The Doubting Dad

I ended my last post by asking for suggestions on how to handle a partner who's not exactly on board the unschooling bus, so to speak. I wanted to know how to balance my husband's need to see some Learning going on, with my desire to unschool our son. This topic is so important I figure it deserves its very own post. That way all the helpful suggestions I've been getting won't get passed over.

You can read the complete comments on my last post, but I'm going to paraphrase some of them for you here:

Heather from Embracing the Strange suggested I read Building an Unschooling Nest and Doing Two Things at Once on Sandra Dodd's site. She also recommended I take a look at Deschooling Caleb, a blog written by a mom whose son is about Jerry's age. Among other things, Heather also suggested delving into my own interests and sharing them with Jerry, and getting out of the house more. Oh, and she wondered if I had fully explained the deschooling process to my husband. (He says I have but I think I need to try again.)

Sheri from Matter of Faith suggested that I ease up on myself and allow my husband to take on the subjects that he's most concerned about.

Tara at Heartschooling thought I was on the right track by respecting all parties and trying to find ways to meet everyone's needs. She suggested keeping a log of what we do throughout the day and listing the educational value of each activity.

Nance Confer from Cocking a Snook recommended my husband check out these blogs written by a couple homeschooling dads:
HE&OS and O'Donnell Web. She also suggested the Homeschooling for Dads page on the National Home Education Network site. I found this comment, also from Nance, to be especially helpful:

"And, I hope this doesn't sound mean, but has Warren tried just hanging out and talking with your son. Not in a quizzing, annoying way. But in a nice, friendly, "getting to know you and not measuring you against any arbitrary standard and dang, but aren't you a terrific kid" kind of way.

And then he'd need to do that again. And again. And not demand to see some worksheet or test score or a book that was sufficiently "educational." But just keep on doing that and keep on really trying to appreciate your son.

And then one day, it will all click. He will walk into the kitchen where you are preparing dinner and trying not to listen and he will say, "You know, that boy is really smart. He just told me all about XYZ. And he had some good ideas about ABC. And he's funny!" Or whatever your son is.

And you will smile and agree because, by then, you will already have had the many chances during the day that Dads sometimes miss to see how terrific your son is.

And the more you can continue to deschool -- meaning lay off the school work (even if you think it doesn't look schooly, obviously your son knows what's up) -- the sooner all of this can start happening."

So, it seems like Warren and I need to take some time to talk about unschooling and deschooling. We need to have some philosophical discussions about school and learning and our own educational philosophies. I have a feeling this may take more than a couple conversations! In the meantime we'll both take Nance's advice to hang out with Jerry without placing judgments on how he chooses to spend his time. That should be a good place to start.

What Happened Next (part 2)

I left off yesterday with number four on the list of What Happened Next. My poor husband ended up sounding a bit curmudgeonly (or entirely sane, depending on your attitude toward learning), so I'll go back and try to explain where he was coming from.

1. I told my husband about my plan to unschool our son and he said (though he later denied it) "Well, I just don't want him having fun all the time." Even though my husband (I'll call him WG) tried to deny this comment, he really is concerned that J will spend his days having fun and end up not learning anything. Anyone that's been through thirteen years of school knows that "fun" is not a regular part of the curriculum, so I understand his concern. However, even though unschooling is probably best practiced when both parents are of the same mind, I'm forging ahead with my plan. I have asked WG to trust me and he has, sort of, agreed. He didn't actually come right out and say he agreed, but he didn't say he didn't trust me so I'm taking that as a yes. I'm also thinking I might ask him to refrain from asking "What did you do today?" It's way too much pressure.



2. I decided to join an Independent Study Program (ISP) with leanings toward unschooling. At first, I thought I wouldn't join because it costs a couple hundred dollars a year and I'm quite capable of doing my own paperwork and taking care of the legalities of homeschooling, which are the main sevices they provide. Now that I'm unschooling, though, I really think I'll need their other service--helpful advice. The couple that runs this program unschooled their two children. Both of their kids went to college, are leading happy, presumably fullfilling, lives and neither of them was killed at sixteen as result of their parents decision to unschool. Phew!



3. My grandmother bought J his own laptop. This put my commitment to "deschooling" to the test at once. Naturally, all he wanted to do was play on his new computer. This was about as far as you can get from what usually goes on in our house. Let me put this into perspective for you. J spent the last five years at a Waldorf school. Waldorf schools advocate a strict ban on technology for all children. Our family never adhered too stricly to this idea (I hate being told what to do) but we did limit J's time in front of the computer and television to two hours on the weekends. He has never before been free to choose how much time he spent on the world wide web or gaping at the "idiot box." For the first week, since the computer was new and since I'd heard about "deschooling," I decided to give him the freedom to use it at will. I'll tell you how that went later when I get to our first week of "deschooling." For now, I'll just say he's no fool. J took full advantage of my change of heart. He was one happy boy.

What Happened Next

Once I'd made the decision to unschool a few things happened:

1. I started scouring the internet for information on unschooling and discovered the notion of "deschooling." From what I can tell, this is a period of extended summer vacation when your child does whatever his heart desires, and ends up having rediscovered his innate desire to learn. This process is said to take up to one month for every year your child has been in school--that would be five months for mine. Yikes!



2. I started losing sleep. From about 3:00-5:00 a.m. I lay awake, bombarded by images of the horrible consequences my decision would bring upon my son. Many of these images included him confined to a remedial math class somewhere in the depths of the Los Angeles Unified School District. There was another one where he was in his mid-thirties, working at a menial job that required coveralls and Lava soap. The worst one, though, had my son getting killed at the age of 16. I can't remember how he died but it was definitely because I had decided to unschool him. After a couple nights of laying in bed with these wildly irrational thoughts, I got out of bed instead and started reading unschooling blogs on the internet, which is where I discovered the "Unschooling Basics" Yahoo! Group.



3. I joined the "Unschooling Basics" Yahoo! Group and learned that unschooling is not just a method of educating, it's a parenting style. As far as I can tell it advocates giving children a huge amount of freedom to make their own choices about how they spend their time. This includes letting them watch as much television as they like, and not requiring them to contribute to household chores. Since I'm not really keen on either of these ideas, though I might Possibly (with a capital P) give them a try, I'm guessing that our own form of unschooling will be uniquely suited to our family. I have no idea what it will look like, but with a good dose of trial and error we'll figure it out.



4. I told my husband about my plan to unschool J and he said (though he later denied it) "Well, I just don't want him having fun all the time."

Coming Soon...
I'll elaborate on my husband's crabby comment, give you numbers five and six of "What Happened Next," then delve into our first week of deschooling.