Advertencia: A Banana Bread Education?

Denver creates his own Banana Bread Education

This morning I spent an hour talking with a caring mother who is worried about her child's education.  The child is in high school and failing many subjects despite the child's ability to do  well.  The mother wanted to talk about homeschool as an alternative.  She was also interested in Georgia's Virtual Academy, and anything else that might work to get her child to focus on schoolwork. 

Although I had no idea what to tell this wonderful, caring, worried mother, I did have an image in my mind of what school looks like when you don't want to do it.  It goes on for a minimum of 12 years, and it may look something like this:

We are a homeschooling family relatively new to living without school buses, hours of daily homework, weekend projects, months of prepping for annual testing, and the limitations of the school calendar.  Although we do have things we are learning that are quite in keeping with traditional education-- algebra, Latin, writing, robotics projects-- we also have so much freedom in how, when, and what we learn that life is altogether more lovely than it used to be.  I dare say we are learning more than ever before, but we're learning so effortlessly that it often feels like play.

For instance, Denver is six, and he will tell you that he cannot read.  Yet, two weeks ago he read the recipe to make banana bread.  He looked in the pantry and identified the ingredients needed (by reading the container labels).  With minimal assistance, he measured out the ingredients, correctly reading the fractions on the measuring cups and reading the measuring spoons.  With very little assistance (I asked him to allow me to move the bread in and out), Denver set the timer on the oven and made the most delicious banana bread I've ever eaten. 

So what was Denver's banana bread making?  Math, Home Ec, Chemistry, Reading?  Could that have been taught in school?  In fact, what was taught to Denver?  Nothing.  He was just playing and enjoying being part of our family and doing grown up kinds of things-- reading, measuring, using a mixer, and creating good things to eat.  Yet I have no doubt that Denver learned something that afternoon.  He may even have learned something from me; but I didn't set out to teach him anything.  We were just making a dessert.

Spencer helped me learn a similar lesson today.  He walked up this afternoon and said, "The Spanish word for warning looks a lot like our word for Advertisement.  That's weird." 

I tried to remember what he was talking about.  "Oh, Yes," I said, "Advertencia does look like Advertisement."  We briefly discussed why that might be.  I was proud he had been studying a bit of Spanish with his grandmother, and was obviously learning something from her teaching.  I silently congratulated her on teaching him before asking, "Where did you learn that?  Was it from Mimi?"

"Oh, No," he said as he skipped away, "I just read it on the back of one of my toys."

Who could have planned that?  Who taught it?  No one.  Was something learned?  Yes . . . by both of us.

Learning happens in so many ways.  School isn't the only way.  Life may be a better way.  A gentler lesson plan more in keeping with a child's own interests may be a better way-- if you can give a child that freedom; if the child is willing to embrace that freedom.  Certainly, more structure is needed to learn certain things-- trigonometry, for instance.  But many things can be learned much better if it arises in the course of our lives and in a way that is ours to choose. But I didn't know how to say that to the worried mother this morning.  And I can't guarantee that I'm right.