We returned from the UWWG (Unschooler’s Winter Waterpark Gathering) yesterday. A fabulous time was had by all and many, many thanks to all the organizers! While, most unschooling conferences are smaller, and are geared toward unschoolers and the unschooling interested, the UWWG is a bit different since it’s open for homeschoolers to unschoolers and everything in between, so long as you take a child-led non-schooly approach or are interested in leaning that way.
TJ and I had a lot of fun speaking together. I can’t think of anyone else I would rather share the stage with! I felt that our talk went well. It was well attended too. I remember looking around the room thinking to myself… “Wow… there’s a lot of people here, I hope we say something good!” I felt so at ease speaking this time, of course I always feel at ease with TJ at my side. I think the last time I spoke I really built up the fear and drove myself nuts. I won’t do that again! When we finished, I glanced down at my phone to check the time. Only 30 minutes had passed! Tj and I had microphones, were talking together, and about unschooling and we had only used up 30 minutes. How on earth did that even happen??? I swear our talk was much longer. As inexperienced speakers, we didn’t quite understand the importance of making sure we filled up the time slot.
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Tj opened up the floor to questions. Someone wanted advice on how to be a better mom when it feels like your energy has run out. Someone else wanted assurance that her children would grow to be functional adults. It seems to me that when people are in the beginning of unschooling they get hung up on things likes college, household chores or bedtime. Every unschooling talk ends up with one of these types of questions. It’s not what our presentation was about, but are hot button issues. As an inexperienced speaker I had a little trouble keeping the discussion on topic and away from becoming an argument. Things got a little tense and some became defensive over their lifestyle choices. I was a little disappointed about this. I really enjoyed sharing our story and loved talking about unschooling and I was so hoping that everyone would leave inspired, not defensive. In the end I received some really good feedback at the conference or through email about our talk and people really did enjoy it. Dayna Martin wrote a nice email reminding me, “Ya, the talk got intense, but it is through those moments of intensity that new ideas are embraced. It was through the seemingly negative responses that others were able to really elaborate on Unschooling philosophy! People learned so much from your talk! Frustration and and anger is sometimes part of the process for many people learning alternatives.” Ahh… just what I needed to hear.
This bit of discussion has had me thinking about the difference between Unschooling and Radical Unschooling. I think many people view Unschooling as a lack of curriculum and Radical Unschooling as applying the philosophy to their whole lives. While I love the term Radical Unschooling, I personally do not view it any differently than just Unschooling. There is NO difference. It doesn’t happen all at once for everyone, some take longer than others to get there, and that is OK. I think the general rule of thumb is take one month for every year you spent in school to truly deschool yourself. Someone accused me of being judgmental for pointing out what wasn’t unschooling, when I felt I was simply being informative.
First of all, it’s perfectly OK to not be an Unschooler. Some people seem to view Unschooling as a secret little, elitist club and get awfully defensive. There is nothing wrong with being an eclectic homeschooler or a relaxed homeschooler. Unschooling is still extremely controversial, when we start having all these different levels of Uschooling it sort of muddies up the label and becomes extremely unclear to those who would like to learn or observe.
In my opinion, it is not going to be successful to compartmentalize Unschooling. It’s a lifestyle. Unschoolers live in freedom, they learn everyday, from everything. Their world is limitless, and there are no subjects or rules. The world is full of connections, not separations. Yet when we as parents, impose rules on the lives of our “Unschooled” children we are disengaging life from learning. We are telling them that even though we believe they can learn what they need to know, that ultimately they cannot decide when they are tired, or hungry, or ready to help pick up the house. Unschooling isn’t going to work if the illusion of control is maintained over our children.
I truly believe that Unschooling will not work if not used as a whole life philosophy. So, what do you think? Am I too late to the party? Has the labels Unschooling and Radical Unschooling already become separate? Or should we maintain that they are one in the same? Pass this on, I want to hear your thoughts.