Homeschooling

So, I just discovered that my father was a natural 'un-schooler.' Yes, he was. And those things that I remember best and most were the things I learned while I was unknowingly un-schooled.

There are different techniques of homeschooling. We homeschool through a charter school. That means that we use an assigned curriculum and follow a set of standards. We keep up a learning schedule and do standardized testing. We turn in work to a school entity. There is a bit of pressure at the end of the month, but there are financial benefits in the form of funds for extracurricular activities.

Filing a PSA (in California) means that one becomes licensed as a Private School. There is usually a five student limit, so this is really for individual families. With a PSA one has more freedom with choosing curriculum and setting a learning pace. The parent needs to keep a record of what they have learned and should follow the California Standards for each grade level. One can choose a religion based curriculum have set times for study or not, homeschooling or un-schooling.

My understanding of un-schooling is this - the learning is child led, but the parents provide an enriched learning environment - okay, what does that mean?
There are no specific lesson schdules. When a child gets interested in planets, the parents follow through with coloring pages, books to read, museums to go to...when a child wants to learn about where food goes, out come the biological systems diagrams...

The providing enriched environment is the part that my dad was a natural at. He, one day, brought home stethoscopes, sphygnomometers, otoscopes and let us explore. Another day, Chinese language records and we would study Chinese for a month. I remember the mountain climbing fascination we had. Ropes, carabiners, pulleys - and we found these huge rocks to climb. This was well before the rock climbing craze. He brought home thermometers of all different types, giant magnets of all different shapes, fencing equipment - epees, foils, face masks. We loved exploring the science museums and natural history museums. Planetariums were another favorite and of course we had telescopes of varying powers. And books! Books on every imaginable subject - etymology, entomology, bats and radar. My bothers and I equally learned to knit and how to use power tools. We stripped wood floors and waxed them. (Ok, my mom did that and painted the furniture and wallpapered...)

Deciding on what method to homeschool our own children didn't come easily. This year was our first official year as homeschoolers. We followed standard California curriculums for the most part. And it was not easy. I wasn't ready. I didn't have already prepared 'kosher' lesson plans for Ancient History. About halfway through the year it started clicking for me. I feel more confident for next year. We will continue combining homeschooling and un-schooling. I like making up my own units of study in my own order and found that we covered all of the CA State Standards and more.

While some learning is incidental, and some learning is accidental, in our home "We learn on purpose. " (Thank you Susie N. for that gem.)