A Random Idea

I keep having this idea that I want to teach subjects together, or overlapping with each other. I loved philosophy and psychology so much that I didn't see any difference between the two. Every psychology class I took was steeped with philosophy for me, and visa versa. So when I teach my children in late middle or high school, I will make sure to teach certain subjects together rather than separately. The subjects I have in mind are, of course, Psychology and Philosophy, but additionally English (both reading and writing) can be taught with those two. Cooking and Art can coincide with Math and Geometry. Reading can coincide with History as well.

I am picturing still introducing these subjects as separate in their own ways, but I am just saying that I won't leave it at that. Too often the student is on his or her own to draw connections between their fields or classes. I just want to be sure to demonstrate how these subjects are only separated for teaching purposes, but that really they are all connected.

I believe it will certainly be much easier to understand the different subjects because they will be talked about more fully and in depth this way. It seems to be helping my mother and sister when they read English novels from the time period in History that they are studying.

I haven't listed all the ways in which I will be combining subjects, and I know I haven't even fully explained my thoughts about it. But I just wanted to write down my idea, so that I can come back to it later.

Difficult Getting Started

It has taken me so long to get this site going, because I began with a post that turned into a paper that turned into an idea for a book. But books take time to write, so if I have to write a book before I can post, then I will never be able to post anything! I realize this now and I have made a new plan. I will begin posting little thoughts about the unschooling ideas I have been having.

First, let me tell you where I stand. I got curious about the term unschooling, so I began looking into it. After reading a lot about it, I have discovered many things I agree with, and many things I disagree with. Since I am not going to wait until I write all my thoughts out clearly to begin posting my thoughts about unschooling, I will just randomly begin posting various thoughts on the subject. I gladly welcome comments, questions or disagreements since this topic is one that I am working through, not one that I clearly understand.

Teaching Abstractly Vs. In A Direct Context

Unschoolers seem to make the case that in school, subjects are taught abstractly and with little interest or meaning to the children, hence the reason children aren’t learning much in schools. They disagree with a sentence that most teachers say, “I am preparing you for the real world.” They believe that the child will learn all the subjects that they need to know while engaging in real life situations, and that it does no good to teach them abstractly. Here is a quote: “These subjects were not created in schools, but in the real world (otherwise, why would we need them?).” However, unschoolers have the idea that all learning should take place in a direct context. This means that you shouldn’t learn about calculus just out of a text book during high school, but you should learn it when you are interested in a project that requires calculus. The idea is that you will learn these things better when you have an interest and a purpose for them, not just to do it for no other reason than that someone said it was important. They also make the case that if a project never comes up for your child to learn calculus, then they wouldn’t have learned it in school anyways and that they don’t need it. I have many thoughts on this, and will try to write them all.

First, I am interested in reading and writing. And even though I am interested and write often, I still find it difficult to improve my grammar skills. I am aware that I am not good at grammar. I also know that I don’t like studying it. So even though I have a deep interest in writing, and that I try to write better, my interest isn’t enough to get me to learn better grammar. I know that I would really benefit from two things, both of which I don’t make myself do: one taking a class on grammar and two reading a lot of books that demonstrate good grammar.

Joel gave a good analogy. He said it is like unschoolers are saying that the children should just play a sport that they love. So if the child loves basketball, then he should just play it. And in playing it he will learn all that he will need to play. Also in the playing of it, with practice of actually playing then he will get better at the game. The thing is, that when you do break your workouts down, to working on jumping, to doing endurance training, to lifting weights, to lowering your body fat, if you do all those things, which are not themselves "playing" basketball, then you will improve your basketball skills much more efficiently than just playing basketball and never training. This analogy makes it more clear that it is very useful to break something down into the little parts, to really learn each piece, and then to later bring it back to the whole.

An unschooler might say that they agree with the idea of learning things individually, but only with a “whole” in mind. They believe that this is what they are doing. When a child is interested in C++ then he will take the time to learn the math skills somewhat separately, but always with the goal in mind. And that the goal is what motivates the child and allows him to work so well.

There is a problem with the idea of only working hard at learning something you are interested in though. Having a core subject area of knowledge is good just to have an idea of how things work, to be introduced to the various fields and to have more possibilities opened to you. It isn’t a good plan to only learn about what is interesting to you since, in many cases, you don’t know what is interesting until you get into the subject. On the outset, I am uninterested in a lot of things, but when I really get into them, even if by force, I sometimes end up enjoying them. Every subject holds very interesting and life changing views of the world.

I do believe that it closes possibilities because once you are in college, you are expected to have a certain level of skills and you can’t take time out to just now begin learning something most people took many classes on while in middle and high school. Even if a person didn’t learn the subject perfectly when he was younger, he was still introduced to it, which makes it a lot easier to do again later. I am not sure what unschoolers are against in terms of learning the various subjects, because it is all basic. Only the last 2 years of high school could even remotely seem to me to be something that not every one might need. But every other subject seemed to be something that I use today: typing, math and algebra, geometry, English, basic history, basic understanding of science (anatomy, biology), and so on. These are not subjects that one should pick and choose, but each subject provides useful every day information and knowledge that one should have. It is clear, when a person lacks in one of those basic subject areas, that he is missing something important. Many musicians and athletes would love to do little reading, writing, math and history while being unschooled, and it won’t be good for them.

I am also skeptical of the idea that children will learn all they need to know, on their own, by being interested in something. When an unschooling parent sees what their child is interested in, they do not help make sure they learn all the things that go into it, such as teaching fractions when a child is interested in cooking. That would not be allowed since the child is the one who is teaching himself and the parent should not be teaching. So if the child is happy learning where the ¾ line is because that is how much milk is needed, but he is not happy with learning how to add and multiply fractions, or to learn how to convert them to decimals, then the parent should allow this. And this is exactly what I predict will happen. It is what happens with me. I love cooking, knitting, painting, taking pictures, reading and writing, for example. But I am not even close to always interested in looking up all the words I don’t know, in using math to do my knitting, in learning about complementary colors and other artistic knowledge, or in learning all the details of photography. I have, however, been in a class where I was to look up all the words I didn’t know in a book, which I did, and I learned a lot of new words from that class. I also have a good idea of how to make graphs and mathematical equations so that if I wanted to plan out knitting a blanket or a sweater to an exact number, then I could. And I took a few art classes with my artistic sister which improved my painting skills greatly. My point is that classes are good, teachers are good, and that children will not on their own learn all the details of what goes into a subject they are interested in. Additionally, when I come across something that requires the knowledge of calculus, I don’t want to learn calculus, so I will just give up on that interest. That is not because I don’t like learning, but it is because not everyone will be interested in learning about something they don’t know.

In conclusion to this post, I disagree with the ideas that it is better to learn a subject only by the direction of a child, with no unwanted teaching influences, in a direct context, not abstractly, and that if a child isn’t interested in the subject, then it is ok. I think the concept of an interest is not a static thing, but can change and it is not a thing that is solely up to the child, but rather being influenced by others is a normal and healthy human thing to do. Being forced to learn a subject is something that many people are thankful for after the fact, because otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to go into the field they loved. I do agree that children will learn something about fractions with cooking, but not as much as they would if they learned it a little more formally, or with more formal instruction mixed in. This means I do not believe that children will automatically have the desire, interest or ability to learn more deeply the subjects that are involved with an activity of interest.

Upcoming Post

I am currently working on a post about Unschooling. Hope to be done in a day or two!

My Purpose

This is my homeschool blog. For now, since I don’t have kids yet, this is just where I can write my thoughts about homeschool, my preparations, and any ideas I have. I got the idea for the title from my house, because my dad would pray that Mom be filled with the spirit of teaching and that Tori be filled with the spirit of learning. I loved that! For now, I have general ideas about how I think I want to homeschool, but they are vague. This blog should help me clarify things and have a better idea of the direction I want to take.