Forgive me, Father. I’m an . . . unschooler.

*cheeky grin*

All kidding aside, there is a bit of a debate afoot in the homeschool blogosphere about unschooling, especially if one is a Christian. As I happen to be a Christian (evangelical, pre-trib, Bible-is-all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips believer), and one who has embraced unschooling, I feel the need to stick my blog into the middle of the conversation/debate.

And I’ve entitled this piece, Confessions of a reluctant Christian unschooler because that’s exactly how I came to this educational philosophy. I never wanted to be an unschooler. I liked classical homeschooling. You should see my copy of The Well-Trained Mind. It’s dog eared and underlined with yellow highlighter.

With this post I want to tell you how I came to embrace unschooling as a Christian parent. This is not a rant against classical education; just my experiences as a homeschooling parent.

So. Are we cool?

Good. Let me tell you my story. . .

Homeschooling in the early years

I have a girl, Susan. She learned to read at about 6 years old. Susan loved her Latin studies. Sat still for grammar lessons. Produced beautiful copywork. This was a child who absorbed every Bible verse you could throw at her.

All was good perfect in my little homeschool.

I added my next pupil to the lineup. My boy, Peter.

Peter finished our phonics book, but didn’t start to read everything from cereal boxes to street signs like his older sister did. In fact, he hated the idea of Latin, cried over a simple grammar lesson. Copywork? No way. Learning Bible verses? It got done, but not at the rapid fire, human-sponge rate like Susan. He loved books as long as I was reading aloud to him.

Needless to say, all was not good in my little homeschool. In fact, if I wasn’t so stubborn, I might have pitched the idea of homeschooling him. But the Lord gave me an Irish heritage and I continued on with homeschooling, still clinging desperately to a traditional way of learning and teaching.

Peter would cry over attempting to read. I would get mad because I didn’t think he was trying hard enough. He would cry more because he still couldn’t read no matter how frustrated I got. We started the phonics book over again and I still couldn’t get this kid to read.

My classical homeschool in chaos thanks to my eight year old boy.

I did a lot of worrying back then. What was I doing wrong? Maybe I need a new, better phonics book? How can he advance to the next math book if he can’t remember multiplication tables? How will he take the SAT??

If it were possible to go back and re-do those years of mothering, I would jump at the chance.

I wish I hadn’t been so hard on him. I was so stubborn. So angry.

It took me years to let go of the idea that classical was The Best, the only way I would conduct a successful homeschool. (This post about Peter explains what pushed me over the edge to finally let go.)

Forgive me, Lord for that idolatry. May I never again uphold any educational philosophy as the bee’s knees.

And that prayer applies to unschooling too. Yes, I’m not a radical unschooler. (I’ve often said the only thing I want to be radical about is my faith in the Lord.)

Learning as unschoolers

I believe unschooling NOT to be the best way to learn for every child, nor the only way for a family to successfully homeschool. If I had a houseful of dutiful, early reading young ladies things might have been very different.

But unschooling sure did a world of good for my family – especially my boys.

Let me continue my story:

Next-in-line Edmund finished that same phonics book. Did he vault into reading? No. But an interesting thing happened.

At about the time he finished phonics, and I was mentally ready to unschool, my children found a gaming website for kids. The game has a chat feature. Edmund loved the game, but was intrigued with the written conservation scrolling by on the screen. The next thing I knew, Edmund could read the chat, then read everything else that crossed his path. He’s eight now and today he and his older sister disagreed on who would get to read a library book first.

Unschooling did that, not me. Sure, I taught him phonics, but I never asked him to read on his own. He found words and wanted to know what it said. The rest was all his motivation.

That’s the beauty of unschooling – a child motivated to learn because he wants to know.

Today. . .

As for Peter: he’s come a long way. It’s been awhile since I’ve written about his struggles to read. He’s eleven now.

Friends, you should hear him read from his own Bible.

Yes, my boy who gave me fits because he didn’t let me continue with classical homeschooling. The boy who forced me to reexamine why I homeschooled the way I did, the boy who set us all on a path of non-traditional learning – is reading!

Within the past few months, he’s been reading aloud to me again. It’s been years since I asked him to do that. As he reads, I correct mistakes; no more tears. Now it’s like he’s a different boy; I guess he is a different boy. He’s older, more mature. His brain is no longer the brain of a nine year old, but a more ready eleven year old.

Wow. What a difference!

I’m thankful that I found unschooling at a time when I didn’t see how I could continue to homeschool without it destroying my relationship with my boy.

Adding Susan, Edmund and Lucy to unschooling seemed the right way for all of us to go.

Today, this is what works for us.

We are all happier because of it.

***

What’s your flavor of homeschooling? Love unschooling? Swear by the classical method?

If you unschool, did you come to that decision easily or did you struggle letting go of what you thought your homeschool should be?

Add to the conversation in the comments below or link up your own blog post.