Tag Archives: unschooling

Rejigging my routine

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I’ve been really rubbish at taking my own advice this week.

The first draft of my next novel is still oh-so-nearly ready to go, but I have not yet taken the plunge. I have managed to set up a new project in Scrivener – the word count target is there, and the slightly cursory deadline of the end of April. Essentially those are both contrived by how much I know I should be able to write in a day: 1500 words. And if I could do that – if every day I could sit down and just write – then in three months time I would have a novel.

Except to do that I actually need to carve out some time in my day for writing.

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People are always really impressed when I tell them I wrote two novels before my son was eighteen months old. But do you know what? That was easy. Sure I was sleep deprived, but he napped twice a day! And other than keeping this blog ticking over during novel number two I didn’t really have all that much else to do.

It’s different now.

I sat down yesterday afternoon to write. I told myself I had to make a start – it didn’t matter if it was rubbish, I just needed to get some words on the page. But they just wouldn’t come! I had the setting and the characters, I knew vaguely what was supposed to be going on in the scene – but there was just so much going on in my head that I just couldn’t focus. More than that, I just couldn’t hear what it was my characters wanted to say.

My mind kept shifting to my to do list, fretting about the press release I have to write for the Town Council, the GCSE specification I need to appraise for Ofqual, the increasing numbers of unread emails in my inbox. And in the midst of all that, my characters stayed silent.

If there is going to be a novel number three, I need to accept that things are going to have to be different this time round.

I’m really lucky that Arthur still has one nap a day – though the fact he’s finally shifted from the sling to the sofa makes it more tempting to use the time for things less static than writing! And even when I am at the computer there are so many other things I need to be getting on with. My life has taken on a new and interesting shape over the past year or so. Vague ideas I had when I first went on maternity leave – like getting more involved in my community and taking on some education consultancy work – have come to fruition. Alongside that my increasing interest in Unschooling, and general reluctance to rush Arthur into formal education, means that he’s still with me most of the time.

So I’m going to need to find some more time, somewhere.

I’ve toyed with the idea of trying to write in the evenings. I might yet be able to do that, but if my brain is starting to sag by mid-afternoon I’m not sure how much creativity it’s going to be able to muster after dark. Besides I do need to fit in spending time with my husband at some point…

So I think, despite this testing my own perception of my abilities to the limit, I’m going to have to do my writing in the mornings.

I am saying this here mainly so you lot can hold me accountable. Ordinarily, I am pretty useless in the mornings. But I figure with Leigh getting up for work at 6am and Arthur tending to sleep till 7.30 there is chunk of time crying out to be used more effectively.

It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m beginning to think it might not be impossible. And to be honest, it’s either that or something else is going to have to give. And I haven’t worked out quite what that might be yet…

So pre-dawn writing sessions here we come. Wish me luck!

 

Writing Bubble

5/52

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“A portrait of my child, once a week, every week, in 2016.”

We’ve settled into a lovely afternoon routine these past few weeks. After lunch we’ve been going up to my study, lighting a fire and some candles, and sharing a story before Arthur settles down on the sofa for his afternoon nap whilst I get on with some work.

More often than not when he wakes up I’m still in the midst of things, so he’ll potter around – playing or drawing or watching something on his iPad.

He’d been watching ‘Under the Sea‘ moments before I took this pic, sat in front of the fire as he cross-referenced with his ‘First Big Book of the Ocean‘. Clearly his concentration wavered though, and I turned around to find him sitting on his little desk, looking simultaneously so grown up and so tiny.

He does that rather a lot these days.

Linking up with Jodi at Practising Simplicity for The 52 Project. 

On joy and freedom and making links

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The unschooling diaries: week three

This past week has been super busy, with precious little time for stopping to reflect. Before I miss the window completely, though, here are three little moments that have stuck in my mind.

First up, there was Arthur’s unbridled joy and wonder at discovering the book ‘Mog and the Baby’.

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He’s been listening to the story for the past few weeks: for his birthday we bought him an MP3 music player to feed his growing enjoyment of listening to stories. Almost every time he settled down to listen he would request ‘Mog and the Baby’. The way it works it would then scroll through the other Mog stories we’d saved for him, but he kept coming back to that one.

We’d intended these audiobooks to supplement our enjoyment of reading together rather than replace it, but I’d become increasingly aware that Leigh and I were reading to him less and less. So this week we’ve both made an effort to make physical books available whenever we can – not to force Arthur into engaging with them, but just to remind him that they exist. And he’s loved it.

More than anything, though, he loved discovering the book of the story he’s been listening to so often – seeing the pictures bring the characters to life, and sharing his favourite moments with me and his dad.

The second thing that sticks in my mind from this past week was a moment of learning for me more than Arthur.

I’d had a pang of doubt, fuelled as usual by comparing us to others, when I realised that Arthur had shown no interest at all in figurative drawing. He’d gone through the motions of copying lines and circles for his two year developmental check, but since then has not shown much interest in drawing beyond scribbles and swirls of paint – and we haven’t pushed it.

I’d found myself wondering whether we shouldn’t in fact be encouraging him to draw in a more structured way, accelerating his progress towards that fine motor control that will of course be so important for when he comes to write!

But then I checked myself. I read some more about unschooling, and the Montessori methods I find myself gravitating towards. And I remembered that of course there is no rush to begin to constrain his explorations into more easily recognisable forms. So instead I waited, and watched.

And then one day whilst I was preparing lunch I noticed Arthur rooting around by his easel, looking for something to paint with. Together we chose some colours, and I left him to it whilst I got on with making lunch. I glanced over from time to time, and freed from any concerns about whether he was drawing people or things that we could label, marvelled instead at the care he was taking about each seemingly abstract line and curve. I watched as he picked out his colours, stepped back from time to time to make decisions about where to go next, and waited until he had decided he was done before we sat down together for lunch.

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He was so proud of his painting, and so was I. And I’m definitely not in any rush to put any constraints on his creative freedom any time soon – I have a feeling he’ll be able to come up with way more interesting ideas all by himself.

And on the topic of interesting ideas comes moment number three. We were having a chat in the car on Friday, and Arthur started telling me about how astronauts carry their air on their backs so they can breathe (something we’ve talked about before). Then he told me that divers were just like astronauts. I asked him why, trying to work out the connection, and he explained that they have to carry their air on their backs too. He’s been becoming increasingly interested in both space travel and underwater exploration, fuelled by inspiration from all sorts of stories, but it was fascinating to see him drawing links between them and getting to the core of understanding some of the processes behind them.

I’m curious to see where these interests will lead us in the next few weeks – it’s definitely uncharted territory for me, on all sorts of levels.

 

On puzzles and perseverance

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The unschooling diaries: week two

This week, we have been building LOTS of train tracks, making an impressive amount of mess with kinetic sand, and getting increasingly confident on the scooter. We have been counting fingers and toes, being a doctor like daddy, and finding out which stones make the biggest splash in the sea.

There’s been more too, but rather than just run through all of the things we’ve done, I want to focus in this week on just one little bit of learning – what Arthur (and I) discovered when we put together a puzzle.

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Arthur has a bit of a love-hate relationship with jigsaw puzzles. He’s drawn to them initially, but gets quite frustrated if he can’t work out how all the pieces fit right away. For my part, it’s tempting to help. To give him a strategy – like starting with the corners, and lining up all the straight edges. To show him how it works, how much quicker and easier he’d find it if he just did it that way.

I’m not really sure where that approach to putting puzzles together came from, for me. I’ve always found them a bit boring, and I wonder whether partly that might be because I’ve been approaching it wrong all along.

When I stopped myself from interfering, and started listening to Arthur and watching how he was making decisions about what bits went where, I realised that actually his approach was far more fun. He was focusing in on the characters first, on the trains he loves from his stories, and seeking out all the bits that made them. Then he looked for bridges, and flowers. It was all a bit haphazard at first, but it all started to come together.

There were moments when he got frustrated – I could see him fighting the urge to smash it all up and cast the pieces to the wind. I intervened a little then, but not to tell him how to do it. I asked him questions instead: why was he getting annoyed? What was he looking for? What was he trying to do? And through articulating his answers he calmed down, and refocused, and persevered.

It was only a short period of time (though longer than it would have been if I had made him do it my way), but it was so much more rewarding for me to step back and let him work it out himself. It was more rewarding for him too.

The process of putting that puzzle together reminded me a lot about learning in general. It might be possible to get to the end of a task quicker someone tells you how to do it, but so rarely is the completion of that particular task the most valuable goal. If you take your time, do it your way, find a way through the challenges that works for you, then not only do you have that sense of satisfaction of having succeeded by yourself but you are also laying down the foundations for deeper learning in the future.

Worth bearing in mind, I think, as we continue on our unschooling journey…

 

The unschooling diaries: week one

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The past week or so has been somewhat dominated by potty training. I say ‘training’… My approach to this has been as much led by Arthur as anything else – hence why perhaps it has taken so long! I think it was about a year ago that we last broached the idea – let him sit on the potty from time to time, hung around naked if he felt like it (which wasn’t very often). We had sort of decided that last summer was going to be when we cracked it, but he had other ideas. And if there’s one bit of advice that seems to crop up again and again when it comes to potty training it’s don’t rush it. So we waited.

And suddenly he seems to be up for it. Which is great. But a little all consuming too… We haven’t quite worked out the logistics of wearing trousers, or leaving the house. And I need to make sure I’m paying attention as things are all pretty time dependent at the moment. But, you know, we’re getting there.

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As well as learning to use the potty, Arthur is really enjoying creating worlds with his cars at the moment. And trucks, and nee naws, and planes. He’ll start them on his road mat but their adventures often take them all over the house. We’ve been experimenting with road signs, too. He always wants to know what different signs mean when we’re out and about, and having these little toy signs is adding another dimension to his play.

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It’s not just signs he’s interested in – he wants to know what letters and numbers mean too. He likes the challenge of his alphabet puzzle, and loves the song that we’ve decided goes with it. It’s going to be a while before he really understands what it’s all about, but we’re having lots of fun with it in the mean time.

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He’s been interested in another puzzle too, one we’ve had for ages but hasn’t kept his focus until now. I like it because it isn’t exactly clear how you’re ‘meant’ to organise it – so there’s plenty of opportunity for interesting chat whilst we’re thinking about how its pieces might group together.

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Exploring options for grouping things has been fun with the sorting pie too. Up until now we’ve mainly done it by colour, but now that Arthur’s mastered that he’s been trying it by different types of fruit instead. It was clear at first that he really didn’t like putting the green bananas with the yellow ones but he’s been getting the hang of it…

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We’ve had the playdoh out this week too – just for playing, really, rather than making anything in particular. Though Arthur did fashion a rather fetching moustache!

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And for more mushy creative fun there was SUSHI! One of this household’s hands down favourite foods, and one we will definitely be making more of in the future.

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We haven’t managed to get out and about that much (potty training and WEATHER), but when we have it has mainly involved Arthur’s new scooter. He’s definitely getting the hang of it, but I’ve been very grateful for his helmet!

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We’ve been out to Arthur’s various groups too, drama and singing at Project Performers, and his gymnastics class where he has really impressed me by holding his own in a new group without me by his side. Last weekend he went to his first Rugby Cub’s session too – I’m not entirely convinced about rugby as he gets older, but whilst it’s just ball play I reckon we might as well make the most of it!

And today we went for a family swim – our first in ages. Arthur loved it so much I think we’re going to need to make that a regular thing too. I’m still toying with the idea of lessons, but he’s getting on so well in his float suit we might just keep having fun with it for now.

Finally there are of course the drums. There’s a strong sense of rhythm there, that’s for sure. And I’ve invested in some practice pads, so hopefully it’s not proving too unbearable for the neighbours…

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Unschooling a preschooler

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I am fascinated by learning. What ignites the first spark, how knowledge and understanding become embedded, the directions these can take people in as their lives unfold. As a teacher, this informed my whole pedagogy. I didn’t want to stand at the front of a silent classroom and speak, filling supposed empty vessels with the fruits of my superior intellect. I wanted to inspire, to start the young people in my charge on a journey of discovery which would hopefully take them way beyond the walls of the school. So much of education, it seemed to me, was about fitting square pegs into round holes – and I just didn’t want to be part of that.

If as a teacher, though, the constraints of our education system were frustrating, as a parent I find them positively frightening.

I look at my unique, bright, inquisitive boy and I can’t quite comprehend how he will benefit from being subjected to rigorous standardised tests. Whilst I have every faith in the intentions of the vast majority of teachers to bring out the best in each of their students, I worry about how their resolve will hold in the face of ever-increasing external pressures. Fundamentally, my fear is that the government do not want to foster a populace driven by individual thought and opinion. And I do not want to do my son the disservice of reducing him to being merely a cog in the machine.

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It is for these reasons that, after years of being a passionate supporter of state education, I find myself reluctant to begin the process of enrolling him in one of our local schools. He is a while off compulsory education, but at three years old he is already unusual amongst his peers in that he does not attend nursery or pre-school. He will be more unusual still if I follow through on my instinct, bubbling just below the surface, to keep him out of formal education until he is at least seven. By this age, I would hope, he would be resilient enough to navigate school as an informed and engaged individual. Many educational experts believe that this is the age at which children are best suited to enter formal schooling – a theory born out by successful education systems all over the world.

I am mindful, though, that there is an awful lot I am trying to do with my days: writing novels, representing my community on my town council and as a school governor, acting as a subject consultant for Ofqual. The question of how I am going to find time to provide meaningful learning experiences for my preschooler has not passed me by.

Except… My experience as a teacher has taught me that much of the school day is spent managing a large volume of children rather than focusing on individual learning – I can only imagine that this is even more pronounced in early years than it is in Secondary. And my aspiration with my son, just as much as with the pupils I have taught in a school environment, is to be a facilitator rather than a font of all knowledge. I want his learning to be driven by his natural inquisitiveness, not constrained by what I feel he needs to know and understand.

And it is this that has led me to unschooling. As an advocate of child-led parenting in the baby and toddler years, and student-centred learning in the secondary school, it seems the logical path for me to follow as I look to foster a love of learning in my son.

With this in the back of my mind, I am beginning to see the play that unfolds in our everyday lives – both self-directed by Arthur and shaped (loosely) by me – in a new light. It is my intention to begin to document this, for my own reflection and maybe to inspire others too. I will never be able to capture every aspect of his learning, but what I can do is focus in on some little key moments from our weeks and reflect on them as a sort of learning journal: an unschooling journal, if you like.

It was that I had intended to do when I sat down to write this post, but thought I should maybe take a little time to explain my approach – something which took a little longer than I’d thought it might. As with many things, though, I’m much more convinced about what it is I am actually doing having taken the time to write about it: so the first instalment should be coming up very soon!