natural learning

Reading is the Reward

June 2, 2016 by Rebekah Leave a Comment

Yesterday we ventured to our local farmer’s market as we do every Wednesday to grab some dinner…and the occasional maple bacon donut (good lord these are good-if you are local to South Jersey, these beauties are from Farm and Fisherman). With food in tow, we ended up sitting next to the public library’s info table. I love that the library has a table at the farmer’s market. As we ate, the woman working the booth approached the table and asked if we were members. Of course we are, and we go to the library weekly. Awesome.

She handed me their list of summer programming for kids and then…

“are you part of our reading for rewards program?”

oh no. I have super strong feelings about reading for rewards folks. And they are not good feelings. Not wanting to stir the pot while we ate dinner, I took the sheet that promised my son a variety of silly rewards for each “milestone.” Read: large amount of books he could read by a certain time.

“1,000 books before kindergarten. Then they can be recognized!”

and my smart ass, “recognized by who?”

“well, the library.”

“oh.” I stopped myself. I really did! It was hard.

While I LOVE the library and I love the idea of kids everywhere reading millions of books, I have a big problems with the idea of reading for rewards. Here’s some of them:

I truly believe that when you present reading to kids in this competitive, finish line, get your sticker way, you are embedding in young people that the value of reading lies outside of the actual experience of reading. It does not. As all of us who love to read know, the rewards for reading a good book far surpass a gold star, toy, or recognition that you have completed said book. Confession time: when I finish something by Proust I do crack a bottle of wine and celebrate myself, because dang, those are long and difficult, but I digress…

These programs also glorify quantity over quality. No bueno. Some months I read one AMAZING book. and I don’t want to read anything else. I want to ruminate on that experience- journal it, think on it, live with it- before I move onto the next book. Some months I read a really BAD book and I sit with that, sadly. Wondering who the heck let that go to publishing. Some months I read a whole bunch of books-whole books, half books. It depends. I believe young people should have the same experiences. My son often reads the same book for weeks straight. Some times he reads something once loves it- or doesn’t- and moves on.

If we want our young people to truly love reading, for the sheer pleasure and passion of reading, if we want them to come to us when they are young, book in hand, saying “will you read this to me?” randomly, in the middle of the afternoon, we need to stop pressuring them with programs like these. Take then to the library, ask them what they would like to look for today, show them the sections where things they are interested in are located. Bring books, books, and more books into our homes. Sprinkle books everywhere-leave them in every room, take them outside with you, leave them in the car. Read yourself and let them see you- for pleasure, for a recipe, for directions, for inspiration, for information.

Like so many other things in life we don’t need to shove the value of reading down our young people’s throats. Just live the love of books, they will see it, they will WANT it-if that’s is going to be there thing. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but in their own time, in their own way, they will read what they want, how often they want, because they want to and that will be reward enough ( I once awoke to the horror that my children might not grow up to be book fanatics. After the cold sweats were over I realized it’s ok-not everyone would spend every waking minute reading if they could. I guess…who are these people? Just kidding.)

Solutions? I love the idea of library’s designing more programs for kids that help them delve into their own personal interests using books and library resources. But more on that at another time.

Have a great Thursday, and happy reading (or not- it’s your choice 😉

Yes, They’re Listening

March 18, 2016 by Rebekah 1 Comment

I can’t tell you how many times my Four year old will ask me a question that requires a complicated answer and once I start to answer it, he will, after about on minute, drift of into something else-dancing, jumping, eating, hiding, dinosaurs, construction emergency!

This morning, half way through my answer to his question of “Why is Minnesota so Cold because of where it is in the country?!” he declared with much emergency, “I need a snack!”

This was followed by:

“Is Everything made of molecules?” “What are animals called that don’t have fur or feathers?” “How many different types of birds are there? Are all birds owls or are all owls birds?” “Why do things have a life cycle?””Does everything have a lifecycle?”

And so on, at least 400 of these a day. Most of the time my response begins with, “I wonder…Do you have any ideas?” I let him really flush through these, and then we move on to investigation. (I do this in a effort to not cover over any developing ideas he has going on beneath these questions. Young people at this age are just figuring out how to ask questions, so if we leave space for them to expand their abstract ideas rather than jumping in with our own concrete explanations, we can allow them to better understand how to form questions around concepts they are curious about.)

Listening to these endless questions, while it can be exhausting at times, is one of my favorite parts of unschooling. It’s a privilege to witness this incredible growth hour by hour, day by day. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to hand that privilege over to someone else. And because I value these questions so much it can be frustrating when he phases out mid investigation. Don’t get me wrong, he will focus for long periods when he is working alone, but I can’t even think about pontificating on the subject.

For some reason the Minnesota phase out, as will now be known, had me more annoyed than usual. Maybe it was because I don’t particularly like geography. Or maybe it was because It was early and I have had to give up coffee again. Sigh. I pulled out the picture atlas and I guess I was in the mood to be all “teachery” (side note, when I feel that vibe coming on, I can be sure a phase out is in the near future) anywhoo, because it annoyed me more than usual I decided to think about why.

As usual, I realized it annoyed me because of my own issues and insecurities “What if he doesn’t ever learn things because he refuses to listen to explanations?” Once I got to this place, I realized a few key things that made me feel all good about his disruptive calls of the wild during my explanations:

First, he learns more than anyone I know on a daily basis. So that just signals some more deschooling I need to do on myself.

Second, 99% of the time, every question he asks during the day he revisits later in the evening, usually around bedtime. And guess what? It turns out he was listening the whole time. How do I know this? Because he will ask me a follow up question based on some things I told him while he was dancing, constructing, playing with dinosaurs, or riding in a rocket ship.

And there you have it folks. They are listening. They are always listening. They may not seem like it, but they are. When they seem distracted maybe they are simply busy connecting things, or maybe the answer you gave wasn’t what they were looking for-either way, it doesn’t matter if they drift off, what matters is that we take the time to answer.

This unschooling journey is about nothing more important than relationship. Learning is a side bonus, a natural effect that needs no coaxing. By helping them to find answers to their questions-opening that book, taking them to visit that animal they are so in to, traveling to the museum, searching for the video, and yes, even waxing philosophical on the nature of a life cycle, we are not “teaching” our young people. What we are doing is developing a relationship with them. Joining them on their journey-walking and learning next to them, not in front of them. Developing a trust. We are opening doors, becoming that kind facilitator who takes the time to help them reach those branches of knowledge that they so feverishly seek to reach.