Unschooling

Three of us docents were walking toward LBMA for our stint of touring 5th graders. One of our favorite subjects is the great things the kids say. MJ says, "one little boy said, 'I thought this was going to be boring. But it's fun.' " She smiles and says, "make my day!" I say, "when learning is fun, it's the best. School should be fun, but it's creepy." The 2 other docents laugh. C. says, "I liked school." I could see where she would. She loves structure and rules and order. MJ thinks school should be fun then brings up "Unschooling." Now I had heard about Unschooling several years ago, and thought, RIGHT ON! If only my parents had taken the initiative to take interest in my interests, to direct me to a passion in life, and love and support my passions, to educate me at home with life!
That's what Unschooling represents to me.
I stand strong with my assessment that school is creepy. Not that I didn't have special teachers, teachers that taught life as a fascination and experience of beauty and thought. But mostly it was about learning in a group and learning what was deemed by law to be important. And that was before No Child Left Behind.
So in my mind, there's a kid who loves gymnastics, for example. Think of all the ways a kid could learn and think and write about the world because of gymnastics. First, the way the body works - physiology and anatomy. The angles and distances and physics of movement: Wow, that's math and science. Working as a team: that's sociology. What teams have been to the Olympics and won gold medals: That's history and geography.
Right there in the heat and love of a passion is EDUCATION!
Level of interest is the pinnacle of getting anyone to learn. Of course I never heard that phrase until I asked my supervisor and overseer for the Special Ed kid to whom I was an aide,"Why couldn't she remember one thing I said about writing a sentence or adding 2 plus 2, but when I brought a Yahtzee game to school with only one score sheet, she remembered the entire format of the score sheet the next day when I only had a blank piece of paper?" "Level of interest," she says, wisely. Voila!
That is why I love Unschooling. Think of passion as the magnet that attracts to it tirelessness, love, desire and accomplishment. It all comes from that fertile ground inside a beautiful brain wanting to know more about life. Regular school just can't compete with that.