Rogue Learner: How Do Family Values Shape Your Individual Unschooling Journey?

How Do Family Values Shape Your Individual Unschooling Journey?

Jun 23, 2021

Guest Cohost

Sue Monteiro

I am a violinist and violin teacher with an online teaching studio. I have been a homeschooling mom for 16 years. I also run a musical themed online book club called "Learning Music With the Authors" where we read literature based on music and history and discuss the books with the authors. I also have a podcast of the same name where every month I go over the book introduction and review along with author interviews and interviews with musicians as well as present puzzles for the kids who read the books. (They can win prizes if they complete the puzzle!)

monteiromusicstudio.com

monteiromusicstudio@gmail.com

IG @homeschooling_music

https://www.facebook.com/belo.som.3/

"Learning Music With the Authors" Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/42jn5QtMTjHyV7qL89NKCm?si=_BX43J2LSUC4C19S2Upfpw&dl_branch=1

Show Notes

Join Me On The Show!

Listen to last week’s show with Lucy first?

Sue shares how unschooling really saved her and her son. After sending her son to kindergarten for a week, they decided public school wasn’t for them. Her son didn’t want to go each day and was running away from the classroom. Rather than addressing her son’s concerns, the teacher blamed Sue for her son’s behavior. After pulling him out of the traditional kindergarten classroom, she opted for a hybrid homeschooling program. Her son still wasn’t happy there. She ended up taking him out of that program as well. They spent a year unschooling. They went to the zoo, museums, and the beach. After receiving some pressure from her mom, Sue sent her son back to school. The school wanted to test her son to assess his reading level. The teacher said he had an advanced vocabulary and Sue liked the teacher because she was really respectful with her son. Sue liked the teacher and her son attended the school for a year. Once the year was over, and it was time to switch teachers, Sue found herself in the same position she was in when her son was in kindergarten, so she pulled him out again and has been unschooling him ever since. He is 16 now.
Jenna relates to Sue’s journey, as she also felt like there were distinct phases which led them toward an unschooling approach.
Jenna asks Sue to talk about her first takeaway from last week’s show with Lucy AitkenRead, which was centered around children’s rights and the third wave of unschooling.
Sue liked the emphasis on children’s rights because she agrees that children just don’t have rights in today’s society. She shares a fascinating story of when she was asked to volunteer in a middle school. She had a group of student’s, whom she was meant to teach viola and violin to. They were completely disrespectful, even walking out of the classroom and calling her names. She was at a loss for what to do. Finally, she just asked them, “why are you here?” The kids’ reply was, “do you think we have a choice to be here?” This was a loud and clear message for Sue that kids don’t have choices and are not respected. This is the reason for their behavior. They are forced into subjects and classrooms, even if they have no interest in learning the material. Ultimately, this experience convinced Sue that her son should not attend school.
Jenna relates to that experience so much. She says she reflects often on her experiences in the classroom, and wonders what she was doing there. She spent countless hours trying to make her lessons more engaging and more interesting than what the kids would actually rather be doing. But ultimately, she wishes she could have just asked them what they want to do and what they are interested in.
Sue says we can learn a lot from looking back at our own childhoods. Many of the harshest things Sue remembers being said to her during her childhood, came from the lips of adults. A lot of the time, she thinks the way we talk to children gets passed on from generation to generation.
Jenna adds that this is why deschooling is so important. It gives you a chance to reflect on your anger, fear and frustration. It helps you to better control your knee-jerk reactions and get to the bottom of how your emotions influence your reactions. It’s a lot of work and takes time. Jenna shares how she felt a lot of rage when her kids were young. She noticed it was partially an assumption that her kid’s behavior was ill intended on their part. Muddying the kitchen floor, for her, was seen as disrespectful. After loads of reflection and heaps of daily practice, she was able to change how she viewed these behaviors, and thereby freeing her from the rage.
Sue shares a similar experience. Her son used to ride his bike around the neighborhood, up and down people’s driveways and take off. Sue was really angry, but realized that anger was a result of her feeling fearful that he would get hit by a car. Her solution was to find a safer place for him to ride his bike.
Jenna shares a few of her favorite resources for peaceful parenting and consent-based education. Jenna says learning more about children’s rights and respecting children supports our efforts of putting it into practice. (See “resources mentioned in today’s show” at the bottom of this page for all the links.
Jenna shares a quote from Lucy’s episode that really resonated with her and got her “all fired up.” “And until we recognize that and change it, all the charities in the world trying to work on human rights stuff are just peeing into the wind because this stuff has to begin on day one with our children. This has to be a generational shift that recognizes and honors children as valuable, worthy members of society. Otherwise we’re not going to see those shifts towards empathy and respect that will change everything.” “And until we recognize that and change it, all the charities in the world trying to work on human rights stuff are just peeing into the wind because this stuff has to begin on day one with our children. This has to be a generational shift that recognizes and honors children as valuable, worthy members of society. Otherwise we’re not going to see those shifts towards empathy and respect that will change everything.”
Sue adds that she loves that quote too, and the key is talking to our children and asking them what they need. It starts with the parents. She felt like there was really nothing she could do by volunteering for one hour in the middle school orchestra. It was much deeper than that.
Jenna reflects on how she remembers learning about classroom management in her Elementary Education program. The answer to “classroom management” is so obvious to her now. It starts with respect. If the teacher is respectful of her students and truly values them, then “classroom management” is a non-issue.
Sue mentions how much she liked Lucy’s comment in the show about how teenagers have a fire that can change everyone’s lives, but people are sadly afraid of that. She believes teenagers are so capable and she sees compassion in them.
Jenna says she was scared of the teen years upon entering them, as many people are, based on societal perceptions. She discovered though, that her connection with her kids is only growing and the intellectual conversations are fun and she really values their opinions.
Something Jenna may not have articulated clearly in the episode with Lucy AitkenRead - families have their own sets of values. Values shape how we live our lives. That may mean we eat plant-based, attend church services, travel the world, or volunteer in our communities. Many of these actions will inadvertently shape our children’s own values and perceptions as they grow. And in this way, we DO HAVE to acknowledge that parents control certain elements of our children’s lives. Where it gets tricky for me, and where some parents may begin to feel unsure about the line between autonomy and. community, is when our kids push up against our own personal core values or boundaries. They want to eat meat, jump on the furniture, spend their entire day playing video games, etc. But this, at least for me, is where unschooling can be so valuable to parents. We are well versed in our kids’ needs, abilities, and preferences. We’ve spent time developing trusting relationships with them where they feel respected and trusted to do the right thing. Unschooling is our superpower. All of these extraordinary advantages guide us to making informed decisions based on respect and community well being. And something we need to remember about that, is that our family decisions will vary so wildly from one another. Just because we all unschool, does not mean our families share all the same core values and that our children all have the same needs. That would be ridiculous, and is probably why most of us left public school systems, because we KNOW humans are unique and therefore require unique environments to thrive. So basically, I guess what I’m saying is, If we want to resolve conflict in a way that honors our own family’s needs, we'll have to search within our own family for the answers, not rely on a set of rules. And we need to be flexible, ready to adapt as needed.
Sue shares how she teaches violin and viola lessons online and also offers amazing book clubs and podcasts about music history for teenagers. In her latest book club, students got a private Q & A with the author M.T. Anderson discussing his book, The Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad.