Child Led Learning

 It's been over a year since I have written on this blog. My, how time flies, my how things change.

A year ago, our son expressed, for the thousandth time, his vehement dislike for Waldorf education (see previous blog for the details). In that speech (which I didnt mention in that blog) he gave me an ultimatum: "Either homeschool me again or send me to public school."

Public school was something that we had avoided up until that point and we wanted to keep it that way. My husband did and still does hold judgement around it because his own experience within the system and the fact that his younger brother fell through the cracks of that system. I admit that my anxiety around school shootings and my own opinion about rote learning and the rigid environment made me want something different for Max. Our experience homeschooling during his second grade covid year was lovely and cozy and fortiftying for both of us. Remembering that time, I inspired myself with unschooling instagram accounts, John Gato and Julie Bogart books and my own sense of idealism and possibility. We got to make our own schedule, go at our own pace, make it up as we went along. It also gave me sense of purpose outside of work life. But I still had to work. I could only homeschool him three days a week and the other two days he went to another homeschooling family's house. He got to see his best friend and be in collaborative play mode on those days. I was grateful for that safe space. I was slighltly worried if I was doing enough. 

I bought language arts curriculum and outsourced math to a tutor. I joined a homeschooling co op to meet up with other families and scratch my own itch for social interaction. I signed him up for science classes at OMSI. 

And almost all of that fell flat. He hated OMSI science classes, wanted nothing to do with a co op (we stopped going after two months) and fought me about math tutor every day. The language arts curriculum was not a bad outline, but our dynamic made it so he would not engage with the mechanics of it after 10 mintues. Fights would ensue, tears would flow, work would not happen. There was plenty of learning still happening in spite of this. Max is curious and creative and we went deep into Norse mythology and American history. Audiobooks have been a big part of our life since kindergarten. But the loose style of home learning did not hold the same magic in 4th grade as it did in 2nd. His math skills were still greatly lacking and we were becoming more isolated. His peer relationships from his old school were fading, as is natural when they arent in a school environment together every day, and we both felt the sadness about that. As an extrovert raising an introvert, I felt the isolation very deeply. Aside from work I had not time to myself and because of that I was not feeling inspired in our homeschooling life. Since the pandemic, homeschooling has had a big boom and there are incredible online resources to draw from. It was not for lack of material that homeschooling did not work for us. It was a combination of personal dynamics and Max's increasing desire to be part of zeitgeist that surrounded him.

Since kindergarten, Max has had a burning desire to ride the big yellow school bus. His eyes would light up when he would see it going down our street and he would ask me why his school didnt have a school bus. Sometime in the late winter of his 4th grade homeschool year we were laying in bed and he told me and his dad that he wanted to go to public school. "Just to try it" he said, his eyes lit up with excitement. My stomach dropped. My husband made eye contact with me and I could tell he felt the same way.

But both of us recognized that this was Max letting us know very clearly that what we wanted for him was not the same as what he wanted. 

"I want to got to the same kind of school that you and daddy went to and that all of my cousins go to and some of my friends too. I want to go to normal school."

His resolve did not change as our homeschool year progressed and ended and summer came and went. Last week, Max entered into our local k-8 school as the new kid in a 5th grade class of 30 students. He insisted on catching the bus alone and walked down our street with cautious determination. The same kid who had such incredible social anxiety he could not make eye contact with other kids on the playground, took the initiative to head into a school of 450 kids by himself. He came off of the bus beaming that day. He LOVED it. He likes his teacher and trying cafeteria food and "fitting in is pretty easy actually" he said confidently. Confidence has always been something he has struggled with. To see him glowing with it after taking this initiative himself was thrilling for us.

There is a palpable shift that has occurred with this change and it has given me space to see how tightly I have clung to control in so many aspects of my parenting. In the unschooling community there is alot of talk about child led learning. Children are naturally curious, they will tell you. Kids will tell you what interests them, follow their lead.

In our case, unschooling was way too unstructured for Max and he told us VERY clearly what he wanted. He had been telling us for years, it just took us five years to listen. 

The fights and resistance and after school meltdowns are, so far, non existent. The reality of public school, like getting teased by 7th graders on the bus are very present and we deal with it as it comes. Adversity, to a certain extent, breeds resiliance and that was something he was certainly being sheltered from especially in homeschool. 

I should have seen the writing on the wall in the first week of covid homeschooling when his school shut down and he dressed up in a suit (his preffered attire from the ages of 4-7) and sat down at his makeshift desk in our living room and said

"Don't make this like Waldorf. I hate morning verse and my teacher is a maniac (*she wasnt, isnt and is a lovely human being*) "Make it like public school and give me a test right away."

Five years later here I am in the quiet third hour of a Monday afternoon, sipping tea and reading morning texts from my public school fifth grader that he made it onto the bus safely. Time marches on and sometimes when we let go and say yes to things we held in intense resistance, better outcomes abound. What is parenting but an 18 year process of letting go?

If this isn't child led learning I dont know what is.