Homeschool isn’t about learning, it’s about fun
This video, from HelloFlo is the most exciting, inspiring thing I’ve ever seen about getting your period. I just loved it.
I showed it to my sons because I thought: wow, this is the best sex ed class ever. I wanted to buy every girl I know a package from HelloFlo—but I think it’s probably better from a parent.
This video reminds me that kids learn everywhere they can – even in their camp bunk bed.
It takes a huge amount of energy to keep kids from learning. You have to take away outside stimuli, you have to stop giving them new ideas, you have to isolate them. Isolating inherently curious people (which all children are before traditional school gets in the way) takes a lot of energy.
Which is to say that kids learn no matter what. Because part of being human is being driven to learn. Mozart learned piano from his drunken dad who hit him every time he played a wrong note. My mom learned to write cursive from a fourth-grade teacher who forced her to switch the pencil from her left hand to her right. The last hundred years has been a concerted effort to take the fun out of learning.
Homeschooling is about putting the fun back. Homeschooling lets your kids learn what they want, how they want. The excitement of being fully human comes back into their lives. It’s easy to see this in adults: people who go to work every day and have a dull, unengaged learning curve hate our jobs. You know the feeling, where your life is slipping away from you. Kids have that same feeling, they are just less able to articulate it.
What makes me excited about the video is that it’s such a fun way to learn. But also I get excited that girls will not learn the way I did. I was scared, and no one talked to me, and when someone hands a young girl a mirror, to look at where the tampon goes, I thought to myself: The best type of learning is giving kids the tools they need right at that moment.
I showed my sons this video because I thought they’d love learning about girls from it. But also because the my favorite part of homeschooling is watching my sons have fun, and I knew they’d think it’s fun, even though my youngest said, “Mom. Throwing tampons into the air? Is this appropriate for boys?” And before I could answer, he clicked to watch it for a third time.
So true. It takes a HUGE amount of energy to keep kids from learning.
And money. Don’t forget how much money we spend keeping kids isolated and disengaged.
Whoops — I meant “we” as a “social we.” Society.
Because if I -personally- isolated my children and kept them disengaged, a social worker would show up at my door to insist they go to school… where they would be isolated and disengaged.
This. Is. Awesome.
The camp gyno idea is so hilarious. I constantly chuckle to myself about how traditionally schooled kids do these amazing things where they are learning (like the girl who set up ‘camp gyno’, with a sign, tampons, peer lessons, because she was interested and knowledgable) on their own time. Take away the 7 hours of school and they would do these things anyway, and just have way more time for family time and relaxation/thinking time–something I don’t feel adults or children get enough of.
Sarah M
This reminds me–have you or y our sons ever watched the cartoon Phineas & Ferb? It’s on netflix, and it’s clever, funny, and the characters are great. These two step-brothers build these amazing machines, work together with the neighborhood kids, and entertain themselves–but it’s only ever on summer vacation.
These kids are so smart but have to wait for only 2-3 month out of the year when they have time to explore and learn, and work at something they love.
I laugh to myself every time a friend mentions their kids likes it because I’m think to myself, “take your kid out of school! This is what our day looks like every day! It’s right in front of you.”
Sarah M