Written by Kari Patterson of Sacred Mundane.
Spring’s come early to Oregon and the chickens are laying again. The picture below is the real-time view from my perch here on the back porch, as I watch the kids creating animal farms in the yard.
Yes, “animal farms” are as simple as they sound: tupperware containers filled with worms, spiders, centipedes, snails and slugs.
To the left are the chickens.
We joke that we only raise the finest “free-range” chickens. Of course they are free-range, we leave the gate open and let them roam around the yard during the day.
Achieving “free-range” is much easier than it sounds.
But “free-range” is a funny thing, right? It’s a label we attach that conjures up an image that’s probably far from reality.
More and more we are becoming label-obsessed and label-dependent, and while I’m certainly not here to take issue with the food industry (I’m just happy to have food on my table!), I’ve noticed that the label-happy mentality sticks itself to our homeschooling habits as well.
Classical, TJED, unschool, Charlotte Mason, Montessori, Waldorf, and there’s more … all of these have excellent elements, and one of them may be the perfect fit for your family.
Or not.
You may just be a loving, responsible parent educating her children to the best of her ability, drawing from many rich sources, and keeping a close eye on how each child is developing.
I’m in the middle of Jamie’s helpful book recommendation, Free-Range Learning, which is giving some great encouragement along our education journey. What I find about myself however (not a weakness of the book, but of me) is that I often find myself doubting, “Am I free-range enough? Am I too Classical? Am I too unschool?”
Once again, I lean too hard into labels, finding my confidence in whether I’m adhering enough to a certain educational model.
Instead of studying labels, I’m better off studying my kids.
Certainly not knocking educational models–I love them! I’ve learned loads of invaluable information from many different books and models, but I know a good egg not by the label on the container — I know a good egg when I see it.
Raising chickens has ruined me for regular eggs. I know the warm feel of that fresh-laid egg, the dark yellow-orange yoke, the rich flavor. Mmmm…
Again, not here to argue eggs. My point is:
Let us beware of endless labeling, of an obsessive adherence to a certain model. I find my most consistent success when I keep a closer eye on my kids than anything else. I know a “good egg” thing when we’ve got it, even if it doesn’t come in a curriculum-carton.
Even the label “homeschooler” can be sticky.
The truth is, all responsible parents train, nurture, and educate their children in a wide-variety of ways. My best friend public-schools her kids and does this. My sister-in-law immersion-schools her kids and does this. Most of us here homeschool our kids and do this.
Photo by hardworkinghippy
We have so much to gain from each other when we peel off those labels, and learn from each other. We begin to relax our shoulders a bit and ask questions:
- How do you balance structure with free-time?
- How do you teach your kids to care for the environment?
- How do you instill your family’s core values?
- How do you help your kids with math?
- What most helped your kids learn to read?
- What extra-curricular activities have most benefited your child?
- Is there anything you wish you had done differently?
- What do you most enjoy about how you’ve chosen to educate? What are the challenges?
When we care less about our labels than we do learning, we’ll more readily study our children and openly engage with others whose education models are different from our own.
Oh, and that “free-range” thing: It’s so much easier than we think. Sometime during the day, whether that’s after your school or it is your school, let them roam around a bit and dig in the dirt for worms.
Chickens and children alike thrive there.
What have you learned from others whose educational model differs from your own? Thanks for reading!
Giveaway: $111 package from Raddish Culinary Curriculum
Oh those labels. At this point, it is tough for me to even say that we homeschool because we live life. Our life happens to include having our children at home with us and helping them along the way. I am in the middle of Free Range Learning as well. I am enjoying it as a follow-up to Free to Learn and Sapiens (all books that I highly recommend). These books are also bringing a lot of awareness to me about labeling children with things such as anxiety, ADHD, ADD, etc. I am not for or against it. The books are just putting these features in a new light for me. 🙂
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Great post, Kari. I’ve only been homeschooling for a year but we are definitely unschool/child-led/free range homeschoolers. That said, whenever I *say* those words/labels, folks refute them. “Oh you can’t be an unschooler if your child uses some curriculum,” they’ll say. It’s a shame that this happens because it puts a bump in the road toward creating a sense of community.
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This is a wonderful post. I hope all of us can get past divisions created by people who want to narrowly define unschooling and other forms of homeschooling. I know I struggled to find our own path, one that had to do with what each one of my four kids needed.
Since Kari so kindly mentioned my book Free Range Learning I thought I’d toss in a post about how I came up with that name. It had to do with chickens and my (then, young teen) daughter’s observations. http://lauragraceweldon.com/2014/06/26/free-range-chickens-free-range-learning/
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Thank you so much for chiming in, Laura! What an honor. I’ve enjoyed your book!
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I very much “school at home.” I was a teacher. Its what I know. My two elementary age daughters do well with the structure. They actually like workbooks. They are fairly independent completing their work. I feel they are getting a good education . I tried to join the one local homeschooler group that was supposed to be open to everyone. However, the leader is an unschooler, who is most definitely a “better late than early” schooler. She was so rude and patronizing to me. I was sad to see that there wasn’t room for other opinions or methods.
I’m sorry for that Lacy. I hope you find a community where you and give and receive grace for all the various ways we educate our children! Thanks for reading.
Kari Patterson’s latest post: Free-range kids and letting go of labels
“The truth is, all responsible parents train, nurture, and educate their children in a wide-variety of ways.” What a beautiful statement!
Although my 3 children attend a public elementary school during the day I still believe that I (and my husband) are in charge of our children’s education. We do allow someone to help us with portions of their education but ultimately we are the responsible party. I keep the philosophy that learning doesn’t just happen in a school building. At home we work on math, reading, history, science, PE, music, etc. in an unschooling way. For right now the balance works for us. We are constantly looking at our situation to ensure that we are making the right decision for each kid, and who knows, maybe sometime soon I’ll quit my job as a public school teacher and unschool my children full time or find some other option that meets our families needs.
Thank you for sharing such an encouraging post for all parents.
Love this! Thanks for chiming in, Meghan. I agree, it can look so different for many of us. Thanks for reading!
Kari Patterson’s latest post: Free-range kids and letting go of labels
Really wonderful post. I have been guilty of feeling like I had to be 100% whatever method I was into at the time, and honestly it was a disservice to my kid. Things are so much better now that I’m comfortable with a “little bit of this, little bit of that” approach.
Absolutely! Brilliant piece, especially the line quoted by another commenter about all parents educating. I’ve been a public school teacher, a private school teacher, a homeschool co-op teacher, a tutor, as well as a student in each of those contexts! Now that I’m starting down the path with my own children, suddenly all the options and labels are feeling overwhelming! It’s good to be reminded of what I myself have encouraged parents with over the years: you’re already doing a fantastic job because you’re taking responsibility for your child(ren)’s education, regardless of what their daily location is! 🙂
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Thank you so much Elisabeth! I”m so happy we have found each other here in this online space! 🙂
Kari Patterson’s latest post: Free-range kids and letting go of labels
I love this post! Very encouraging and inspiring. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thank you, Jessica! So glad!
It’s so true that we get caught up in labels. I saw it when my son was a newborn and people were arguing about breastfeeding (does it still count as “exclusively” breastfeeding if you pump, supplement, etc?) and I saw it for years as a special education teacher, when people would get bogged down in “does he have XYZ diagnosis or ABC diagnosis?” sometimes with real consequences for a child’s program or funding determination. It’s such a natural human behavior to categorize and to get into an us vs. them mentality based on the categories you support or oppose. We need to feel like we belong and have a justification for our actions, so we say we’re following such-and-such method or we’re part of such-and-such ingroup in order to bolster our confidence. It’s scary to be out there on your own! It’s part of why I am opting out of the school system for my own child, though – labeling is *heavily* encouraged and practiced in schools.
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“Instead of studying labels, I’m better off studying my kids.”
Beautifully said and such an important reminder for this momma. There are so many labels floating around my head these days, many of them homeschool related, many of them medical diagnoses and the associated labels. The truth is, even when it is a medical label, the more I study my boys, the more I figure out how to best help them.