly, unschooling is as easy (or easier) as learning the alphabet is for school children and in this blog, I'm going to share why.
The Power of Motivation
Ever wonder why there are things you are immediately drawn to discover and learn more about and then there are things you'd like to just ignore all together and they seem difficult to get through?
Sometimes the things we're obsessed with discovering are more complicated that some of the things we would rather avoid. So it can't be about the ability to learn. It's about motivation.
The Passion of Learning
Usually people are motivated by necessity and passion. Unfortunately, school makes learning a necessity, first and foremost, and the one size fits all approach does not cultivate the love of learning we are born with. Babies learn to walk and talk, not because they told they have to, but because they are consumed with grasping these skills for their own gain. This passion is interrupted when they are forced to focus on skills that they are not interested in, which often indicates they are not ready. Instead of being encouraged to surf the wave of natural curiosity wherever it may go, school forces students to study the subjects it finds important.
Going With The Flow
The reason Unschooling is so easy is there is no fight for concentration or participation when a student is free to study what is interesting and relevant to them, just like in babyhood. There is nothing interrupting their focus for what they are passionate about; the rekindling of the love of learning we were born with.
Parents need not check off lists of things to learn but rather can record subjects naturally gleaned from living everyday life, playing, creating and exploring. Instead of teaching by instruction, things are taught by example. Schedules can be tailored to each family and family member. Students can spend their days discovering everything they wonder about, at their own pace. When learning is fun, it's addictive. And then, when it comes time to learn something that is maybe, not so fun but vital, it can be done without becoming overwhelmed emotionally from constantly being forced to learn what did not come easily.
Unschooling is the understanding that you cannot separate learning from living. It is the rejection of the idea that you must invest yourself in an institution to achieve quality education. It is the release of the fear that we can't trust ourselves to seek out the best options for our development, that the science is rock solid on school being the best place to learn.
This is why Unschooling is easy! It's just living life playing, creating and exploring!
Sometimes this might mean courses, classes and group learning environments.
Sometimes this may look like online research, visual media and library visits. Sometimes it may look like mentorship, hands on DIY learning or virtual lessons. All the resources of the earth are at our fingertips to access. The world is our classroom and life is our school!
Update
Now that the conference is over I am able to focus on the exciting release of my latest children's book, "Freeschoolin's: Little Book Of ABC's"!
It features "the roundies", an adorable collection of illustrations inviting readers to journey the alphabet.
It's the first ABC book made with Unschoolers in mind, but great for any student learning to read.
You can find the Ebook for FREE on Amazon with Kindle Unlimited, in paperback on Amazon and you can freely request your area's bookstores and libraries carry it.
Hope has been drawing constantly and recently has been favouring digital art. She's expanding so much on her skills and we look forward to every new drawing. We play video games that showcase Hope's amazing reading skills, all self taught and she's started to focus on writing. There has been interest in learning to cook, animation and writing children's books, as well as tons of character creation. There's always some role we're playing around here, imagination is always on. There's the animals to care for, our chickens, dog, horse and 2 cats, though it's quieter on the farm in the winter. We're always singing and dancing, eating meals with fancy fireplaces on our computer playing amid ambient restaurant music to play some roleplay game Hope is requesting. Our car is dying (we have a limited number of trips left with it ) and we cannot yet afford to replace it so we're not going out like we want to, but we're doing everything possible to make the best of what we do have and replace our wheels so we can be free again to play, create and explore our days away.
Thank you to new and returning readers for following along our unschool journey and those who have supported us along the way through our books, ORGANIC Freeschoolin' Wear, art commissions, LARP Birthday Parties and more. It makes such a difference and means so much to our family.
Much Love,
Wendy 💜
Wendy Elizabeth Hart - Author, Illustrator, is a radical unschooling, homesteading Mom of 2 amazing kids and wife of more than 13 years to her bff, Jaze. Together with their daughter Hope, 12, they live a life of daily discovery in rural Ontario, Canada and share it with the world to connect with and support other families in the unschooling community.
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