Years, ago, before I finally got brave enough to have laser eye surgery, I wore contacts. Either contacts or coke-bottle glasses. 20/200, no lie. With astigmatisms. My nieces, so very near and dear to my heart in those pre-children days (children of my own that is, and the girls are still very near and dear!) would watch me put in my contacts with awe. They always said I was “putting in my eyes!”
I am so glad to have stumbled across this today.
I feel as though I’ve been looking at homeschooling through old, jaded, public-schooled eyes. Now that I’m attempting to journal (on paper, not here) Gamma’s goings-on and questions, I’m seeing far more learning and inquiry than I could have imagined. And I’m sure I’ll “see” more as I really learn to recognize the learning taking place right before me.
3 comments ↓
Great metaphor.
No matter what you do with the kids, you do realize that you are very much unschooling yourself, already? With marvelous benefit, it seems . . .
Good point, JJ. Yes, I’m well aware that I’m unschooling myself. And it is most certainly the best way to learn. I have the same worries most people have when just starting out: what about the gaps? what if he never becomes interested in history? how will he learn to read and “get” math?
That’s my real worry, I guess. The basics. Once those are in place, there’s no end to what one can learn. But how to obtain them without being taught….
…ironically, writing this has reminded me of something. I already knew how to read when I started kindergarten. My mother says she didn’t teach me, but I definitely remember being able to read. I blazed through the “See the red balloon. Up, up, up.” kind of stuff. And I recall getting to the end of the reader and having the teacher pat me on the head, and tell me to sit quietly and be a good girl while everyone else did their work.
But math… despite 13 years of public school, I never really got that. I’d like to, though. Maybe Gamma will teach me.
There’s a good scene early in To Kill a Mockingbird, where Scout’s second grade teacher is complaining because she learned to read at home and hasn’t been “taught” by the school. After learning to read before school age too, discovering that scene on her own was one of Favorite Daughter’s earliest social things about which to be indignant! (I think she was about nine.)
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