How are my children ‘educated’?

I last wrote about unschooling back in Feb ’22. Here we are in September ’24, where the girls get asked by well-meaning strangers ‘are you enjoying the holidays?’, ‘what year are you going into next?’ etc. It is not just the girls who look confused at these questions, but I too, am always taken by surprise that most adults don’t know what to talk about with children, other than school. We have to choose our answers carefully because it really throws people off when we say summer is no different for us, just another part of the year. Some ask concerning questions, some make derogatory comments about how ‘brave’ I am and proceed to wish me ‘luck’ (childism at full-play) and some people feel uncomfortable and don’t know how to respond…que the awkward silence.

However, the longer we live like this as a family, it just makes so much sense. If anything, I have to hide my confusion as to why more people don’t make this choice.

For context, I now have an 8 year old and a 5 year old. What began as a journey led by both my husband and I; our intuition, our readings and learnings on what it means to be educated has quickly morphed into a journey led by our children. I’ve witnessed now that these girls (and I believe, all children) don’t need to be ‘taught’ in the formal context we are led to believe, they don’t need to be encouraged to find enthusiasm and wonder, they don’t need punishments or rewards to explore their world, it is a natural birth right they all have, if we let them. If only our society was structured in a way that all adults had the chance to witness the internal motivation within children to follow their interests and desires, we would quickly realise how disruptive the school system is to a natural learning state.

Ah, I hear people say [think], but what level maths do they do? What books are they reading independently? If we were to use this scale of measurement as ‘educated’, then sure thing, my child is ‘behind’.

But here are the questions I wish were asked more often;

How many nights does your child go to bed with anxiety for the following day?

How many mornings do they wake naturally?

How many days a week do you have slow, calm and connected breakfasts as a family?

How many projects does your child start spontaneously per day?

How many projects are they allowed to finish whilst the desire is still there?

How varied in age are their friends?

How many meals a day do your children get to plan, cook and eat as a family?

As a family, we prioritise our children’s emotional growth and well-being above all else. This isn’t to say we shun all aspects of academia… we are very passionate learners in this house; the 4 of us! The daily practice that gets prioritised is reading, the girls hear us say often that ‘if you can read, you can do anything’, and they believe it. Our eldest is bursting with enthusiasm, often declaring plans of becoming a bee keeper, opening a rescue-vet centre, being a nurse, opening a café…all of which she could do, if she chose to pursue those paths, but each time a conversation starts up, we again return to the need to be able to read, so that she can explore these avenues in real life when the time comes. Then it gets me thinking; Imagine her having to wait until she’s 18 or 21 to focus deeply on a subject?! Without the limitations of school, there is no reason why she can’t study bee keeping over the coming years, independently researching the ethics and skills needed from books in the library, blogs and videos on the internet, real-life apprenticeships with a local bee-keeper. Imagine a genuine desire to enter medicine being allowed to flourish earlier; days spent studying biology, anatomy and medicine, or the contrary, a child’s days filled with practicing their favourite instrument and composing and performing over pointless biology lessons if there is no desire there to enter medicine! We don’t all need to study the same subjects as each other for so many years, at the same time…we deserve to be given time to find out what we want to learn, and to be given the trust in self-directed natural learning. You only have to look at a group of people in their 40s to see how many of them take it upon themselves to make complete career changes, choosing to learn freely and independently something that is of interest to them, it doesn’t all have to be completed by age 18!

But anyway, back to reading practice in our home, our current rhythm is once we have finished breakfast my eldest reads aloud a small book to us, this can take as little as 10 minutes per day. It can also happen in any location; the garden, the kitchen, town, a train… wherever we are really. This began because she showed a desire to read, she literally said ‘I want to read’, and so began our reading journey. We aren’t perfect, and there has been many mornings where she has said ‘I don’t want to do it’, but I am a lover of rhythms, and I have insisted we keep this rhythm as a way of her gaining independence in her learning journey. Our 5 year old is always sat with us during this reading practice, she simply loves listening to stories, and I have been blown away at how, without me knowing, she has picked up on letters and even words. She has never asked to read, but all this time she has been absorbing and surprises us all when she points to a letter/word and says it. I’m sure this year, she too will start reading aloud to us after breakfast. Books are all over our house, in every room, even on kitchen shelves. They see both their parents read daily for pleasure and purpose. We read to the girls throughout the day, and every evening we snuggle down before bed and they each choose a book for us to read to them. Why we would push for independent reading so early is lost on me, reading aloud, engaging in the characters and the plot together is so nourishing for all the family. Especially when you move onto chapter books, and have to wait for the following night to find out what happens, the suspense is real!

A day in the life of a home-ed family;

Yesterday we celebrated ‘not-back-to-school-day’, it wasn’t planned but as our day un-folded I realised it was back-to-school in our local area, and it highlighted to me how much beauty, connection, fun and learning filled our day so effortlessly. It was an unexpected warm, sunny day and so the girls raced upstairs to choose a summer dress to wear, as the forecast for the rest of the week was set to be heavy rain! This then progressed into them wanting to paint their nails (we use this one ) I love seeing how they express themselves via their image at this age as it’s so varied; one day it’s nail varnish and summer dresses, the next it is torn & stained t-shirts and shorts and many a hot days it is just knickers! But most importantly it is chosen by them. Before I’d even managed to get changed myself, they were outside chatting to our neighbours, I could hear through the open window ‘Good morning Chiara, how are you today? What are your plans?’ and I smiled, thankful that they have the time to slow down and ask these questions to their friends, who so happens to be a 40-year-old woman! I then took this time to do some sweeping and mopping upstairs, and continued to smile as I saw that skipping ropes had been taken outside and frustration was building at it not turning out as they wanted. As I headed down, I gave some tips but what they needed to see was a professional in action…we turned to YouTube and within minutes we were all in awe at Floyd Mayweather and his insane skipping ability! The girls were just mesmerised. I explained how dedicated he is to his sport, how hard and how often he has to train and how you can become a master of any field which interests you. This is a perfect example of natural learning, we didn’t plan it, we didn’t wait for a P.E lesson, and we won’t be following it up again (unless asked). It was an organic curiosity from 2 girls, wanting to skip in the sunshine. It planted the seeds it needed to plant (how practice and persistence is needed & how it is more than the body at play when mastering a physical skill because intense focus is needed to time the jumps just right) and there the seeds will be left to grow.

We then jumped onto the bike, and cycled into town. We had 3 non-food orders to unpack in our shop, which the girls love doing. Here they got to work independently unpacking, reading and organising the stock, all the while enjoying spontaneous dialogue with our employee (a 20 year old male), our regular customers (ranging from 70year old females to 3 year old boys) and some new customers! All of which they were equals to. Unlike a school system where a teacher unfortunately has to take the authoritative figure and speaks to a group of children and very rarely has the time to listen and exchange equal dialogue, even if good intentioned, as there aren’t enough hours in the day for 15-30 children to get to ‘chat’ with elders in the school (or other aged children for that matter).  

After finishing up ‘work’, we wandered down to our local independent coffee shop, ordered 3 funky lattes; butterfly pea latte, rose latte, animundi herb latte and sat in their gorgeous sunny yard for a well-deserved pause. Back home we cycled, and the 3 of us swung by to speak to a neighbour who so happens to be my herbalist as she needed to ask me some questions about some herbs I’m getting from her. Again, this is normal for us, to all be together, but something made me aware of it yesterday. That, if they were at school, they wouldn’t witness these kinds of real-life dialogues. I didn’t make them come with me (they could’ve played at home/outside), I didn’t emphasise what was being said, they just simply witnessed two women talking about herbs and health and when curiosity was peaked, they asked questions to her directly, confidently and with genuine interest. I then headed home alone to start making lunch, and the girls went to pick some food for lunch; they came back with a bountiful harvest of tomatoes and cucumbers.

After lunch we collectively cleaned up the kitchen, hoovered the rest of downstairs (as upstairs was done earlier in the morning), lit some incense and sat down to enjoy some home-made ice cream we made the week before (mint choc chip flavour! Made with silken tofu would you believe?!) The girls loved it and excitedly announced ‘yay we never have to buy ice cream again, this is GREAT’.

We were then all pleasantly surprised by their dad coming home earlier than usual, so off the 3 of them trotted to pack away the gigantic paddling pool for the winter. It’s been an ongoing project for over a week as it needed emptying, cleaning, hanging and drying…quite the task, but now it’s all boxed up ready for next year. This again, is natural learning, we don’t ‘make’ our children do these tasks with us, we don’t pay them to do jobs and we don’t do them when they’re away at school. For us, it’s just life and they are a part of it. If they want a clean useable paddling pool next summer, then it needs to be taken care of collectively, which they know, without being told.

After some free-play around the land, I went to find them with some gardening gloves and secateurs; it was time to harvest nettle seeds! Foraging nettle seeds brings us so much joy; the walk around the land, the eye-spy feel to it when someone spots a big healthy patch of nettles bursting with heavy green seeds. We snipped what we needed and headed home to tie them up. Here they will dry for 3-4 days and then we will remove the leaves and stems and remove the seeds and store in a glass jar. A nutritious adaptogenic that will serve us well through the winter! (click this link to learn more about nettle seeds)

By this time, all the neighbours had returned from their first day at school. The kids were out doing their thing with their friends; trampoline, climbing trees, scooters etc and their dad and I go and pick some more food for dinner (beetroot, salad, courgette, basil). The kitchen is the heart of our home, and that’s where you will find us at any given time. Shortly before dinner, the children excitedly run around asking if they can watch a ‘Shawn the Sheep’ episode with the neighbours, and so that’s what they did. Whilst at the neighbours they also got to watch the 15-year-old big sister make a homemade teriyaki sauce for their dinner, they asked lots of questions about it and it was all relayed to us over dinner…how it smelt, what was in it, what they were marinating with it and how we simply MUST make teriyaki this weekend.

Our days are so diverse, sometimes we are in nature all day, other times we don’t leave the house, sometimes there’s no screens for weeks, other times we have screens daily, sometimes we have intentional meet ups and social events, other times we are more inward…but throughout it all, we are living amongst one another and learning. Oh, we all learn so much. I feel so grateful I am able to provide this opportunity to our family. An opportunity to be with each other this much and to learn at a natural pace. Thank you to those people who created podcasts, wrote books, published articles…they’ve all helped me land here, experiencing this. And of course thank-you to the real-life people I have met, who live like this and inspire me to follow their footsteps…footsteps of family connection and freedom. There’s nothing richer.

Returning to my title of ‘how are my children educated?’, I believe they experience real-life, natural learning at a pace set differently each day by them. I believe there is no start or end to their learning day, because each day, each moment is an opportunity to grow and connect with themselves, others and the world around them.