Is Unschooling Working?

Unschooling can be a scary proposition sometimes. Lora has expressed some concerns recently because Serenity is not reading quite at the level that would be "expected" of a nine year old in the public schools. (Serenity does read pretty well actually, it's reading where others can hear that it becomes a problem) This worries Lora mostly because it gets in the way of Serenity going to Sunday School at church since there is some reading required there.

I have to admit that our Church is the one place where I find that unschooling does not seem to really fit. This is not because Christianity is somehow opposed to the concept of unschooling, it's not. It is because at our church the members of our congregation are VERY conservative theologically, politically and culturally. I only agree with the theology, the political and even much of the cultural stuff we disagree on, but I don't go there for political or cultural reasons, I go there to hear the Word of God preached in its fullness, the Law in all its sternness and the Gospel in all its sweetness. I go to receive the forgiveness of sins through the absolution and the sacraments.

The conservative American culture, including at our church, has many expectations about how children should be, what they should be doing and learning how they should look and act. Serenity is sort of on the edge of those expectations, almost but not quite fitting in. Her reading level is just one way she is a bit different from the rest. Our church teaches Young Earth Creationism for example and Serenity and I know that is not an accurate reading of the cosmos, clearly the universe is billions of years old and just as clearly evolution happens at least on some levels. But that's OK, I don't go to church to learn science either.

Serenity has other interests and goals that don't really require reading right now, especially since Grandpa and Mom are there to read the tough parts when she gets stuck, so she's not very motivated to master that skill yet. I've met many unschooled kids and reading came to them all at different ages, it's not a worry for me at all. Serenity's spoken vocabulary is far beyond the other kids she is around, and she knows what the "big words" she uses mean too. She likes to role play (relationships) and draw and paint (art) make forts (design and problem solving) and watch animals from her rat to butterflies to birds (biology). She is very sociable and, unlike Lora or me, she loves to talk and be around people.

Serenity loves to learn though she most likely wouldn't put it that way herself. Sometimes she wants more information on something and she and I will look it up on the internet or in a book. I'm not worried that unschooling is not working, it is. It would be nice if she could go to Sunday School and fit in there, but I'm not about to use a hammer to pound her into the conservative culture just for that. She hears the word of God in church and we try to have daily prayers, with erratic results granted, here at home. Really, Sunday School is a recent invention, Martin Luther said that the head of the household should teach the catechism at home, we've begun to read parts of the catechism during prayers in the evening, Serenity reads the main point and I read the explanations. I think that will be more than good enough, better even than once a week in a "class" full of fidgety kids listening to a prepared lesson. :-)

Jeff Sabo has a nice post on the question of how you can tell if unschooling is "working" or not. Check out Jeff's post below.