This is the second post about the Adventures in Homeschooling, which we attended in August. I couldn’t fit all the pictures and videos in that first post. Here’s the link to Part 1.
Let’s start with some music and dancing. Then I will share with you some of my favorite moments from the lectures I attended.
Music and Dancing
One morning, a group of moms sat around playing ukeleles.
This is the kind of thing I love at the Adventures in Homeschooling Conference. Everywhere you go, there’s cool stuff going on.
One of my favorite experiences at the conference this year was the first night. They had a Monster Costume Party. All the kids got to dress up and go trick-or-treating (in August!) and after that we had a really fun dance party.
Kate dressed up as Draculaura from Monster High.
She was so excited, she wore the costume every day for the rest of the conference.
Some of My Favorite Quotes from Lectures I Attended
From John Bennett’s Lecture, The New Consciousness of Education
“They say there are 2 million homeschoolers in the US. This is what they said in 2006, and they say it hasn’t grown since then. How many of you have started homeschooling since 2006? As a math teacher, I demand a recount!”
“Education means to DRAW OUT. If you look at the origin of the word it means to draw out. It doesn’t mean to stuff with stuff. Bringing out what is already there. You’re not their teacher. You are the head of their school. Your job is not to stuff. Your job is to bring out.”
“When you follow your bliss, doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn’t be a door for anyone else.” — Joseph Campbell
John Bennett also gave his lecture, Why Math Instruction Is Unnecessary. You can listen to part of it here:
From the Lecture, What to Do Your First Year Homeschooling
“My son said, ‘I love homeschooling! Life is my classroom; every day is a field trip; and all my work is homework.’”
“Let go of your expectations of what they have to learn. If they’re not into music, let them do what they are interested in.”
“WAIT before you buy curriculum! You can always get it later. It’s OK to wait and do nothing for a while.”
From Steve Bertucci of Greatbooksacademy.org — Does How Matter in Education
“If you want to teach a 5-yr old about frogs you could get a text book with pictures of frogs and have them memorize a thousand facts about frogs, but if he’s never been down to the creek and experienced playing with frogs does he even know what a frog is? Better to send them to the creek.”
“In Charles Darwin’s autobiography, he said later in his life he considered himself damaged and he didn’t think he could ever get it back. B/c he recognized he spent so many years in data that he almost totally lost the ability to enjoy to music or poetry. So keep singing and dancing — it’s good for us.”
“The liberal arts. What’s the latin root of liberal? Freedom – liberty. Liberal arts lead to freedom. Freedom to do something? Or freedom from something? It’s about liberty. The man or woman who is educated, that person is much more likely to be free from ignorance, freedom from being taken advantage of liars and charlatans. You also have more freedom to do the right thing because you can recognize it.”
“Study of the 1000 top CEOs – more CEOs had a liberal arts background than any other. It’s a generalized education. When you become liberally educated, the world gets bigger. You can specialize later.”
“What does school mean? It has a Greek root. Schola means leisure. What do we do during our leisure time? Things we love to do. Be with friends and converse. Ideally school is a group of friends pursuing the things they love — the true, the good and the beautiful.”
From Sandra Dodd’s Radical Unschooling Lecture
(Paraphrase) “I heard a father in the restaurant. His son ate dinner and after dinner, asked for a candy bar. The father said, ‘I don’t think that is a wise choice.’ Then he gave him a lecture about why candy bars are bad for you. What the dad said was more harmful to the child than any candy bar in the world. Because the dad was telling the kid, ‘You’re stupid. You’re not wise. You want something that’s not good for you.”
“In my life I put learning first. I always ask, which thing will help them learn more?”
“Movies and board games are just as valuable as science and math and reading. They are all the same thing.”
“You don’t want to have to push them to the information or drag them to the information — you want to give them enough choices so that they want to learn.”
Question: “How do you transition kids from rules and chore lists if the kids are older?”
Answer: “Go gradually. Don’t enforce so much. If they say, ‘I’m tired,’ then say, ‘Go to bed.’ Don’t make a big announcement, ‘We’re now unschooling.’ Just start saying yes more. If kids can only drink one soda a day and have to go to bed at a specific time, they often grow up to have dreams of drinking lots of soda and staying up late — and don’t we want kids to have bigger, loftier dreams than that?”
“Don’t talk to your kids too much about unschooling. It’s like chess. They make one move, you make one move. If they ask, ‘Where do babies come from?’ You say, ‘From inside their moms.’ They might not ask another question for another year. Or they might ask 5 more questions.”
“Sneaking and lying is not inevitable in teens. It’s a direct reaction to so many rules.”
“Instead of childproofing the world, worldproof your child.”
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
We’ve recently started homeschooling…originally it was an online, very structured charter, now I just provide lots of materials and it is mostly child centered…my worry is that I have a job that is work from home but requires increasingly frequent and prolonged travel…how is my son supposed to learn his basic skills (2nd grader) when I’m out of town for ten day stints and have intensive preparation during the interim?
I’ve been homeschooling for about 12 years – wahoo! I liked John Bennett’s math talk that you put above, and would love to hear more about his recommendations for using puzzles and games. I searched around and couldn’t find anything – did he happen to give you a website or anything with more info?
Thanks!
I agree, I loved that math talk! Math was my most hated and stressful subject when I was in school, and I am stressing, as is my son doing just grade 5 math at home! I don’t want my kids to be stressed while learning, otherwise they won’t learn!
I love the idea of teaching just basic life skills math, and no more unless the child has an interest in it. When I think of all the wasted time and stress on all that ridiculous high school math, it makes me so mad! I don’t want my kids to go through that!
Ditto on the request for info on some good math games.
I loved this line, “Sneaking and lying is not inevitable in teens. It’s a direct reaction to so many rules.”
I hope we are finding a good middle ground on this. I do think some boundaries are good, but if things are too tight, I can see how that could make kids sneaky.
Kelly
I asked Kent to watch the math video because I thought it made so much sense, and he made some good points:
“Interesting. Not sure if I 100% agree. You can’t expect a 10 year old kid to decide that he’ll never work in a profession that requires advanced math. And if he doesn’t take it from that point forward, he’ll be in big trouble trying to catch up. The other thing is that until the whole world agrees with this, you could be seriously hurting your kid’s chances to get into college.”
I was unschooled my whole life. My parents never taught me math beyond basic arithmetic (not even fractions, just really basic operations). But I cooked and baked a lot, which required working with fractions, especially when changing recipe yields. I also played a lot of games that required math, and mathematical thinking (card games, chess, manchalla, set, monopoly, puzzle games, etc.).
When I was 14, I decided to take math classes at the local community college. I took the most basic remedial class available. It turned out that even though I didn’t know most of what was taught in that class prior to taking it, I was really good at it. So, I kept taking math classes. Eventually, I transferred to a four year college, and graduated with a BA in Pure Mathematics “on time” at 22.
In eight years I learned nearly all of the math that is taught in grade school (twelve years of schooling), plus the math necessary to get a bachelors in math (usually four years of college). I’m not a genius. I just had motivation, a lot of experience learning, and some good teachers and other resources.
It’s not important for your 10 year to know all the math that 10 year olds are “supposed to” know. If you’ve taught them to learn and fostered their fascination with the world, they’ll learn it when they want to or need to. And they’ll do fine.
Side note: I highly recommend encouraging teenagers to take community college classes. When/if they do decide to go to college they can transfer those credits, and it makes it so much easier to get in and prove that you have the skills required for entry.
I remember hearing a lecture on unschooling by Frank Schaeffer once. He never taught his kids much beyond basic arithmetic. Then, one day, his teenage daughter announced that she wanted to go to West Point. He informed her that she’d have to study math and advanced math to pass the entrance exams well enough to be admitted. So, she self-taught herself Algebra and Calculus over the next two years. She took the entrance exams, got in, and was in West Point getting good grades at the time of the lecture.
Also, remember that old movie Stand and Deliver? That’s based on a true story, and those kids went from only knowing basic arithmetic to passing Calculus Advanced Placement exams within a single school year and summer.
The point of these anecdotes? It’s actually NOT that hard to catch up — particularly if you’ve got the DESIRE and the ability to learn.
For those looking for a website with links to books, materials, etc. regarding this philosophy of math education, see:
http://www.livingmath.net/
So I understand this concept in theory, but what I’m unsure about is how this would actually look to live it out here in our home. We have Teaching Textbooks now (which is going well), but for those times that they don’t feel like doing it, if we were unschooling would I just say, “OK” and just not care how much we get through in a year? And then just assume (hope!) that eventually they’d have more of an interest and then easily catch up to whatever they didn’t get to yet?
Kelly
Kelly,
My son goes hot and cold on math so I do allow him breaks but we fill in the cracks with other analytical work. If the break seems overly long, I put him back up on the horse. This is obviously not “unschooling,” just a flexible model that ensures that he still learns math and meets his other needs.
Amanda
Basically, yes. If you were truly unschooling them in Math, then you would teach basic arithmetic (easy to do with games, handling money, etc.) and maybe fractions (easy to do with cooking, some fun science experiments, and music theory). Then you’d leave it alone.
Eventually, they’ll probably want to learn something that requires more math. Computer programming. Chemistry (particularly Organic Chemistry) often requires algebra. Basic physics requires trig; advanced physics requires Calculus. If your kid loves Logic, then Geometry and all its theorems are a fun way to tackle the subject. Even handy skills like auto mechanics, woodworking, etc. all require math, sometimes really advanced math if they want to be more inventive.
And even if they’ve chosen to completely avoid the sciences, handicrafts, math, music, or anything else where they might have learned more math, you can always pull a Frank Schaeffer and tell them that if they want any sort of profession that requires attending college, they’ll need more advanced math.
It seems weird not treating it as its own subject and pushing it hard, but it’s really not necessary. Basic math is required to be a functioning member of society, and more complex math can be learned alongside other goals.
Kelly- I started homeschooling very classically which made learning miserable for my children and I. We’ve since moved on to a very Charlotte Mason type approach and we LOVE it! It’s a nice middle ground between Classical and traditional education and unschooling. I’m not sure unschooling would work in my state- my kids need to have their work evaluated every year by a licensed teacher.
I found the website http://www.charlottemasonhelp.com very helpful and informative.
Hi Kim,
When I looked before at the CM site it sort of confused me. It seems like it was just a list of books to read to your kids and I couldn’t nail down the ‘gist’ of how that whole style of teaching looks in a day-to-day setting. (I was probably trying to hurry, though, so it’s likely that I didn’t give it a very good look.)
Can you tell me what’s your normal day like?
Kristen and anyone else here, I’d love to know what your normal days are like, too. ACTUALLY, I think I’ll do a post about this soon and ask others how their days look. But I’d love to hear yours for now.
Thanks!
Kelly
I decided to run with the inspiration while it was there, and put a post up asking the question about a typical day at your house.
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/whats-a-normal-homeschooling-day-look-like-at-your-house
That math advice is just strange. Math, and the analytical skills that come with it, is paired with language arts as core curriculum for a reason.