Authentic Learning/Unschooling

For me, unschooling is a natural fit for leading an authentic life. Unschooling looks different in every family simply because it is guided and defined by the individuals that make up that family, including the children. The basic concept is that learning happens naturally, through living life. It doesn't have to be separated from life or institutionalized.

Today, for example, I was making granola with my 5-year-old daughter. I've done a lot of baking with my kids and math and chemistry are naturally embedded in the activity. I think my eldest learned fractions primarily from using the various measuring cups and spoons. But today, we got a lesson in physics, as well. Sadie was stirring the honey and oil together with a spoon. The bowl was metal and she wasn't holding onto it.

"Mom, look at this!" she squealed. Since she wasn't holding onto the bowl, the spoon was spinning that rather than the ingredients. "Look how high it can get!" she noticed. The faster she spun, the higher the liquid rose on the side of the bowl, leaving almost nothing at the bottom.
I'm not a scientist and I remember very little from my science classes in high school so I had to look up the word and definition for what I was seeing. Sadie could care less about that. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but an experience is worth even more.

My ten-year-old daughter is trying to find local horse rescues on the computer. She tends to like for me to give her direction so when she came to me feeling bored and wanting something to do, that's what I suggested because I know she wants to volunteer at a rescue and I haven't gotten the chance to look it up yet.

As I'm sitting and writing this, I'm watching my practically-eight-year-old son making a diving board off of our couch using his fort-building kit (pieces of peg board, posts with holes, screws, nuts and bolts.) He's figured out how to support the front but is still working on how to stabilize the back when weight is put on the front. He's used ropes but it's still not quite stable. Now he's got a back-up plan: pillows and blankets at the bottom. He's decided it will be more like a dunk tank (which he and his dad made this summer) than a diving board. And the experiment continues with his sisters getting in the act, too. It works as a diving board only if someone holds the back end down. Ari has used several layers of pegboard for the diving platform to prevent it from breaking.

I could categorize all the various lessons the kids are learning from this exercise or any of the other activities from our daily lives. But there's no need. It is organic learning, experiencing, living and they will retain and use and build on whatever is authentic and meaningful to them.

Authenticity begins young. I think we come into the world as authentic beings and our experiences during our formative years help to determine our connection to our authentic self. School age has gotten younger and younger, there are fewer recesses, more expectations, less time to play and be children. I would hazard a guess that all that this does is lead to delayed childhood, adults acting out their unfinished development in sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways.

Learning doesn't have to be compulsory and by making it so, we take the ownership of that learning away from our kids. As a society we tell them what to learn, when to learn it and how to learn it and if the schools' formula doesn't fit the child, too bad. Unschooling gives the ownership of learning back to the individual child. He/she seeks out what is interesting, stimulating, enjoyable. As a parent, I'm not a teacher, necessarily, but a facilitator, a guide, a partner in that learning. I try to provide a variety of resources and exposure to different things but I don't force them to learn anything or provide external motivation (ie: positive or negative reinforcement) for them to learn. I don't need to. All I need to do is open my eyes and my mind and see that they are learning every day, every minute. They are either learning from what they are experiencing in their physical world or they are learning from going inward, reflecting, imagining.

But I can't judge what they learn or the ways in which they learn because it is theirs and it is authentic to them. It is driven by them and I am there to support and nurture and validate their experience, not to create an experience for them that I think will result in their success or intelligence or whatever other expectation one might have. Sure, I want them to be successful out in the world but I don't define that success--they do. And above all, I want them to know themselves. That is the best education of all.

Hair

I cut my hair. Really short. Now, it's not the first time, but it' been awhile.
When my son was just a baby, which was 7 years ago now, I shaved my hair clean off with my husband's clippers after a botched attempt at a self-performed haircut. It was completely impulsive, but I remember grinning at myself in the mirror, thrilled by my own daring and tenacity. Doing something so bold felt good, gave me a sense of strength that I sometimes forget that I have. "Here I am", it screamed, "there's nothing to hide behind."

I kept my shaved/short hair for quite awhile but it's been years now and my hair had grown quite long. It was thin, tangled, coming out in places…I'd been considering cutting it for awhile, remembering how liberated I felt when it was short. Then that second voice in my head said, "You were younger then, thinner…you didn't need anything to hide your face behind". And indeed, in the 7 years that have passed since the first hair-shaving, I've nursed for 4 years, been pregnant for 9 months, suffered several major depressive episodes, put on weight and unschooled three children. And yes, it shows…in the lines in my face, in the somewhat puffiness under my eyes and in the wisps of grayish-whitish-silver that congregate at my scalp. I let those things convince me that my hair provided some sort of cover, that only fresh faces deserved to be seen, that I could hide the encroaching white hairs underneath the longer, brown ones on top.

But I've found myself feeling stronger lately…physically and emotionally. I've been doing yoga for several months and while I'm not as thin, toned or accomplished as some of my yoga peers, I have more upper-body strength than I ever had and more endurance than I imagined myself capable of having. I've accepted the unconventional child-raising methods I've chosen to use, accepted that we don't necessarily fit in the mainstream and accepted that I am truly human, perfect in my imperfection. I am valid. I am worth seeing.

So when we were all sitting around at our Fall Equinox party a few weeks ago, discussing the things we were wanting to let go, I mentioned my hair. Yes, it's just hair, but it's also representative of the past years of struggle, the weight of uncertainty of my choices, the fear of showing myself. My friend offered to give me a haircut, right then and there and after some convincing, I agreed.

"How short do you want it?" she asked me.
"Really short," I said, "I want it to be bad-ass."
She laughed, "Ellie, you're too soft to be bad-ass. But I'll do my best."
So the hair started coming off, inch by inch. At one point she stopped and stood back to look at me. Her eyes lit up and she said, "It's really cute!"
"I don't want cute," I told her soberly, "No cute."
She sighed and kept going. We went inside to take a look.
"Shorter," I said, after looking in the mirror.
One last round of cuts later and she stepped back again, surveying me.
"It looks like it was shaved and is just growing out. This is what you want."

I peered in the mirror. Indeed it was what I wanted. My hair was background noise, an afterthought to my face in all its lined, tired glory. But somehow, to me, I didn't look as tired anymore. My silver hairs looked like they belonged instead of being intruders on my otherwise youthful strands. The strength that I knew I had, seemed to now be more evident. I felt free.
Just as the trees lose their leaves in the fall, bringing one cycle to a close, I've dropped my hair. It feels like a fresh start…not a new me, but a more definitive me, a decidedly stronger me.

The friend who cut my hair has a 5 year old son. At the park recently, he told me that bad guys have short hair so now I looked like a bad guy. I took this as a great compliment. I've always had a softness, a tender look about me. You could call it innocence, femininity, vulnerability…all qualities that I possess, more at some points in my life than others. The addition of this other element, of strength, of "bad" was quite a boon. That five-year-old made my day.

That being said, it isn't the haircut itself that is bad-ass or strong--it's the act of cutting the hair off. It's the strength it takes to say, "I don't need this to be feminine". It's the courage to let the world see the evidence of my human struggles and victories on my face. And for me, it's being brave enough to drop the facade of "good" girl. I am caring, compassionate and kind but I am also fierce, opinionated and confident. And both sides are worth seeing.