PART SIX
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There are two ways to
interfere with the natural blossoming process that I can think of:
first - by not providing any opportunities or equipment – think
of the classic and heart-wrenching example of babies in 3rd
world orphanages who are not given any stimulation, minimal body
contact etc – and closer to home those babies who are strapped into
their carseat or highchair and parked in front of the television.
Secondly – the natural
blossoming process of a child can be totally wrecked by putting them
in school. The saddest thing is when you hear a parent, or a
grandparent tell you how full of life and excitement for learning a
child was, asking questions and watching people working, how bright
and funny they were - until they started school. People have said it
to me, and I feel a heavy burden about this. That is one reason why
I have spent so many hours preparing this talk. If there is someone
in this room who has a child at school, and there is any reason to
think that child is unhappy then please consider home education –
either natural education, or if you think it would work better for
you look at using a curriculum – just as long as your child isn’t
wrecked by being in an environment that is hostile to their senses or
their personality day after day. I know that schools can be hesitant
to let children go once they start school – they want to believe
that they can make the situation better for the child, but they
can’t.
I
also know that some school personel, perhaps without realising it,
can bully parents at times – make them feel they don't know just
how good a school can be for a child, bamboozle the parents with
edu-speak and the offer of various progrmmes which may or may not
happen or work out. If you want to remove your child from the
school system and home educate them, for any reason, then get someone
to support you with this.
Getting
down to the nuts and bolts of natural education – I guess there are
two ways you can go about it. One is to strew the path with
resources and opportunities and just pretty much get up each day and
see what the day brings. The other is to have a loose plan of
things you’d like to study, and bring them to your child’s
attention in a natural way and go from there. I’d like to do
this, and we have done it in the past, but this season we’re in
right now we tend to have to take the first approach. I often get
into a muddy pit about that and wonder if the children are advancing
at all, if maybe I am holding them back. But in my heart I know that
for our children, in this season of our lives it is the absolute best
thing for them.
I
am astounded, although I shouldn’t be surprised when the children
show evidence of learning and I love the excitement they get from
discovering things themselves.
The
other day our five year old asked “How does wood burn?” I said
“That’s a Daddy question. Perhaps you can draw a picture to
remind yourself to ask him tonight.” Our seven year old said
“I’ll draw one!” and he raced off and did a very nice picture
of some logs burning. Later on the picture was found, and the
question was asked. “Ah” said Daddy “How does wood burn, well
…” “Do you want a whiteboard Daddy” someone asked, and they
provided Daddy with a whiteboard and a marker. Daddy then drew a
picture and explained about wood fibres and fire burning things. I
noticed that the original asker of the question had lost interest, or
he APPEARED to have lost interest, but the others were listening
because it had become interesting to them. This bit of knowledge has
become their own, and I wouldn’t be surprised if our five year old
actually took in a lot more than I thought he had. If you force a
child to sit and listen and stop fiddling it could be that you are
effectively switching their brain off. Just recently our 19 year
old was talking to me, and as he likes to do, he was bouncing on the
exercise ball. When he finished speaking I asked him “What’s it
like when you’re talking to me and you have to stop bouncing.”
He thought for a moment then said “It’s like a room full of
computer screens, and when I stop they all start to switch off till
there’s no information at all.”
Something
that I researched for a long time and produced, and have used on and
off is what I call a spiral plan. Through looking at many
educational systems and their curricula for various ages and stages
including Montessori, Steiner, Charlotte Mason, Pikler, Thomas
Jefferson Education, Democratic schools, free or liberal schools,
Enki Education, Reggio Emilia and a few other places that I’ve
forgotten I came with a list of good ideas, crafts, topics to study,
various life skills to learn and I wrote them all down in one big
list. Then I separated the list into what could be looked at in each
season of the year for example, it is good to learn about deciduous
trees in autumn and study pond life in summer. I wrote it into a
book, and then added some memory verses to learn in each month, and
any poems that came to mind. The reason it is a “spiral plan” is
because each year you can come back to the same plan and briefly go
over what you’ve learned before and then embark further into areas
of interest. I’d love to work on this some more, and perhaps
publish it eventually, but right now I don’t have time.
If
you want just one pocket of “structured learning” per day
(Natural Learning does not necessarily mean the complete absence of
structure) then right after breakfast seems to work for a lot of
people. For quite at around 9 o’clock each day we’d do what I
called “Cozy Time” – modelled on what might perhaps be called
“Circle Time” in a preschool. I put all my Cozy Time ideas into
one book to make it easier for me. We sang a few songs, finger
plays, rhymes, some foreign language verbal work, memory verses, a
couple of easy games that exercised and expanded the children’s
ability to remember and follow instructions and pretend. Then I
looked at my spiral plan and talked about the topic I had chosen –
whether it be road signs or magnets, and the children told me things
they knew already. Then it was over. Sometimes if everyone was
still calm enough we would read a chapter or two from a book we were
enjoying. Reading aloud has always been a HUGE part of our lives.
During the rest of the day I would keep in mind the topic we’d talk
about and if something naturally came up to do with it I’d discuss
it with the children. Or if they were particularly interested we
might look it up in an encyclopedia, or on the internet. Of course,
looking things up on the internet ESPECIALLY if you’re a Highly
Distracted Person can take you down all sorts of lovely rabbit
trails. Robert the Bruce can lead you to bagpipes which takes you to
fife and drum recitations, and from there we want to see people
reinacting battles from the civil war, and we wonder why the Battle
of Cowpens was called the Battle of Cowpens…
When
we do Cozy Time one of our children finds it very difficult to join
in and often spoils it for the others. Another child is challenged
by sensory processing issues and it’s often hard for him to take
things in without moving a lot and banging against things and making
everything fast and bangy (it’s hard to explain). I could labour
the point and ENFORCE the participation of these children, but I
really feel that would not be healthy for our relationship. These
children are not just being naughty for the sake of it, they
genuinely have problems, and enforcing participation is not going to
address the problem, or help overcome it. I haven’t done Cozy
Time for a wee while now, but we will return to it one day. And
then I must remind myself to let
go of my
idea of how it could be, with perfectly happy, joyful, obedient
children participating correctly, not spoiling it for anyone else.
It doesn’t help if I watch carefully edited youtube clips of
laughing children dancing in a circle with graceful and dedicated
teachers leading a lovely action song. I can’t make our children
like that, God didn’t make them to be like that, and I shouldn’t
berate myself about this.
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