Our homeschooling journey has not always been a smooth one. My oldest is a very intense, spirited, gifted child who has always been “more” of everything. He learns quickly but isn’t easy to teach. He loves to learn new things but only if and when he wants to learn them. And even when he’s interested in something, my attempts to help him learn more can often send him running the other way. We’ve always struggled to find the right way to approach his learning. I don’t really worry about how much he’s learning or if he’s behind on this or that skill. I struggle much more with worrying about whether he’s being challenged enough and whether or not he’s bored. I do also worry about his seemingly narrow and often obsessive interests. He does fascinate me, though, and I am always amazed at how much he knows and remembers and how quickly he catches on to new ideas.
Last year I began to notice a bit more independence in him, a pulling away from me. It started with math - we switched him to Math U See from Singapore. The video instruction allowed him to be almost completely independent (which is good since he is about to overtake me in mathematical ability!). I read more and more on Cindy’s blog Applestars (see her sidbar) about her philosophy of collaborative learning. This seemed to me to be the best of both interest-led learning and unschooling, and a way to really connect with your child and have a meaningful way to facilitate their learning while honoring who they are. We’ve never been complete unschoolers, but rather have had “unschooly” periods. It drives me batty, though, to see my kids doing “nothing” and for Ben this is truly what happens when he is left to his own devices. I witnessed this during this past summer when he became very fidgety and even more irritable and seemed quite uninterested in anything. As we went into this “school year”, I made a point of sitting down with him to discuss what he might want to learn/do/explore. He seemed relieved to have “things to do” and to know that his brain was going to be more engaged again and that there would be expectations for him to be productive each day. I think that he really values those things.
He told me immediately that he wanted to continue on with the level of Math U See where he’d left off (he has now finished that and is waiting on me to get him the next level) and together we chose a couple of other resources, including Challenge Math.
Next we looked at the Thames and Cosmos science kits together, as I felt that this might be a good route for him to take science-wise, and I let him tell me what he was interested in. He excitedly chose the Chemistry one so we ordered that (Chem C2000), and he’ll begin that hopefully this week. He also chose on his own to read The Mystery of the Periodic Table which I’d tried to introduce to him two years ago but he wasn’t interested in - I mentioned it again in light of his science kit choice and he’s already read through it totally on his own over the past few weeks and apparently enjoyed it.
His other big thing was that he wanted to learn some computer programming and video game creation types of skills this year. I feel that this is such an important part of who he is, and I really want to make this happen for him. My problem, though, is that I am quite computer illiterate, and I have very little understanding of what he needs to learn and how to go about finding resources for him. We discussed how he might go about doing this - a class, a tutor, a book, an online tutorial - and he chose to try online tutorials for now. The first thing he was using was an introductory programming tool called Scratch which just uses blocks of programmed information (see, I’m not even sure I’m explaining this right!) that you piece together to create either a video/animation or a game. He has now (over the past few weeks) made several animations and a couple of games. He really has a lot of fun playing around with it and seemed to catch on rather quickly. He even taught Madeline how to use it and helped her to create some animations too. Just yesterday he began to use a free online tutorial that will teach him HTML. Then after that he wants to learn Java and Flash. We’ll see how this goes! I’m very excited that he’s actually beginning to learn these things, but so nervous because I have no idea how to help him if he gets stuck. And he’s such a perfectionist that I’m sure he chose this route so that he won’t have to make mistakes in front of another person. Maybe if he gets stuck we can find a “… for Dummies” book on the topic.
So we are making big progress in finding him outlets for his main interests (math, science, computers). He is already an avid reader and reads for at least a few hours every day. He mostly reads sci fi/fantasy stuff like Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, Eragon, Animorphs, etc. as well as his beloved Muse magazine (this thing is truly amazing). He also reads a book each month for his book club (often books that he wouldn’t necessarily pick up on his own), but his dad and I are thinking that we’d also like to encourage him to read other books (he has a fairly narrow interest range in reading material) so I’m compiling a list of other books for him to choose from (one a month or so).
Then there’s history. He hates it, he says. Doesn’t want to have anything to do with it (”I’m a modern kid in the technological age. Why do I have to learn about all this old stuff?”) So I asked him if there are any parts of history that he might be interested in at all. He told me maybe he’d be interested in how we got to this point in technology (maybe a look at the Industrial Age and then on to find out how more modern technology came to be??) and that he might be somewhat interested in WWI and WWII. We had just finished up through the American Rev in our chronological study of history - haven’t gotten to any of the stuff he might be interested in yet. I suppose I need to start to think outside the box for him history-wise. I’m also considering finding out about history documentaries that would be accessible for a bright 11 yo since I think he’d find that more appealing than even the most interesting living history book. I’ve also heard about the Horrible History series and need to check that out.
Finally, to round things out a bit, I handed him a catalog of learning resources and told him to see what he could find in it that sounded interesting. He chose a logic workbook (Orbiting with Logic) that teaches all kinds of logical thinking. He’s been working through this a couple of pages a day and seems to be enjoying that. He also chose a book about the periodic table which turned out to be a dud and a book called Philosophy for Kids which I was surprised at but pleased. We haven’t gotten into it yet, but I hope to this week. It’s more of a read and discuss kind of thing.
So, all in all, collaborative learning seems to be going very well this year and seems right on track for what Cindy has said (I think). I am seeing much more independence on his part, much more of an interest in working with me to find resources to meet his needs, still a fascination with his own hobbies/interests (Bionicle and Yu-Gi-Oh and video/computer games), but also a willingness to meet me partway to get to topics/skills that I feel he needs to get to. And it really is so helpful when he does communicate with me (which now that he’s a bit older he can do better) to tell me what he needs/wants so that I can go out there and find the right resources for him and be a good facilitator to help meet his learning needs.
I’m trying to apply this approach to my younger kids too and trust that what I’ve seen happening with Ben this year will happen with them too and just let them go a bit. It’s such a complicated process for me. But I think I’m learning…
