In this series of posts, I will be exploring my own unschooling experience as a child, writing about what we did and how we went about our daily life as an unschooling family.
This post contains a story originally published in my doctoral dissertation which can be read in its entirety here. These narratives are not necessarily the verbatim transcript of each event, some are comprised of several experiences condensed into one example while others are based on memories of what happened fleshed out in the text to allow the reader to experience it themselves rather than just a simple description.
Every family unschools in their own way with their own activities, boundaries, and decisions regarding how learning is approached. In my family growing up, we sometimes did ‘school work’ but it was always our choice, just one more option available to us in the day if we felt like taking on a workbook page or other project. I had a vague idea that other people might value certain activities more highly and as I got older I became aware of certain skills and knowledge that outsiders often seemed to think I should have. I can’t say I didn’t feel any pressure or stress about these things but it was never enough to make me do a great deal of this kind of work and I certainly never felt any pressure from my mom, our primary caretaker at home.
With that being said, we often enjoyed taking on more cognitive work or playing games based on knowledge and understanding but these games were all about the enjoyment of knowing and exploring our understanding, they were never focused on assessing or evaluating our learning. I offer two examples here of ways my mom found to pass the time and engage our curiosity and critical thinking. To me, these games typify a lot of my childhood as it shows relaxed and enjoyable learning and thinking that involved our caregiver but still centred around what we wanted to be doing at that time.
Imaginary groceries and travelling trivia:
I sit with my mom in the strange hallway outside the pool where some of the other kids are taking swimming lessons. I’m younger, about six maybe, and my class is on a different night. I am bored of the books my mom brought to entertain me but excited by the prospect of time to play with my mom all by myself.
“Can we play the shopping game?” I ask. I can’t remember how this game started but it was a staple for killing time at the pool.
“Sure, let me think.”
I wait as patiently as I can, bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Okay, first, go get me some ground beef,” she says.
I nod, serious about taking on this responsibility, before dashing off to the other end of the low corridor. I ‘grab’ a pound of ground beef off the shelf I imagine taking the place of the tall lockers and, ‘carrying’ it in both hands, dash back to deposit it at her feet.
“Perfect, now I need onions and garlic and peppers and canned tomatoes,” she says.
“I know what it is, it’s spaghetti!” I cry, tossing my hands in the air.
“Wait and see,” she says, her eyes twinkling at me.
I toss my head and groan before returning to the ‘store’ at the end of the hallway and grab these imaginary items, nestling them in the crook of my left arm that I’ve crossed in front of my chest. Back again, the items delivered,
“Onions and garlic and peppers and canned tomatoes,” I reiterate.
“Now I need apples and potatoes, and brown sugar, milk, butter and oatmeal,” she nods in response to my furrowed brows; she’s not making a mistake.
I stand still for a moment, balancing on one foot, until it comes to me,
“Chilli and mashed potatoes and apple crisp for dessert,” I crow, jumping up and down in excitement, “You tricked me!”
“I tried to,” she laughs, “but you caught me.”
I tear away down the hallway, making a token flailing reach towards the ‘shelf’ and race back, delighted with my success and the new fun of the trick answer added to our game.
That following weekend we pile into the station wagon for the seemingly endless drive downtown to visit my dad. In reality, the drive takes about an hour and I like the quiet time in the car but it still feels like it takes an immense amount of time to make our way from our driveway to his door.
“Mom, ask me a question,” my little sister asks, looking up from the middle of the bench seat in the front. She gets to ride up front most of the time because she gets carsick in the back but I have a secret suspicion that she doesn’t always get as sick as she says she does. Not believing her makes me feel bad, though, so I don’t mention to anyone.
“What kind of question?” my mom asks, clearly confused.
“She means a trivia question,” I pipe up from the middle row.
“Oh, okay. Let me see,” my mom frowns for a moment, concentrating as she changes lanes around a slow truck, “can you name me, let’s say five, different animals you might see at the zoo?”
“Elephant, monkey, snake, lizard, lions, and hippos,” my sister rattles off the list easily.
“That’s six,” my brother points out from the seat next to me. “My turn now.”
“Okay, hmm,” my mom pauses so long I think she’s forgotten we’re supposed to be playing the game. “Tell me the three states of matter water can take and how it changes between them.”
“That’s easy, water can freeze into ice, melt into water or boil into steam.”
“My turn,” I say as soon as he’s done.
“How many different kinds of metal can you name?” she asks, her eyes darting off the road to meet mine in the rear-view mirror. I don’t know how she manages to do that and find my eyes so quickly but she always does.
“What do you mean?” I am confused. Metal is metal.
“Like steel and copper,” my brother chimes in.
“Don’t, it’s my question,” I pout.
“He’s just helping you out, sweetie. There are different kinds of metal like he said, you know how pennies are a different colour than dimes and some things made out of metal are harder than others, that’s because it’s different material, different combinations of chemicals make different types of metal.”
“Oh,” I sit there digesting this information as I stare out the window and watch my favourite stretch of the Don Valley Parkway roll by, the hills of the valley gliding up from the highway blanketed by the solid green canopy of treetops, “Like tinfoil is different from the metal parts of the car?”
“Exactly!” I can only see her eyes but I know she’s smiling at me in the mirror.
“Can I have a different question, though? I don’t know the names of metals.”
“I do,” my brother exclaims.
“Okay, then that will be your next question, John. Mandy, let’s see… can you tell me about how we make maple syrup?”
I smile, remembering our trip to the conservation area a few weeks ago, “They take the sap from the trees and collect it in those little buckets and then boil it all in the big pots and then there’s syrup,” I say in a rush.
“Right on,” my mom smiles again and moves on to ask my cousin a question about the kings and queens of Narnia and I finish the ride to my dad’s playing along, waiting my turn for my personal question and doing my best not to blurt out the answers for everyone else’s.
What kind of games do you play with your kids that involve learning and understanding their world? How do you encourage their thinking and exploration of what they know and how they can use that knowledge?
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Originally published at https://livinglearning.ca on September 9, 2020.
