Q & A With a Christian Unschooler: Part III

The following is a continuation of an interview with Sonita Lewis, who blogs at Cows Don’t Moo. Part I is here. Part II is here. My post about traditional homeschooling vs. unschooling might also be of interest.

GAH: If your child loses interest in an entire subject (Math, for instance) or just a part of it (long division) after having gotten a start, do you allow him to give it up in favor of something he’d rather do?

Sonita: Funny you should use math, it’s the most often used subject used as an example of why you can’t unschool-they’ll never learn math! It’s actually the last thing I let go of, because I was thinking the same way, but turns out, it’s actually one of the easiest subjects to unschool, we use math everyday!

Yes, I do allow him to give it up in favor of whatever else…usually. Maybe it’s just my child’s personality and mine, but I remember so very, very little from my years in public school (preK-12) but, what I choose to learn, I remember to this day. They way history was taught in PS, I walked away from 14 years of education with basically no history knowledge at all! But, now I love a good book/biography or movie/documentary about history.

My oldest son is quick to shut down when frustrated. (I might should mention we are currently seeking a diagnosis of ADHD and SPD for him) but he’s very sensitive, very tender-hearted and if frustrated and forced to ‘learn’, he’s not learning anything, he simply shuts down.

With enough creativity from mom, you can work a lot of subjects into one interest. (Think unit studies.)

Forcing ‘learning’ on him teaches him nothing. It may be just what Suzie’s son or your daughter or Joan’s kids need-but it is not what my son needs. Some kids do really need, crave and thrive on structure, routine, predictability, to-do lists, etc. My son doesn’t.

And that we have to force all kids to learn is not backed by anything other than blindly believing it because of compulsory attendance laws.

My oldest spent 2 years in PS. Let me tell you, that forcing him to do his schoolwork thing totally backfired! He go to where all he ever wanted to do in his free time was play video games. He quit asking questions about things. He didn’t want to be near a book. I couldn’t even get him to let me read to him for fun! He’d cry if he saw a book coming at him! No joke!

Now, he gets excited about going to the library, sleeps with his science book, has checked out every book our library has on reptiles or amphibians, loves the used book store, will at times pick a book over a toy as a reward.

GAH: I listen to my children’s opinions about what we’re doing, but I don’t allow them to say no if I believe they need to tackle a particular subject. Isn’t allowing your child to say what he won’t do teaching him that his desires are the most important consideration?

I don’t think so. He isn’t allowed to tell me no on hardly anything. Most parents allow their children some control in their lives. Do you kids ever pick out what to eat? What to wear? What sport to play? What movie to watch?

I’m very strict with what my kids can watch on TV. They know this and (currently) accept it without question (as I have explained that I don’t let them watch some things because they are for adults only or older kids or have bad things int hem, etc).

If there is a topic I want my son to learn, I can usually come up with a way for him to want to do it anyway. I get creative. I don’t like dry history textbooks, so I learn history through biographies or documentaries. Same with my kid–he’ll be open to learning anything if I offer up a documentary, hands-on activity, or a field trip. So if a book doesn’t work, I look for a Netflix video or field trip or hands on activity then we can double back and get the book.

I’d like to add one thing that you didn’t ask. I want to say that I don’t think different always equals wrong (in a Biblical sense). I don’t think there is only going to be one denomination of Christians in Heaven. I think man’s view of religion and expectations clouds our view sometimes about what is really important. I think it’s funny, we’ve been doing the same thing for quite some time now, and no one ever had a problem with it until I used the term “unschool”.

Up until I started my Christian unschooling series, no one said what I was doing was unbiblical or unchristian.  Up until I labeled it stopped shying away from the unschooling label, no one thought I was a bad parent or bad Christian, everyone thought what I was doing was great. We haven’t changed what we do, I just called it by a different name….

Just something people might want to think about before judging others so harshly as to call their different style unbiblical.

GAH: Thank you, Sonita! You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’ll never be an unschooler (about which,  more later), but I think you’ve represented Christian unschooling well. I gather that secular unschoolers wouldn’t even call what you’re doing “unschooling”. You seem to have done away with the worst aspects of it, which are more akin to unparenting than unschooling.