I am excited to be able to bring you another unschooling interview. Molly Dunham is one of my favorite bloggers and such a sweet gal. Her blog A Foothill Home Companion chronicles the life of she and her children, her sewing, her gardening and their spunky chickens. Molly also shares some killer recipes in her sidebar if you are interested. I identify with Molly's journey to find the right educational process for her children in many ways, and have learned a great deal from her.
Please meet Molly:
Eren: Hi Molly! Thanks for letting us into your world. Let's start off with this question, How does your family define unschooling?
Molly:For myself and my family, I would define unschooling as living the way I think and feel we should be living. Unschooling erases the line between living and learning so that we are free to learn all the time. Years and years of traditional schooling led me to believe that learning took place in a classroom, between the hours of 8 AM and 3 PM, from September until June. As a child, then as a young adult, then as a mother of school aged children, I couldn't wait until 3 PM, the weekend, summer vacation, when "learning" ceased and "living" began.
Unschooling opened my mind to the concept that learning and living could, and should, occur simultaneously, at any time of day or night or time of year, and in any location.
Learning has become as natural, enjoyable and important as eating, sleeping, and breathing.
I don't believe that I discovered the joy of learning until I was in college and was able to choose the topics I wanted to study. Unschooling allows my children the freedom to study what they want, when they want and how they want. If they want to do a science experiment, the kitchen becomes their laboratory. If they want to learn about a particular animal, we go to the library and start our research. When they're playing with blocks or Legos, or sitting and drawing, they are being exposed to new literature, either listening as I read a book aloud or listening to an audio book.
As my daughter said the other day, "I'm learning all the time." That is unschooling.
Eren: Do you consider yourself a strict unschooling family, or do you use a mixed approach?
Molly: We are not a strict or radical unschooling family. Our style of learning (much like our taste in books, music, food, friends, design) is rather eclectic. I'm constantly learning about different methods of homeschooling and educational theory, and incorporating these ideas into our life to see whether or not they work.
We have small wooden boxes filled with colored sand, inspired by a Montessori video I watched years ago. The kids and I use the boxes to practice our penmanship. Inspired by Lori of Camp Creek Press, practitioner of the Reggio Emilia approach, I bought each of us a drawing journal. Periodically we sit down together to sketch items found around the house or in nature in order to practice our drawing skills.
There are several math and grammar workbooks floating around the house that my children enjoy using on occasion. They have free reign to choose their own books at the library, but I often bring home books I think they might like. I leave the books in a location likely to be discovered, or present them to the kids when they're looking for something to do. My daughter probably wouldn't have picked out the book, Math for Every Kid by Janice Van Cleave, but I brought it home and we've enjoyed doing many of the projects from the book.
While we follow our children's lead when it comes to their education, we also provide direction and guidance. There are certain skills we want our children to develop that we believe require regular practice, such as reading, writing, spelling, math facts and household work. Our children don't jump out of bed begging to practice these skills each day.
I rarely force my children to do these things (I say rarely because I have panicked a few times that these skills won't be developed if not insisted upon - not my finest homeschooling moments by any means). My husband and I look for ways to incorporate these skills into our daily lives.
We ask our daughter to read aloud to us - mail, emails, news reports, directions, recipes, joke books.
We play spelling games - Boggle, Scrabble, Bananagrams.
We encourage our children to write notes to family and friends.
We double and halve recipes, figure out sale prices, let the children count out change to buy small items at the store.
Once you start looking, learning opportunities begin presenting themselves everywhere.
Eren: What is the most difficult thing about using this approach to learning?
Molly:I'd say the most difficult thing about unschooling (other than not having nearly enough time in our day or lifetime to learn everything I want us to learn) is confidence. Confidence that unschooling is the best way to educate our children. Confidence that my children will learn what they need to know to make it on their own one day and be able to live the life they want to live.
It was my lack of confidence in my ability to teach my son to read that led us to the decision to keep him in kindergarten at public school this year. (I believe, however, that it was unschooling that led us to enroll him in public school in the first place - he begged and begged to go to school and we followed his lead. Read more here. Now that he is reading, I'm feeling quite confident about continuing on our unschooling journey. Kindergarten was but a scenic detour.
Unschooling isn't the only part of life where I sometimes lack confidence, but what I'm learning, and hope my children will learn too, is that confidence is a choice. I'm beginning to believe that all behaviors are a choice. So I'm choosing confidence. I'm modeling confidence for my children. I believe that if my children can read and choose to be confident, they can accomplish anything.
Eren: What is the best thing about applying this approach as you educate your children?
Molly: The best thing about choosing the unschooling approach to educate my children is really getting to know them. I'm able to observe how they learn, what they choose to study, discover what they like and don't like, acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses. I get to be there for their light-bulb moments. I'm able to help them when they need help.
I once heard a kindergarten teacher say that we should celebrate where our children are. Unschooling allows us to celebrate where our children are. I know how much they are learning, how fast they are growing, how far they have come. We don't worry about red marks on papers, progress reports, behavior warnings, or test results. We don't compare our children's grades to their classmate's grades.
We live. We learn. We celebrate.
Eren: What are your children “studying” currently?
Molly: My daughter is currently studying cookbooks. She has checked out almost every kid's cookbook from our library. It's a joy to see her laying in bed at night, reading a cookbook. She loves to bake. Just the other day she made a chocolate chip cake. Deciding it needed frosting, she counted out over $2 in change and begged me to take her to the grocery store (hello real world math!).
This has been a year of pet acquisition. We've gone from no pets at all to chickens, fish and a rabbit (not to mention the triops we flushed down the toilet and the polliwogs we returned to the canal). Each time we get a new pet, my daughter checks out every book in the library about that animal. She then reads each book and disseminates all the pertinent information to us.
A few weeks ago we got goldfish, followed by a stack of books on pet fish. On the way home from the library, my son was looking at a book on aquariums. To my surprise, he turned to the index in the back of the book, found "goldfish", and turned to the appropriate pages. I really had no idea he knew how to use an index. I celebrated.
Eren: Anything else you want to share with us? Anything I have forgotten to ask? Lay it on us.
Molly:Since we started homeschooling, I've realized there are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschoolers. There are as many ways to unschool as there are unschoolers. You really can't compare methods or results because every persons experience is so unique. There is great value in sharing our experience with others. Through writing, reading and commenting on homeschooling blogs, we encourage one another and gather new ideas. By seeking out local homeschooling groups, we build friendships and support networks from which we can benefit, no matter what homeschooling method we choose.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, or so the old saying goes, and by seeing how others go about skinning, we can improve our own skinning method.
And one last thing - whether you choose public school, private school, school at home, unschooling, or a combination of all the above, choose to be confident about your decision and celebrate where you are.
Eren: Thank you Molly for sharing a bit of your life with us today. You are a gracious and inspiring mama. I am happy to count you as a sister in this journey of motherhood.