Bad Parent: Unschooling
Why my kid won't attend school this fall - or maybe ever.
by Joanne Rendell
September 18, 2008
On the homeschool spectrum we're probably nearer to the unschool end — at least, for the time being. We have no lesson plans drawn up for the coming year. We've ordered no curriculums. The way we helped Benny learn to read was very ad hoc and unstructured. (He liked road signs a lot, so we started with the words "Bump," "Stop," "Yield Ahead" and went from there.)
Neither of us has ever read a word of John Holt — the grand master of the unschooling world who, apparently, wrote both about the failure of schools and the importance of teaching kids how to learn instead of what to learn. Nor do we believe that unschooling is necessarily the only and best way for every child to be educated.
Moreover, to call ourselves unschoolers seems so definitive and final and I'm not sure whether in two, or five, or ten years' time, an unschooling, laissez-faire approach to Benny's education will work for our family.
That's when I came up with my new term.
"He's going to un-kindergarten this year, that's for sure," I joked with our friends last night, before ordering us all another beer and Benny another cranberry juice.
On our first un-kindergarten day, Benny got up at noon, a little later than his usual eleven a.m. start. I worked on my latest novel while he slept, as I always do. Brad, who's a professor at NYU, headed out to teach his first class of the semester.
On our first un-kindergarten day, Benny got up at noon.
After he got up, Benny spent an hour playing a complicated game which involved five toy cars and couple of bungee cords. Then we headed over to Brooklyn on the subway, stopping in Chinatown on the way to pick up fresh fruit and rice snacks. Benny delighted in counting out four quarters to pay a stall owner for some bananas.
Now, in the warm afternoon sun, Benny is playing with two other kids in a strip of mud in a small backyard. His two friends are completely naked. Benny has on his underpants and a pair of socks. Almost every inch of childish skin, cotton, and hair is covered with wet, sticky dirt. The kids are completely absorbed in the task at hand: burying a bobbing-eyed baby doll in the dirt. At the moment, the doll's torso and legs are completely submerged. Her head is exposed, but one eyelid is held down by mud. An earthworm wriggles just a couple of inches away from the doll's shining plastic scalp.
The whole scene could be a performance art piece or perhaps an excerpt from a very twisted movie about child killers. Instead this is just an average day at the new little homeschool/unschool/DIY-preschool playgroup we attend each week.
While Benny and his co-conspirators work on their burial project, other kids in the yard are also busy. One is fiddling with the brake system on a tricycle. Another is feeding a carrot to a rather worried pet rabbit. Two little girls are dancing, fully clothed, in a sprinkler.
©2008 Joanne Rendell and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Joanne Rendell is the author of The Professors' Wives' Club (NAL/Penguin). She lives in New York City with her family. Visit her at www.joannerendell.com. |
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