The great thing about a conference in your field is that it fills your head with ideas about The Thing You Do. In the past, the only conferences I went to were writing conferences, and I loved them. I’d get all stoked about writing,teaching writing, and ideas, and I’d discover new writers to read, and meet writers face-to-face. This is different, because homeschooling is not The Thing I Do, but only one thing that I do. And I fear that I will always view myself a perpetual novice at it.
This conference has a large contingent of unschoolers. A little over a year ago, I didn’t know that unschoolers existed. Till about six months ago, I never considered unschooling any sort of option for our homeschooling life. But the thing is, my daughter is a born unschooler, and so is my (schooled) son. I can’t imagine unschooling a kid who needs external motivation, but my kids don’t. What they need is for me to get out of the way!
Problem is, my “inner school” puts me in their path constantly. I know that I’m not going to get past my belief that there is a core set of knowledge they need to attain to be “an educated person,” and that there are a core set of skills they should attain to see if they are drawn to any of them and could use them in a productive way in their adult lives. An unschooler will tell you that a child will learn calculus if they need it. I will tell you that I think that any capable child should learn calculus to see if it leads them on to something else. Humanity has put together a huge vault of knowledge, and the way we add to that knowledge is by swimming through the huge vault of knowledge in some particular area so that we can figure out what to add to it.
And I can’t get past my hope that my kids don’t just swim in the vault. I want them to add to it, whether what they love is the Italian Renaissance or computational linguistics or mechanical engineering. …
Went to a lively talk by a woman who runs a homeschoolers book club in L.A. She did a great job on this sort of thing: she had all her notes typed up so people could refer to them (I was busy writing down the name of an author that she likes when she said, “your packet includes a list of all the books that we’ve done in the club”). It was clear why she’s successful! I’ve been thinking of starting a book club for my daughter, but with her, I never know whether she’ll be the kid who’s totally engaged or the one who starts throwing pencils! This mom did have good advice: don’t run a homeschooling activity that your child doesn’t like. So perhaps I will start small, just in case! …
What if you plan a workshop and no one comes? My last event of the conference is scheduled for Sunday afternoon, when lots of families are packing up to go home. I hope someone comes. I like being paid, but I’d feel bad if they were paying me to sit here and write in my blog! …
Alas, the teenagers were burned out on activities and spent the hour hanging together and drinking soda, so the workshop didn’t take off. Perhaps next year they can schedule me at a time when people are still stoked about the conference and not thinking about what time checkout was (1 hour before my workshop was scheduled to start…) ….
