Unschooling – Page 4 – a hippie with a minivan

Qualified?

When I tell people that I am homeschooling one of the first questions is asking me if I am a “qualified teacher”… do I have my degree in education?.. am I qualified to teach my children as much as a child in the public system?…

First… this is a bit insulting…

I mean.. I do think that even though I don’t have a degree in education, I am smart enough to keep up with my children who are of pre-school/grade one age… and as they grow I think that I am smart enough to keep up with them…

Second… does having a degree in education automatically make you a qualified teacher?

but the Ironic point?

A few days ago in the news.. this was mentioned…

Unqualified teachers flood Quebec classrooms
Mon, 2008-10-06 05:38.
Catherine Sherriffs

The number of unqualified teachers in this province is on the rise.Last year, more than 2,300 teachers in Quebec classrooms did not hold a university teaching degree.
That’s an increase of more than 1000 per cent over five years.
School Board officials aren’t denying it, saying a massive shortage of teachers in this province is forcing schools to hire anybody they can get their hands on.

http://www.cjad.com/node/802900

I wonder if people even realize?

I think I am going to mention this fact the next time someone asks…

quote…

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within himself
-Galileo

questions, questions, questions…

The older the kids get the more questions come out… and the older the get the more patience they have to listen to the answer and the more understanding they have get the answer…

Today in the car Xavier asked about where power comes from then learned the meaning and differences of solar power, wind power, nuclear power and hydro power. When I “quizzed” him after to see if he was listening/understood… he had retained all of them…

Then at supper at the table Simon and I were talking about those stupid HFCS commercials… Simon said “4 sylables… prop-a-gan-da” then Xavier asked what a sylable was and we explained with a few examples and he understood right away…

It is just amazing how much kids can learn so quickly… especially when they are interested…

The cutest question today though was

“Mama… how do you know all of this?”

to which I answered… “well you learn something new everyday… so the older you get the more you know”…

so he answered… “wow… you must be really old”

Another meeting…

Yesterday I went to another homeschooling meeting…I was ready for it to be as usual but I wanted to go because it was being held at my good friends house and I wanted to see her and her new baby and the boys wanted to go play with her girls…

It turned out to be just a nice get together which was pretty nice… One of the girls is moving so it was kind of like a mini goodbye party and a little welcome party for the new baby… (who is so cute!!)

I still feel like the oddball there though… besides getting looked at and talked at like I was crazy because my kids went outside in socks without shoes and they might get dirty or wet *gasp* … I got the feeling that some of them pretty much think that we don’t do anything because we don’t sit and “do school”….

because we don’t have a little classroom set up… because we don’t have any curriculum that we follow… because we don’t have a set amount of time for each subject and because I don’t even care that the boys might not be interested in some things yet or that there are things that they might not learn at the expected age…

When we talked at one point about baking bread I also got a comment about how much free time I have because we don’t do anything because I am not “teaching”…

It is really hard for a traditional homeschooler to understand unschooling I guess…

There is a lot of ground between doing school at home and forcing kids to learn on schedule and doing anything at all and ignoring a child’s education.

I spend a lot of my day answering questions, finding information about things I don’t know the answers to myself… there is so much to learn without being forced…and as an aide to my children’s learning I need to have and find the answers until they are ready to be able to find the information on their own…

Not sitting down and doing school curriculum doesn’t mean that we never do anything and learn.Not having to prepare for the next lesson doesn’t mean that I never research and prepare my answers… it might not be as formal but it is a lot of work and time because the questions range so much…

The good things that came out of yesterday though was that I got to spend time with my friend before everyone got there and then for a few hours after they left… I got to cuddle a new little baby… I got to talk with some really nice people though we might not see eye to eye on some/many things… The kids got to play with some friends and outside on their great property..

and another cool thing is that the same person that assumed that we don’t do anything did mention something that she is going to be starting soon with her kids that was overheard by Xavier and peaked his interest…

so we have a little project in midst…

quote….

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less “showily”. Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself… Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.

– Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller’s mentor and friend