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.

Taught to Learn

Krystal here. The other night my husband Aaron was telling me about an interesting conversation he'd had with his brother. I invited him to share his thoughts. Here's Aaron:

Early in the morning on New Year's Day, I was taking Kelly, my twin brother, home after he'd celebrated New Year's Eve with us, and we got into a conversation. As we drove, Kelly started telling me about a conversation he'd had with a Mongolian friend. To give a little more background to the conversation, Kelly spent two years abroad in Mongolia where he learned to speak the language. His friend had asked him if he thought he could be of some particular profession (Kelly couldn't recall which), and after thinking for a second, Kelly replied that he could. Thinking that his friend was just curious, Kelly responded with the same answer when the question was repeated with a few different professions. Finally, his friend said, a little exasperated, "You just think you can be anything." To which Kelly replied, a little surprised, that he probably could.

After relating the story to me, Kelly said, "I was thinking, isn't it amazing that our parents have prepared us to become whatever we want to be." Kelly and I are both university students, and Kelly recently put dozens of hours of work into a project for a construction managment competition team. He added, as we were driving, that he was currently in a position to become a construction manager, contractor, architect, industrial designer, graphic designer, or a number of other things. I'm in a similar position, having just finished a Bachelor's degree and currently pursuing a Master's degree in electrical engineering.

It was easy for me to see the same conclusion. With some minor exceptions, I have been given the confidence and education to pursue whatever I choose, and to be succesful at it. I believe I owe that foundation to the many many hours of work my mom put into being our primary educator up through 8th grade, and her continued interest in our educational and professional pursuits.

I think the most important idea is that we were taught to learn; we were shown the value of learning, and now there is no limit to our potential. Krystal and I have the goal to pass this type of educational foundation on to our kids.

Problem Solving

Today a friend, who has kids about the same age as mine, gave me something new to think about. She was telling me how her oldest son (two and a half) is afraid of the dark. When he walks into his room and it's dark and he starts crying, instead of just flipping the light on for him, she goes and stands by him in the dark and calmly asks him what he needs to make it not dark. He thinks, and then says, "Light!" and she says, "Good, now what do you need to be able to turn your light on?" Again he thinks for a minute, and then says excitedly, "Stool!" And runs to get his stool and turns on the light. I assume that eventually he'll be able to think for himself to get his stool to turn on the light, without her guiding him every step.

It had never consciously occurred to me to create or allow opportunities for simple problem solving before. But it makes sense. In some of my readings recently, I've come across a few ideas from Lev Vygotsky, a Russian psychological theorist, who said that the highest levels of learning occur when students are in what he calls the "Zone of Proximal Development" The ZPD is defined as "the zone above the most difficult task the person can do alone and below the most difficult task they can do with help". I'll try to clarify a little using the example of my friend. A two and a half year old is not able to comprehend on his own that when he walks into a dark room and gets scared that he needs to go find a stool and turn the light on. But with the help of his mom walking him through it, he is able to think about going to get the stool and turning the light on. At that point he is in the ZPD, and according to Vygotsky, that is when he will learn the most.

I think what I like most about the idea of giving our children opportunities to practice problem solving is that it doesn't just solve the problem for the kids, but it gives them experience solving their own problems. Which, in turn, will give them confidence to solve bigger problems in the future. If the kids can make it to adulthood with good problem solving skills, they will be so much better off. Trust me, I manage an apartment complex, I deal with plenty of adults who have zero problem solving capabilities. It's sad.

So, I think my new goal is to keep my eyes open for those little opportunities where I can help Scientist to solve his own problems. Wish me luck!

Happy New Year!

I have been a total bum the last two weeks. At first that made me totally cranky and insane, I'm used to going, going, going. Then this week I finally settled into the idea, OK, actually I only settled for about 2 days, but that was enough time for my mind to clear enough for me to solve some small but nagging educational problems. First, I wanted the kids' computer downstairs where I can keep better tabs on it. One day I was walking through the house and tah-dah I realized how to rearrange to make it work. Second, I've had this perpetual problem of lose projects and half finished papers floating all over the place. (I think it's an unschooling curse) A few days ago I landed on a very simple organization idea. I got 2 folders for each child, one color for each kid. Then I put their name and "Work to be completed" on one set of folders and their name and "Saved work" on the other set. The folders go in two paper trays. Now all the stuff they're working on, book reports, stories, art projects, math activities, history coloring pages, etc, etc can find it's way into one of the folders. Not only will it help with the stacks of random papers, but now when they're dinking around wondering what to do with themselves they can check their Work in progress folder for ideas. It's amazing to me how our minds work out problems when we're "taking a break" and not thinking about them. I'm pretty sure the same holds true for our kids. Sometimes just giving them a break frees their minds from the clutter so new ideas can emerge.

"Talking" to our Kids

My husband recently came across an article that discussed a study which found that children don't only learn science in the classroom. They also learn from experiencing places like the zoo and from (hold onto your hats) talking with their parents. We had a good laugh over the irony in that statement but it did make me think about what my children are learning from "talking" to us. We don't use curriculum for literature, social studies, or science. We read a lot, and we discuss all kinds of topics with our children. We talk about the books they've read and about what we've read. We discuss politics, far-off places and religion. The newest issue of Popular Science is always a favorite subject (my boys love Popular Science but I highly recommend tearing out the ad section or your children may get more of an education then you want).

Dinner time is often a place for spontaneous discussions. Last night Thinker started us out with a random, "If water is just hydrogen and oxygen, can you split it and get oxygen?" That question lead to a discussion on hydrogen-assisted vehicles and then onto scuba rebreathers. That is a chemistry lesson no one is likely to forget! In my opinion this is the very best way to learn. I am amazed by the things my children know that we've never "studied". The thing is, until recently I never considered these discussions to part of my children's "education". I guess sometimes it's good to take a step back and look at the all the things you're teaching your children without even meaning to.

Learner's Block?

Is there such a thing as learner's block? If there is, I feel like my family has a very bad case of it right now. Maybe it’s the cold weather/snow we’ve had recently that’s kept us cooped up in the house (we live in a 900 sq ft apartment, being in the house for consecutive days is enough to drive anyone crazy). Maybe it’s that Sponge has been sick. Maybe it’s that Aaron has been spending a lot of time doing school work to gear up for finals. Maybe it’s because we’ve been swamped with apartment complex business. Or maybe it’s some combination of all of the above. I don’t know. But we’re stuck.

Scientist and Sponge are still really young, so we don’t have a “curriculum” that we follow with them. But we do try to include learning into our everyday routine. Reading stories together tops our list of most popular educational activities; at least until recently. And maybe this is what’s frustrating me the most, and why I feel like we aren’t getting anywhere. Scientist has decided to assert his two year old independence and now insists that HE be the one to read when we do stories. He wants to read, fantastic! Only one problem…he can’t. Which results in the three of us sitting somewhere, with Scientist holding the book turning random pages in any order, and me trying frantically to remember the story, even though I can’t see the page to read it, and all of us getting frustrated, bored, or both within minutes and story time coming to an abrupt halt. We’re having similar experiences with coloring, play dough, and singing songs.

My more optimistic self tells me that this is just a cycle. That at some point things will pick up again, or something new will come along. While I “wait it out”, I’m keeping my eyes open for new activities, or a twist on some of our old activities. Something. Any ideas?

Interest Lead Education

I've discovered one really big problem with interest lead education-we have too many interests! I find myself constantly sidetracked from current studies by new ideas. I am a creative, scattered person by nature so it is all to easy for me to want to drop everything to learn something new. It seems like everywhere I look I see someone with a wonderful new book to read, a fabulous new topic to study or a great new project idea.

When you strive to teach your children based on their interests you are always looking for some indication that they might want to study something new. I find myself trying to turn every non-fiction book they glance at into a new topic of study. Then I'm perpetually frustrated that we never seem to finish anything, so I'm getting a jump start on the new year and I'm setting three goals to keep our learning on track.

1. We will start each month with a plan for what subjects we want to learn about, we will list key books, projects and field trips that we want to do and I will review the list often to make sure we are on track.

2. When I come across a fabulous new idea during the course of the month I will put it on a list for possible future study. I find writing things down helps to eliminate the constant swirl of ideas in my head!

3. I will not feel guilty about not turning every momentary interest into a unit study.

Reading back through my goals it sounds much more structured then I'm sure it will be but at least it's a place to start! Wish me luck!