Last week we talked about the first part of a paradigm shift: shifting away from the conventional wisdom that does not seem to mesh with our own experiences and understanding of the world around us. We looked at a couple of examples surrounding learning and parenting.
The second part of the shift encompasses moving toward the ideas, or principles, that seem to better align with our understanding, experience, and goals. For continuity, let’s continue with those same examples. The first conventional idea about learning was that it needs to be directed by a teacher and measured by a test and let’s imagine that, for any of the reasons we talked about last week, this doesn’t mesh well with your experience. What might better align with our intuition about how we learn?
Unschooling principle: Learning is everywhere.
So how might we get here?
Maybe we start by asking ourselves what we mean by learning. What is real learning? Does learning need to be hard? If it’s interesting and fun, is it still learning? Is it really learning if we forget it a few weeks down the road? What kind of learning do we remember for the longer term? The things that make a connection to something we already know? That expand our perspective? The information and skills we use regularly in our lives? Those related to our interests and passions?
In shifting away from the idea of learning paths dictated by others, some might ask themselves questions about what learning is important to an individual. Is there a definitive time line for learning? What would the consequence be if we forgot some of the things we’ve learned? What if they haven’t come up again in our lives for months or years? What if we didn’t spend the time learning them before we forgot them? What if we wait until there’s a need or a connection or an interest? Is there a downside to not knowing something before there is a need or an interest? Might you learn something faster when you are interested in gaining that information or skill along the way to satisfying a current need or goal?
Then maybe we wonder about where and when real learning happens. If we feel that limiting our definition of learning to the activities related to the physical attributes of school (desk, classroom, teacher, school hours) doesn’t do it justice, how does that open up our understanding? Is it still learning if it happens at 9pm? In our backyard? In our pyjamas? On our bike? If it’s inspired by something we see on TV? Or hear a friend talk about? Is there any reason to value one source of learning over another? One method over another? Is it enough that learning happens? Think about your own light bulb moments. What were you doing? Were you interested and engaged? Immersed in the flow of the moment? Were you inspired to rise to the challenge, instead of turning away from it?
Once you start looking for the learning instead of the teaching it’s like a whole new world opens up! When you stop judging the method and just look clearly at your child’s engagement and joy, you can see their mind hard at work through the window of their words and actions. You begin to recognize the learning they are doing all the time. Time and location and teaching becomes irrelevant. Exploration of the world becomes exciting. Being curious about things that catch our interest becomes a fundamental trait.
Unschooling principle: Why not yes?
The realization that exploring the world through their interests and passions inspires so much real learning often gives rise to another paradigm shift: from automatically saying no to most of your children’s requests to taking a moment to seriously consider saying yes. Your growing understanding that the best learning happens when your child is interested and engaged means that when there is something they are interested in exploring, it behooves you to take a moment to see if you can find a way to say yes. You discover you want to find a way to support their exploration, not stop it in its tracks.
That realization inspires an avalanche of self-inquiry. Do you really need to sweep the floor first? Get dinner on the table at 6pm? (You begin to question both the time and place of that scenario.) Is it really a big deal to leave the in-progress board game on the dining room table overnight? To let your kids sleep in their clothes? Or stay in the bath for over an hour? To watch the rest of the movie they’re enjoying even if it’s past 9pm? We’ll talk lots more about this transition time over the coming weeks as we explore deschooling, but for now, realize it’s okay to question the conventional wisdom of day-to-day living. It may well have made sense when it first became part of society’s fabric, but does it still make sense today? For you? For the individuals in your family?
Even with this quick look at a couple of principles, it’s plain that unschooling isn’t just a new set of rules to replace commercial curricula and it doesn’t just happen during school hours—it’s a lifestyle. It is exciting and daunting and exhilarating and exhausting. And if the ideas don’t make sense in your experience or align with your goals, it’s fine to move away from unschooling and explore other educational paradigms. It’s a choice. But if the idea of exploring the world and sharing it openly with your children excites you, unschooling just might be for you and your family.
Keep learning and see where it takes you. 🙂
I was wondering if you would consider writing a future post specifically about rules vs principles. I know you have before, but I would love to read something giving actual examples of common rules and how to turnthem into principles. For example, bedtime. I’ve read your post that mentions this and ways to get around it, but my kids are 15, 14, 13, 10, 9, 7, 6, 5, 3, and 20 months, and while my older children do not have bedtimes, I find that if I don’t send the rest of them to bed, my house is very chaotic and loud, which is honestly how it’s been during the day since I’ve started to relax the rules. My husband gets up for work very early, and I simply can’t have them up and running around late. When I do send them to bed, I’ve explained that they may stay up and play quietly as long as they like, but screaming and fighting always eventually erupts. Which brings me to my next question- I’ve really been working hard at trying to resolve things to benefit everyone, but some of my younger kids simply can’t be pleased and will not compromise.I realize that all families are different, but I would love to just have a starting point as to approaches that could possibly be taken, and then I could tweak them to fit my family. I really love the idea of unschooling as a lifestyle, rather than just an educational approach, but frankly I’m exhausted from running from altercation to altercation all day long. My husband is already leary about unschooling for educational purposes; I know his patience won’t last much longer if our household doesn’t settle down soon. I really want this to work, but I could really use some very specific examples of ways to abolish rules without a breakdown of the family. Thanks!
Hi Shelly!
I do have a chapter and some examples about moving to principles in my book, Free to Learn, but with ten kids, I think you may have extenuating circumstances. 😉
If I recall correctly, you’re guys are newer to unschooling. I’d be careful about dropping rules too quickly. Give yourself time to understand unschooling more deeply and gain some experience with the more consensual environment that you’ll be replacing the rules with. That’s really the root of your question, yes?
The goal isn’t “to abolish rules.” It’s about moving away from arbitrary parental control. To add discussion and analysis of the situation itself and the people involved, rather than tossing out a generalized rule and declaring “my house, my rules.”
Here’s a snippet from the book:
“How instead can you approach this paradigm shift from no to yes, from rules to principles so it doesn’t turn your family life into chaos? Slowly and steadily over time, probably over a few months, situation by situation. Instead of watching the clock and announcing that it’s time to go to bed, wait until they ask if they can stay up to watch the end of the movie, then you can answer “Sure, I’m enjoying it too, let’s go to bed when it’s over.” Or think ahead and don’t start the movie that night. “Let’s watch the movie tomorrow because we need to wake up early in the morning to go to the zoo.” Make it less about arbitrary rules and more about considering what you’re all doing in the moment and beyond. Share your thoughts more so they begin to see how you think about and analyze situations.
As this analysis becomes the typical way of addressing questions you will all find you rely on rules less and less until they just aren’t part of your family life any longer.
This paradigm shift begins to fundamentally change your concept of living together. You’re no longer just related and living under the same roof, but growing together, living together as a team, helping and supporting each other, and respecting each other, regardless of age.”
In your bedtime question, the need for quiet after your husband has gone to bed isn’t arbitrary: he needs to sleep so he can get up for work in the morning. His needs as part of the family are definitely a reasonable parameter to incorporate.
That doesn’t mean you can’t think outside the box. Once things need to be quiet (is there a “good night, Dad” routine you can tie this shift into?) maybe you can lead a quiet activity or two (movie, reading a book or listening to an audiobook, colouring etc) and then stay with them so you can catch things *before* any screaming and fighting erupts. Ask them if they have any ideas on ways to keep things quiet for their Dad after he’s in bed—enlist their help in solving this puzzle. Try out ideas, and if they don’t work, chat with those involved and come up with another plan to try.
If you abolish the rules without some experience in working together with your family to come up with ways to approach the situations that the rules addressed, chaos can ensue. Everyone will get frustrated. Instead, don’t drop the rules en masse, but slowly and steadily, one by one (starting with the rule that causes the most conflict) involve them in discussing the situation, what the applicable rule was meant to address, and coming up with a plan everyone thinks will reasonably address the real needs of the people involved. And then, tweak them as you see how they play out. And be open to tweaking them again in the future as things change. Eventually the rules will fall by the wayside on their own.
I hope that helps a bit!
And I think there’ll be some helpful stuff in this week’s post as well. 🙂
Thank you so much. I will definitely be ordering your book soon because your excerpt really spoke to me. Bedtime is definitely the biggest battle, so we’ll start there. I’m hoping that the transition will go smoothly. We really don’t have too many “set in stone” rules right now, other than bedtime, helping with chores, not fighting, and keeping the noise level down (we currently live in a rowhome but are moving to a single home). Hopefully, after we’ve finished moving in a few weeks, everything will calm down. I think living amongst the clutter of boxes everywhere is taking its toll on all of us. Thanks again for your posts. I look to you as an unschooling mentor and appreciate everything you write about. Take care!
Yes, I can definitely imagine that moving is adding stress to the mix! Best of luck with it, I hope it goes it goes smoothly. You take care as well. 🙂