My Deschooling Story

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by Jenny (in Victoria, Australia)

When your children have tripped off to school for more than 6 hours every day, 5 days a week for 40 weeks a year and for more than 5 years, you know there will be a culture shock when it all comes to a grinding halt (for parents and children alike).

My thanks to Jenny for sending me this story and allowing me to share it with you. You can read more about deschooling on this page.

We spent endless amounts of time planning how we would go about homeschooling them: lesson plans, worksheets, any number of ways we could find that would help them to learn. It all seemed so good, in theory anyway. After all, I naively believed their days would need to be filled with some form of curriculum otherwise what right did we have to be homeschooling them.

We developed a routine that began at 9am and finished at 3pm. I spent a great number of hours most nights on the internet looking for inspiration while the children began to show more and more signs of a complete lack of interest as the emphasis seemed to be more on the “school” in home school.

I was horrified to realize that school had robbed them of their passion for learning and me telling them what to do on a daily basis was certainly not going to help them rediscover their once natural curiosity to learn.

After a few short months of denial I suddenly stepped back and realized what was happening. We had taken our children out of school because we wanted them to find their joy, not to be told what they were good or bad at, or what they should or should not do. What exactly was it that I was holding onto so vehemently except perhaps my own ignorance and poor programming?

So I just let go.

The worksheets stopped, the kids smiled.
The planning stopped, I smiled.
And suddenly there was plenty of time for us all to find ourselves.

Instead of worksheets the children had time to be creative.

Photo courtesy of epredator

There were stories written, pictures drawn and painted - they even started reading more. We all started playing games again just for the fun of it. 9am became 9.30 ish and 3pm became 2 – 2.30 ish. We all needed that time to let go. And after a few months we were all ready for more.

But I didn’t return to the worksheets or the lesson plans because during those few months I had discovered my creativity. I had also learned to listen to my children and not to the opinions of do-gooders and Monday’s experts.

My children are still somewhat suspicious of anything that resembles school work but that’s O.K. Luckily, learning can be found in some of the most obscure places and who doesn’t enjoy a game of hide and seek!

I don’t know of a right way or a wrong way to de-school your children or even if all families have a need to do it, but one thing I have learned is that inspiration can’t be found “out there”. It is something you will find inside yourself – you just need to give yourself and your children a little time.

My thanks to Jenny for sending me this story and allowing me to share it with you. You can read more about deschooling on this page.

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