Self-Initiated Learning
What Does Self-Intiated Learning Look Like?
This hypothetical example comes from The Unschooling Handbook by Mary Griffith:
Early last spring when [Kathleen] helped her parents build some raised beds for their vegetable garden, she was intrigued when they measured the box diagonals to check that the corners were square. She asked lots of questions about angles and shapes as they worked together. Over the next few weeks she began looking seriously into learning more about geometry....she finally decided to use a textbook to dig into the topic more formally....She rarely completes a full problem set, opting to go on to the next concept as soon as she grasps an idea. Her brothers are getting heartily sick of her frequent geometry mini-lectures every time they get out their Lego blocks, but they grudgingly admit she's been building some amazingly complex designs lately (even though they really think she's too old to play with building toys). Kathleen has seen hints of non-Euclidean geometries in her textbook, and she's begun to look for a good introduction to topology. Her dad has offered to check around among some of his more mathematically inclined friends to see if any one might be interested in working with her.
While this example is designed to show unschooling in a home setting, there are many wonderful and relevant points as regard our model:
- The student's interest in an academic topic emerged from real world uses for the knowledge. Our staff will pursue projects of their own and assist students with real world activities in ways that are rich with such possibilities.
- Kathleen might just as easily become interested in soil chemistry, erosion patterns, nutrition, home economics or many other areas of study as a result of the garden project. Real world experiences access a breadth of knowledge not easily divided into "subjects," and our students are not limited by curricula.
- Self-directed learning may go slowly or quickly. Kathleen took weeks to go from initial interest to actual study. Once engaged, she was able to work faster than she would in school, because she didn't need to finish problem sets. Starts and stalls of interest in particular topics are normal.
- The Open School, like a family, includes a range of ages. Just as Kathleen is sharing her advanced information with her younger brothers, our students will be learning from each other. Also, the toys of the younger children (in this case Lego blocks) sometimes make great tools for older learners. At the Open School, no one is too young to engage with a subject or too old to play.
- School curricula are fairly rigid. Math courses in most high schools generally do not cover topology, not because it is beyond understanding, but because one simply can't teach all areas of mathematics in four years. Why trigonometry and not topology? In most cases the answer is for the sake of setting standards. Self-directed learners are never told they have to wait until the next unit, next grade-level, or until college to study a subject of interest.
- Kathleen is lucky to have a dad who is so well-connected with intelligent, generous individuals. Our Community Portal project attempts to set up these connections in anticipation of a very wide range of interests.
Sometimes it takes time for a student who is used to schooling to find his or her own motivations and interests. This is a natural part of the process that some call "adjusting" or even "withdrawl" or "detox." Grace Llewellyn, in The Teenage Liberation Handbook, calls it "vacation," and offers this example of a home-unschooler who went through it:
...[W]ith no curriculum, Emily was lost at first:I still didn't know what to expect, or what I would want to do with the time, because back then I wasn't interested in much of anything....My attitude was still so rebellious. I was so fed up with school that I felt I didn't want to do anything. There was so much tension that first week.The change was very gradual. Your whole thinking changes. In school, everything's programmed for you, this is how you have to think, and then all of a sudden you're on your own, and you don't know what you want to do....Emily goes on to explain how she eventually discovered that she thinks mechanically and logically, and how she learned to fix machinery, to work with sound equipment, and to enjoy, among other things, early American history.