Camille is still very happy with her choice to go to school this year. She has a kind teacher and a small class. And since it is
her choice, she takes full responsibility for it. To be honest, I don't care about her grades, or her homework, or her attendance record. I don't enforce a bedtime, a limit on media use at home, or have regulations on food intake. I do encourage respect, kindness, and joy, and if these things are difficult to find in the moment, I try to find a way to smooth the path back to them.
At one point Camille was getting very grumpy and easily aggravated every morning during her first recess. She told me that she felt like lashing out at her friends, and we problem-solved together. It turns out she wasn't eating the breakfast that school provides because she mostly avoids gluten (again,
her choice) and most of the food was gluten-y and unappealing to her. Her teacher now has a cupboard where she can keep gluten-free cereal and other snacks for breakfast or snacktime, and she doesn't have that problem any more.
The reason that I am writing about this is that having approached her life and learning from an unschooling perspective has had a huge (and positive) effect on how we approach her schooling. As a parent, I don't feel like I
have to have an adversarial relationship with her. I can be her safe place to come home to. I can make her healthy lunches, and help with her homework if asked, but I don't feel like I have to be the one to push the school agenda. As the learner, Camille is there because she enjoys the social interaction and the activities. Academically, school is not at all challenging for her, and she does get bored or frustrated occasionally, but she
wants to be there, and that carries her joyfully (most of the time) through the less appealing aspects of it.
She never wants to take a day off
just because, even though she knows she can. She finishes her homework on time every day, and goes to bed at 8:00 every night, because she doesn't want to be sleepy at school. Her teacher says she's a joy to have in class, and her grades are good, (except gym :). But what I actually care about is that she is happy, she is enjoying her school experience, and she is doing it on her terms. And interestingly enough, I think that I have unschooling to thank for that.
By the way, unschooling is sometimes wrongly seen as just letting a child figure everything out on their own, but in actuality, I have seen that the parents of unschoolers (when it works well) are even more involved in their children's learning, but they are more of a support network than a "teacher". For example, a week of unschooling math for Camille might have looked like helping bake a cake, measuring wood for Papa's construction project, figuring out scores on a computer game, playing dice and board games, doing a 1400 number dot-to-dot, and figuring out the best way to spend $5.00 at a thrift store. These things are not done 'to teach math', but the learning is there nonetheless, or maybe all-the-more. Learning happens best when there is actual interest in the subject matter :)
I do miss Camille when she's gone such long hours every day, but she told me tonight in the car that I'm "pretty much her best friend", which of course melted my heart. She has a lot of friends, both in school and out, and even a sweet little 8 year-old home-schooled boyfriend that sewed her a Robin Hood-style hat :) I love to see her so very happy.
So far, Sylvia is still content to be home-schooled/unschooled, and Ayla is far away from those choices, but I know that we will continue to follow the path of happiness and see where that leads us.
All you need for these pretty and simple ornaments, is beading wire (or other thin flexible wire) and sparkly beads. We used 28 gauge beading wire which is thin and very bendy. If you want a sturdier ornament you could use a lower gauge wire. We used inexpensive plastic beads from the craft store this time, but I have also made them with faceted glass beads.
