Learning in the Absence of Education
Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine
Index
Homeschool
Australia
A Day in the Life of a Child 'Damaged' by the Modern World
(continued)
They are watching a parent working, and working hard. But I am not 'teaching' them, nor am I doing anything with them that remotely resembles an educational activity. I am busy being me. Doing what I love.
So what does my 'do nothing' educational approach teach the children? What gems of information are they storing away? What new skills do they conquer each day? I don't know. I don't have time to stop and intimately record and analyse their lives. We are too busy living.
So what do the children do all day? How do I know they are learning, and learning successfully? I do know that they tend to excel at whatever they choose to do. Like making bows and arrows one week, building the most incredibly detailed Lego castles the next, playing complex computer games that I couldn't even begin to get my head around. Like helping out with the chores; feeding their pets, all sixty five of them; helping with the never ending list of building jobs from a home still under construction; landscaping and plant propagation on a massive scale; tree planting and gardening. And more recently
entering into the Model Solar Car Challenge... The motivation is often intrinsic to the task, or personally meaningful. The children call the shots. They determine what and when they are going to do most things in their lives. They have control and responsibility for everything they are learning, everyday.
Sounds daunting and a little scary, and it took me years to have faith and trust in my children's ability to learn without constant guidance or supervision. The day I truly let go of the need to interfere in their learning processes was the day they showed me true cooperation, excellence and enthusiasm for whatever task we undertook together. Such a reward was well worth taking the plunge in handing the responsibility back to them. On a day to day level life just flows - I have my work, Robin has his, and the children do whatever is on their agendas. Often it is playing, talking, and more playing. Most of the
time it looks like they are 'doing nothing' - nothing that resembles learning. But you have to dig deep to see the learning quietly taking place. Seldom do I hear the children complain of boredom. Thomas has been known to use that word, but I know it means he is waiting, waiting to buy a new Lego set, waiting to be with his friend, just waiting. I know he needs to sit and wait the waiting out. And he does.
What amazes me is how much general knowledge the children pick up from this 'doing nothing' lifestyle, where there is so little external stimulation or direction by us it is sometimes frightening. They have very little social interaction with same aged peers, or any aged peers for that matter. I have come to believe that this need to be continually with other children, commonly known as socialisation, is all hyped up, just like that thing about children 'needing to be exposed to anything and everything' so they can achieve their 'full potential'.
There is a difference between my children and the television addicted children of the suburbs. Those poor young people are abandoned, alone in the world, in the silent passive world of computer or television. I am here, working at home, being busy, within sight and hearing. A role model. Robin is active around the home, and the children are invited at times to work with him at his place of employment. We go out together and do landscaping jobs, working hard. As a family.
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Excerpt from Learning in the Absence of Home Education: Essays on Homeschooling
© Beverley Paine, 1999
