Unschool Monday: learning in their time

Facilitating learning when the children are ready - as opposed to on a timetable, or when I am ready - can be challenging, but is also very rewarding.

For me, the challenge is twofold. First, I have to fight against my inner perfectionist. When they race up to me with eager questions about how such-and-such works, my initial, instinctive response is something like "Well, if we schedule that for the end of next month, I'll have time to work up a fantastic unit study on the topic". I have to swallow that reply and quickly figure out how to help the kids learn what they want to learn as soon as possible.

The second issue is more of practical one: people, including the snowflakes, don't always want to learn about stuff between 9am and 3pm, Monday to Friday. They want to learn when the inspiration strikes, and they are just as likely to develop a burning curiosity about something when we're late for somewhere, or when I'd rather they were in bed, or when I'm in the middle of something else. The other day I'd been busy all morning to trying to get a dozen different things done. Finally I decided to take a break, so I made my hot drink and sank down onto my chair with a sigh of relief. Just as I opened up the computer to start checking friends' blogs, an enthusiastic voice behind me said "Mummy! I'm doing my budget! Come on, I need you to help me!"

But despite these minor inconveniences, we do try to make the effort to accommodate the snowflakes' internal learning timetables as often as practical. And when we do, it pays big dividends; they don't just learn 74 times more effectively*, they shine with the delight and satisfaction of being able to explore what they're interested in at that moment.

Here's what I came up with on short notice because snowflake #2 wanted to understand why she couldn't rotate her eyeballs far enough to see inside her head. It was a hit with all the snowflakes, who ended up abandoning their breakfasts to try more things with The Eye.

* OK, I will admit I made that figure up. But if I weren't busy home educating my kids, running a business and a household, and generally doing stuff that I want to do, I could undoubtedly find some study, somewhere, to show something like that.