I miss you, my love.
Like a flower without roots,
I wilt without you.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Unschooling: Picking Tomatoes
Yesterday I was fretting to my husband that our two-year-old isn't learning "real-life skills" and "interacting with the real world" enough because he spends so much time in an artificial world of colorful, plastic toys.
My husband and I decided years before having any children that we would homeschool them. Our son is two years old now and a conviction is slowly growing in me that we will unschool him. No unsolicited teaching! On the one hand, that sounds reasonable and obvious. On the other hand that sounds terrifying and opposite to everything I have done as a teacher and tutor for years, making me question my own value.
Even as I grow more sure that unschooling is the right choice for our family, I become more aware that my position is extreme even among the homeschooling families in my area, let alone among families sending their children to school.
So I mull over my own doubts and those of my community, friends and family, many of whom currently have no idea that we will be homeschooling and don't even know what "unschooling" means.
Hence my fretting to my husband. Our son had just held out the cardboard tomato basket to me and then stood by the screen door out to the deck where our tomato plants are.
"Tomorrow," I said to my toddler. "Tomorrow we'll pick more tomatoes." I continued washing dishes and called over to my husband, "Is he really interacting with real things in the world? Is he learning any real skills?"
Of course these were ridiculous questions considering that he is two and learning to speak and climb and figure out everything he can about his world. But I was thinking of how he is learning to use his blue plastic wrench to pry up his orange plastic nail from his yellow plastic tool bench and I wondered if all of his toys (gifts from grandparents and friends, many free from the dump) are forming a bright, plastic barrier between him and the real world.
Just then our son walked to the middle of the rug and carefully set down the cardboard tomato basket, with six ripe, red cherry tomatoes, stems carefully removed, inside.
I gaped at my two-year-old. "Did he just open the screen door, go out on the deck, pick those tomatoes, remove their stems and carry them back inside?"
My husband grinned. "Yes, he did."
My son beamed up at me with pride in his accomplishment and I smiled back at him, full of love.
"Are you still worried that he isn't interacting enough with the real world?"
My husband and I decided years before having any children that we would homeschool them. Our son is two years old now and a conviction is slowly growing in me that we will unschool him. No unsolicited teaching! On the one hand, that sounds reasonable and obvious. On the other hand that sounds terrifying and opposite to everything I have done as a teacher and tutor for years, making me question my own value.
Even as I grow more sure that unschooling is the right choice for our family, I become more aware that my position is extreme even among the homeschooling families in my area, let alone among families sending their children to school.
So I mull over my own doubts and those of my community, friends and family, many of whom currently have no idea that we will be homeschooling and don't even know what "unschooling" means.
Hence my fretting to my husband. Our son had just held out the cardboard tomato basket to me and then stood by the screen door out to the deck where our tomato plants are.
"Tomorrow," I said to my toddler. "Tomorrow we'll pick more tomatoes." I continued washing dishes and called over to my husband, "Is he really interacting with real things in the world? Is he learning any real skills?"
Of course these were ridiculous questions considering that he is two and learning to speak and climb and figure out everything he can about his world. But I was thinking of how he is learning to use his blue plastic wrench to pry up his orange plastic nail from his yellow plastic tool bench and I wondered if all of his toys (gifts from grandparents and friends, many free from the dump) are forming a bright, plastic barrier between him and the real world.
Just then our son walked to the middle of the rug and carefully set down the cardboard tomato basket, with six ripe, red cherry tomatoes, stems carefully removed, inside.
I gaped at my two-year-old. "Did he just open the screen door, go out on the deck, pick those tomatoes, remove their stems and carry them back inside?"
My husband grinned. "Yes, he did."
My son beamed up at me with pride in his accomplishment and I smiled back at him, full of love.
"Are you still worried that he isn't interacting enough with the real world?"
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