Thursday, July 5, 2012

It's None Of Your *&%@! Business!

How do you deal with well meaning friends and family who are concerned about your unschooled children's future? I've always chosen to simply remind myself that what other people think is none of my business. I am quite passionate about life learning and feel like we've finally achieved a huge family goal in making the leap from school to unschool. I am thrilled that my children will benefit from the freedom to learn and accomplish without the constraints of curricula and schedules. They will learn about social studies and being good citizens by, well... by observing and participating in social interactions in different cultures; they'll learn about science by observing nature and conducting their own experiments (also known as playing); they'll learn about history and geography through our travels and the fundamentals like math and language by USING them!

Unfortunately, it seems not everyone is feeling the thrill in all of this like we are...


It has always been fairly easy for me to remain authentic and let friends and family who oppose life learning know that I appreciate their concern but that I am capable of making decisions for my own family. In most cases they simply don't fully understand the details around what we are up to and I'm always more than happy to try to help them with that. In some cases, they totally get it and are very encouraging (or phony, one or the other) and in some cases they either won't stop protesting long enough to really hear anything I'm saying or they just can't open their minds enough to accept anything that doesn't jive with what is familiar to them.

Of course this saddens me to see that certain segments of society are not progressing as quickly as others but I am very willing to let it go. After all, it doesn't really have any impact on my life unless I allow it to and I don't have the time or the inclination to worry about the opinions of others. I have a life to live and it doesn't include trying to convince friends that my children will be okay, that they won't grow up to be "cognitively challenged" to paraphrase nicely. If I did, I would be spending most of my time telling them all about the math, language, social studies, geography, history and biology that we've been learning every day, not to mention the philanthropy, political science, international affairs, arts, philosophy, economics and theology that we've also been picking up here and there, no teacher required (or uniform or schedule or testing... you get the idea.)

So it's all good then you say? Not quite... the problem is that my mother and son tell me that our family friends have been giving them quite a hard time about the whole school thing. I can't help but feel sympathetic to their dilemma; no one likes to be insulted and after all, it is my progressive ways that leave my loved ones having to defend my choices. One friend of my parents' even went so far as to say (and I will offer the direct quote this time, no nice paraphrasing here...) "Your grandchildren are going to grow up to be retards." Can you imagine the low intelligence and/or level of education this individual must be have? I mean, who says things like that? (Except, well...  his word, not mine!) 

Across the board, this has affected many relationships for them. They are constantly having to deflect questions regarding the school status of my children. The irony here is in the fact that I am better equipped to handle this sort of thing than mom is but I refuse to engage in debates of this nature and although she isn't as well equipped she still feels she must try to defend or at least explain the unschooling movement. I think the fact that these people have nothing better to do than bash something they know nothing about is a great indication of their own intelligence level but hey, what do I know? According to another family friend, I am not "smart enough" to practice experiential learning with my children. Huh? I think Santa just might bring that one a copy of "How Children Fail" this Christmas.

I mean seriously, they learning all sorts of things... just some examples:

Science (zoology, marine biology and ichthyology)
Math (fractions, measuring, torque, estimating, division, forecasting)
Language (French, English, Spanish - oral, written and grammar)
History, Geography & Social Studies (cultures, traditions and history of the Mayans, local Mesoamerican culture and history, maps, new world explorers and pirates)
Health & Phys Ed (healthy eating, lifestyle etc. and tons of physical activity in the form of walking, biking, dancing, running, swimming & gymnastics)
Arts (painting, art history, art style, dance, piano, guitar)
Although it's easy for me to tell these opinionated friends that I've got it under control and leave it at that, I don't think my family has mastered that skill yet. It's easy for me to advise them to ignore the ignorance of their friends but I know they aren't ready to do that yet... their egos still seem to have the upper hand (read: they still care what others think/say) and for now, perhaps I should equip them with some tools to support their argument. I look forward to the day when they realize the power which they possess and will finally say, very firmly to their friends, "It's none of your *&%@! business!"


*Why do some continue to gauge a child's success in life by outdated methods that no longer serve us such as level of schooling completed or grades achieved? Perhaps these are the same folks who live their lives to the standards of a failing society, I'm not sure. I'm concerned... ummm, not at all with perceived success but rather the actual success of my kids. Until the school reform agenda evolves to include more freedom in learning, encouragement of independent thought and excludes tactics to "dumb down" our society, I will continue to take control of my family's education.

2 comments:

  1. Those who spend too much time in someone else's business will be shocked when they finally open their eyes to their own business. It will no doubt look far more disturbing than your 'unschooling'.

    I always used to love how family would tell me how I should raise my kids and then eat their words when I pointed out the dysfunction in their own world. Hypocrites.

    PS - I think you use the term 'friends' too loosely :)

    PPS - Can you tell I have my warrior princess outfit on today? lol I'd seriously go to battle for you today! :D

    ReplyDelete

We're all about free speech here... go for it!