An argument for "Un-Schooling"

When Matt and I first started looking into homeschooling, eons ago, I read a book about the "Un-Schooling" educational method. It went against everything I'd had programmed into my brain about education, while sounding much more natural than what I thought education should look like. I set it aside and didn't give it another thought. The premise is that children do better when allowed to learn naturally and at their own pace. So, rather than sitting a 5-6 year old in a chair at a desk for several hours each day, the child is exposed to lots of books for perusing and plenty of read-aloud stories. Instead of a structured educational plan, until about the age of 8 a child is exposed to math concepts through everyday experiences. "I need 2 cups of flour for the bread. We have a cup that hold 1/2 cup, so how many 1/2 cups will we need to use?" Grammar and language are taught by correcting speech errors and by exposing the kids to books with a broad, rich vocabulary for read-alouds. Pretty low key and laid back. By default Banana's education has fallen into this category for the past year. I fully intended to walk her through a structured Kindergarten year, but when push came to shove the teenagers' education took priority. She's our flitter, too, which often makes structured sit-down time a struggle. She can hardly read a line from a book without jumping up and acting out any new words or sounds. Did you know that the sound "sh" can be acted out? Well, she showed me that it can. It consists of running back and forth waving your arms while opening your mouth as wide as you can (noisy children), quickly followed by standing with one hand on a hip and the pointer finger of the other hand held in front of your mouth. Pretty creative, but exasperating when I'm trying to keep her on track. Allowing her to flit and play and color while I read, and involving her in basic math operations throughout the day has fit her personality. She's doing an actual sit-down-and-focus math curriculum for the first time and is already a couple of weeks ahead of where she should be because she was ready for it. It's amazing to watch her go through two whole pages of addition, including story problems, without once stopping to count. She just seems to know each answer as soon as she looks at the problem. Had I pushed her sooner I'm sure she wouldn't have been doing this well. She's exeptionally bright, very, very active and creative, and has always had communication skills that are off the chart. While I've known this laid back approach was the best one to take with her, I'm not always sure just how much she's really learning. But every now and then she puts my fears to rest. Without ANY instruction in the use or purpose of apostrophes she's begun using them appropriately in writing. It caught us off guard when we found a picture of a circle covered in spikes with the caption "Jesus's" (crown of thorns). Not bad for never having had anyone explain even basic grammar/puctuation. Last week found the following picture on our dry erase board in the dining room/school room.


I took one look and said "Banana, this looks like a heart. What is it?" She then explained that it was indeed a heart, with one tube marked "B" for blood and the other marked "A" for air. "The red circles are the blood cells, and I put blue in the air tube to show that it's mostly air mixed with the blood. I saw it in a science book once and figured out that one is for air and one is for blood. Maybe I'll be a scientist!" Then off she skipped to play princess or puppy or some other make believe game. I think she's going to be just fine.