The Garden Dirt: Getting Ready for the World

Did you know May is unschooling month?

While it may seem counterintuitive to dedicate something as restrictive as a month to the free-form hippie spin that is unschooling, there's a good reason to spend a little time talking about it. And that is because, almost nobody knows what exactly unschooling is. We who school in the unfashion find ourselves describing what unschooling isn't as often, if not more. Does an unschooled student use workbooks? Have to do things she doesn't want to do?  Tend to her personal hygiene? Consider the feelings of others? Or are the little drop-outs all feral id, abandoning promising projects to hone Minecraft skills, only taking a break to go swear at elderly people in public?

The answer, of course, is D) All of the above, except for swearing at old people in public. Because some things should be done only in private.

The term "unschooling" is so undefined that it becomes a blank screen onto which people project their best or worst assumptions. Most discussions on educational styles tend to describe their merits and faults, because these styles have been defined for many years, by the pedagogical . Unschooling is...un. It's hard to say what it is. Each of us is making it up as we go along.

And that's kind of the point.

This is where I usually insert a garden metaphor. For this family, unschooling is much like hardening off.

Wait, what?

Here, on this very blog, I have covered how to germinate seeds, but I haven't gotten to what to do with them before putting them outside.

In order to have your tender little sprouts all ready to grow in the big bright outdoors, they will need to be hardened off, or exposed to the sunlight in small, indirect doses, in order to acclimate them to full-time sunshine gradually. Otherwise, the sun's rays will bleach them white and kill them within an afternoon. Not that that ever happened to me or anything.

A good way to start is on cloudy days, or in the shade, letting about-to-be-transplants be uncovered for only a couple of hours at a time, for a couple of days. The rest of the time, they should be indoors, or under cover.

These barrel halves let light through to the salad seedlings hiding under them.

Increase their time in the sun in the days to come, and in about a week, the world won't be such a lethal place to the delicate plantlings. If you are successful at the art of knowing when to shelter them, and when to expose them, they will be as strong and healthy as they need to be for the rest of their days. They become tough and sure, strong from within and tempered from without.

This is where I usually insert a learning metaphor. I think hardening off needs to happen to people too, to help them grow in the world. Only, instead of UV radiation, we must learn to weather the opinions, criticism, and scrutiny of others. I feel we flourish when we find a small but adequate space in our mind, where our intuition calls the shots, and we come to care very little about what the people around us think of us.

 This can be accomplished in school too.

You see, I wouldn't be anythingschooling if I let the words and thoughts of those close to me influence me very much. Years ago, our decision to stray from conventional public school for everyone all the time solicited many an unsolicited opinion. Not feeling like slaying misconceptions about unschooling, I would say we had decided to home school a kid or two, and suddenly it was story time. Some of the people in my life felt the fact that they would choose differently for their family was relevant to what my family was doing. It really wasn't. I knew it and that was good enough. I thanked them for their advice and made my plans anyway.

Like most mothers, what I've taught my kids has largely been about treating others with respect. It's what we parents do: tell them to share, use their words, solve their problems, and treat others as they would like to be treated. All of that still stands. Nevertheless, along this little path, I've unlearned preoccupation with what others think about my decisions. Such concerns are unimportant, often inaccurate, and ultimately completely impossible to resolve.

 How can you please everyone? There are songs about how impossible that is.

The process of raising these people, whateverschooling we're using, has been a gradual process of finding what motivates and going with that. I have come to trust that thing inside that tells me what to do next, more completely than the notions of somebody who is not living my life. I have come to trust us to define these things for ourselves as we go along. So, even though George, working his way through a science workbook, looks very schooly, or Henry's clarineting literally happens at a school; unschoolings are afoot. Being an autodidact doesn't mean you can't elect to use resources at your disposal to learn things and have experiences of your choosing.

 Unschoolers can, and often do, choose to be taught.

My  self-led learners are also expected to practice delayed gratification and impulse control out the a. Ain't nothing school about that.That's just the natural result of living in a big messy house full of animals. Obligation, responsibility, and concern for others get a daily workout.

There is no shortage of reasons why you will not get what you want as soon as you want it in our home. So go outside and play.You've been HARDENED OFF!

 See? Our fence is just like the one on the BU background!

These Little Gem Lettuces are ready for the big time. All acclimated and everything, my once-sprouts are now standing on their own in the sun. The soil under them is a vast place for deep roots, the sun above shines intensely at times, the sky brings wind and rain; and they're ready for all of it. Those bright leaves know what's up. Inherently perfect (even when the bugs show up later this summer) this whole robust arrangement has had the right mix of tough love and tender care, and will tick through the clock of its life, inspiring many a photograph, I'm sure.

Kind of like these people I'm growing, except I won't eat them.
Probably.