Following Our Dreams

Last month my 28 year old brother, Ryan, (that's him on the left) set sail on a 31 foot sailboat, bound for Australia. He and two friends were fulfilling a crazy dream concocted on the way home from another wild adventure in Costa Rica. His newest adventure made me ponder again on the purpose of life and about what an education really is. Unschooling is becoming a common term in the homeschool world and is gaining some degree of acceptance, but what about "unschooling" as an adult?

Ryan has traveled on five continents. He has done humanitarian work in Thailand and Uganda; ridden the railways of Europe; hiked the mountains of Peru and filmed a documentary in Panama. As he travels he devours stacks of books and meets people from all over the world. Quite honestly I vacillate between raging jealousy, wishing I too had the freedom to live such a life, and self-righteous indignation about the need for him to grow up and settle down. But this latest adventure capitalized on all my fears, not only for his future but for his safety. Neither he nor his companions are experienced sailors and their boat has been patched together and overhauled as cheaply as possible.

Our family expressed our fears but then we and his girlfriend rallied behind him and his dream. We listened to his plans, bought him gear and prayed for his safety. We had to trust in all the wisdom he's gained ever the years and try to believe that he would be ok. The week he started out we all watched his progress, via a satellite dot, with anxious hearts. Then 7 days into the journey we received word that he had decided to come home. Somewhere in the dark hours of the night he came to realize that not all dreams are fulfilled on wild journeys, sometimes our fondest dreams lie closer to the ones we love. In his returning home I feel a sense of triumph, victory in the idea that when we are brave enough to live our dreams and learn all we can along the road, we also gain the wisdom to make the hard choices, even if that means letting some dreams go.

The Parable of the Bat and the Racket

I consider myself to be pretty athletic. I am decent at most sports, although my favorite, by far, is softball. For thirteen years growing up I played competitive fast-pitch softball. That’s lots and lots of hours spent practicing to fine tune specific skills. When I was a freshman in college, a friend of mine tried to teach me how to play tennis. I was terrible! It turns out that swinging a tennis racket and swinging a softball bat are different enough motions that if you try to swing a racket the same as you swing a bat you will fail miserably. And I did. But I was so used to swinging a bat that I could not adjust, and I gave up on tennis.

Since making the decision to homeschool, I’ve realized that I’m up against a similar struggle. This time, however, I am bound and determined to make the adjustment. I am an alumnus of the public school system. Although I don’t feel like I had an awful experience in public school, I think that homeschool has more to offer. But trying to imagine myself homeschooling was like trying to play tennis. At first, when I thought about it, I pictured my kids sitting in little desks in our living room while I stood in front of them and lectured all day. Thankfully, after a little research, I discovered that homeschoolers swing the racket a little differently. The trick is to learn how, without letting my public school mind set get in the way.

Recently I attended a homeschooling conference. The instructor talked a little bit about paradigms. He defined a paradigm as, “A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them.” The phrase, “a way of viewing reality” really stands out to me as a reminder that there are many different realities depending on your perspective or your experience. Sometimes when I am trying to learn new things I dig myself a hole because I only try to do it one way—the way I know. By shifting my paradigm a little, I’m learning that an education doesn’t have to be the same 8:00-3:00, lectures, quizzes, and one-subject-at-a-time routine I grew up with.

When I first started researching about homeschooling, my favorite thing to do was to read about the creative ways people came up with to encourage their kids to learn. An experience that’s coming to mind is a woman whose son was interested in squid. She ran with it. They read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, they visited an aquarium, they ate squid at a restaurant, they dissected a squid, etc. Tons of learning going on there, and her son was all over it because he was interested. Stories like this fascinate me, because they are so foreign to the experiences I had in school. I want to learn how to create an environment like that for my kids. But in order to do that I have to teach my mind to put down the bat and pick up the racket, so to speak. And that’s going to take some effort.

And who knows, if this homeschooling thing works out, maybe I’ll give tennis another shot. :)