getting there

…I have many thoughts, most not fully developed, rambling about in my head right now.  I think the end result, should I ever reason it out, will be an epiphany (for me, at least).  So forgive me for pouring my ramblings out here…

I often read accounts of home/unschooling projects in which everyone is involved, learning is happening on multiple levels, connections are being made, and there’s just a warm fuzzy glow encompassing everyone.  But somehow, I didn’t see that as being real.  Not that I thought learning and projects would necessitate a “chore” mentality — just that I couldn’t see it working for and involving every one of us.  For example, I figured that if we decided to… say, learn to play chess, I would read about it before hand, find some good sites, and then impart my knowledge to Gamma.  He’d be suitably grateful and enthralled with the knowledge, and we’d both become expert chess players as a result.  So yes, we’d all be learning, but I’d be learning in advance, and then teaching.

Gamma has a long-standing obsession with Bionicles.  He loves to put them together.  He scours the Lego site for information on them.  He has discovered the wonders of YouTube and homemade movies starring Bionicles.  He plays the game on the Wii, and he watches the movie as often as we allow can stand to listen to it.  He asks me what Bionicles I would like for my birthday, and which action figure I like best, and who I want to be when we play make-believe games together.  It doesn’t stop.  Ever.  All…day…long.

(this has a point… I swear it… at least I think it does… I’m not sure where this will end up…)

I really don’t like Bionicles very much.  The storyline has too much fighting for my taste.  But knowing how infatuated he is with these right now, I tried to look at them objectively and figure out how we could use this as a learning experience.  Not turning it into schoolwork, but extracting learning from it, if you follow me.

But I couldn’t see it.  Sure, he was following sometimes 20- or 30-step instructions, intended for kids three-to-five years older than he is.  But he’s just playing. Sure, he’s correctly typing in words like “Mata Nui” and “Rahkshi” and “Vahki,” and finding videos and instruction manuals.  But these aren’t “real” words and he’s just fooling around. Sure, he’s reading things like “do you want to purchase this hint for 500?”  But this isn’t a phonics program, it’s just a video game.

I kept looking for how I could connect this to history, or literature, or something I saw as meaningful.  I just couldn’t see it.

A week or so ago, Alpha bid on and won a huge lot of Bionicle sets and spare pieces.  When he called me from work and told me about it, I admit I was less than thrilled.  Gamma had just been digging in his heels and ignoring some of the “organic” learning I was trying to make him joyously discover.  Instead, he wanted to be playing with his stinking Bionicles.  I was ready to ban them from the house!  But despite my opposition to the war-mentality, and despite the education battles, I really just want my kids to have fun and be happy, and so, when Alpha came home Friday afternoon with a load of Bionicles, I was grinning along with him while we watched Gamma’s ever-increasing joy as he discovered each new set.

Thus began a two day marathon Bionicle session.  For all of us.  Gamma was the lead builder, as he knew the most about the sets.  Some did not have instructions — Alpha and Gamma figured those out together.  Then came the huge bag of assorted parts.  A strange helmet, an unusual weapon or disk or shield.  I’d  use these clues to look them up on the internet, find the correct name/species (???) of Bionicle, and locate a scanned instruction booklet so they could piece them together.  Epsilon… he is the only two year old on earth, I’d dare say, that can say “Bionicle”, let alone name individual characters.

And it was an absolutely awesome, warm-fuzzy-glow weekend.  Alpha is almost as infatuated with Bionicles as Gamma now.  He loves to build and construct, and figure things out with no blueprint, only to find a blueprint later and realize he was dead-on balls accurate (it’s an industry term).  Gamma was in his element, and I think being the resident expert gave him a level of confidence and assured-ness about himself he’d not realized before.  I loved finding that I’m a valued part of the team — that being research assistant/librarian is just as valuable  (if not more)  as being hands on/go-to-girl.  Epsilon enjoyed getting to play with spare parts and simply not being brushed aside in the interest of real learning, as opposed to play.  And both kids got to see that both Dad’s and Mom’s skills (although vastly different) have great value.

Sigh… if I’d taken the time to write this all out in the midst of the epiphany, it might have made so much more sense… but then I’d have missed most of the moments…

I can’t equate all learning to the Bionicle universe.  I still can’t fathom how our history can be traced through this alternative universe.  Or how most math, or history, or science, can spring from this.  But I am beginning to get the picture of how the learning can happen, and the possibilities are enticing.  I still have a long way to go, but I think I’m becoming more open to the possibilities.

And I think that – getting how the learning can happen – will be the most important step of all.

Can you find a familiar face amongst the legion?