Unschooling is a tricky word

I was just reading on a homeschool list that a mom didn't like to tell people they were unschoolers. I was the same way until recently. I used terms like eclectic and relaxed and child led to dance around that loaded word 'unschooling'.

I admit, I was worried about what other people thought about it and it seemed the disapproval would come from two opposite fronts. From the perspective of those who use a curriculum and follow a tight schedule and have a yearly plan, unschooling looked sort of like no schooling or overly laidback go-with-the flow random scatteredness. But, among the group that looked on any use of curriculum or texts as a no-no, the fact that my son used an algebra curriculum and that we followed the Sonlight book list, 'disqualified' us as unschoolers . So we were relaxed, eclectic, interest driven, autodidatic homeschoolers (r.e.i.a.h?). Try to say that 3 times fast (or even remember it once :).

But this year I decided to just say it...outloud...we are (gulp) unschoolers! We learn together each day with a loose structure, no overarching yearly plan and a smattering of curriculum when we feel we need or want it. The loose structure is pursuing some reading, writing and math each day and practicing piano everyday and reading aloud everyday. The rest is unpredictable and always open the whims of interest and desire.

It's funny to look back and realize even when I was a school teacher I often unschooled. I was required to have a daily schedule posted outside my classroom door, but the chances of you walking in and actually finding us doing what was on the schedule at any given time was pretty slim. I was a teacher of tangents--if we got interested in something as a class, we would pursue it, even if it meant grammar or math would have to wait until after lunch--or even til tomorrow. I actually had to shift my reading aloud time from after lunch to before, because we would start reading after lunch and get so into it we would read right through til the final bell :)
Sadly, in our test obsessed schools these days teachers rarely experience that kind of joy of learning nor the freedom to pursue their students interests. What a shame.

So in a nutshell, I have always been an unschooler but it has just recently become morethanfine to admit it! And there is great freedom in just being what you are and not making excuses for it.

Barb