When we started homeschooling, even though I’d been a teacher, I remember wondering how in the heck we would manage all the learning I thought we had to do?
When we started moving from homeschooling to unschooling, I still wondered if it would really work to let a learner’s interests and curiosity drive their education.
I was still in the schooling mindset; that learning was somehow separate from life. And that it only “counted” if someone else told you what to do and how to do it and then measured it.
It took awhile for to deschool myself.
And then a wonderful thing happened, I realized we’d always done tons of learning on our own –it just didn’t look like school. We’d already created an environment with time and space to ask questions and then try to find the answers.
I realized you can allow wondering and curiosity to evolve without having to preplan and control the outcome, and learning will happen. Amazingly motivation that had gone missing can return.
If it seems hard to imagine, here is a little snapshot of unplanned, natural learning that can happen when you make time for wondering, curiosity, listening, and space.