The Rewards of Unschooling

Whenever I talk about our unschooling setup, I usually talk about our eldest son, Pablo. He’s become like our poster kid in homeschooling since he’s the one who’s gone through most of the process.

But today, the spotlight’s on our 13 year old Judah.

When Judah was just starting out in homeschooling, I already felt that he was the most challenging one because of his kinesthetic nature.

He was the toddler who would dare to poke his finger into electric sockets, climb our fences and bookshelves, crawl under a greasy car and go back into the house with soot all over his hair down to his toe nails!

To be fair, his older brother, Lukas, was just as active as he was. But Lukas eventually outgrew his extreme activities and started to become more interested in books and writing.

More freedom

Judah remains as active as he was even now. I was chatting with a friend who’s the adviser of the president of the STEM club for homeschoolers, and I laughingly warned her that Judah is the type of kid who might not be able to resist mixing liquids at a Chemistry laboratory if not closely monitored. They have a trip to a chemistry lab coming up and I thought I should give them a heads up since I don’t think parents will be allowed to accompany them. Judah is 13 years old, after all, and already taller than me, he should be able to do things on his own

But that’s not what this blog is about. I just want to share how he’s been surprising us a lot since he turned 13.

As many of my readers know, we embrace unschooling, allowing our children the freedom to choose what they want to learn and how they spend their time. Each year, we strive to give them even more autonomy. While it can feel scary at times, we’re increasingly seeing the positive impact this approach has on their growth and development.

It’s a bit more scary for us with this one because Judah is a bit different from all of us. The rest of us are into performing arts and music, which is something that Jay and I have experience with, but Judah’s interests lean more on Science and Engineering activities, which is not something I am strong at, so it’s a lot of asking questions from people in the industry and looking for creative ways to help him on this.

This school year, Judah decided on three things: Continue serving in Likha’s Cradle, an Animal Welfare organization founded and led by another homeschooler,  Megan, join the STEM club, and take up drawing & illustration.

Animal Welfare organization

He joined Likha’s Cradle last school year and is just continuing his responsibilities as the club’s appointed Vice President of External Affairs. They have a fund raising concert coming up and as of this writing, he’s clarifying his tasks for this event with Megan.

Last school year, he was there for the visit to Biyaya Animal Sanctuary in Alfonso, Cavite and joined the Pixel and Python fund raising event which he wrote about on his blog here: Code Campassion: Creative Coding with Pixel and Python to Raise Funds for Animal Welfare . I think this is what earned him the VP title. And the fact that he is not afraid to participate in the discussions.

The reward there isn’t the title, but in seeing that he was willing to take on responsibilities in an organization that actually tries to make a real difference in society.

I’ve been suggesting videos for him to watch on social media marketing, which is one of the tasks he’s been assigned. He’s been communicating with Megan to ask her what the main goal will be for their upcoming event so he can plan content around it.

Head Engineer?!?!?

He also joined the STEM club, and for their first project, Judah volunteered as the head engineer. He blew us away with his ideas and design for an “astro-mining “machine.

I was kind of anxious when he told me his role the first time. I asked him over and over if he was sure he wanted to be Head Engineer. I wondered if he understood that his design must be functional and one that would potentially work if they make a model of it.

In fact, I thought they had to build a model and was wondering how he was going to accomplish that. He told me he’d need lead to build the model and I was worried about how to produce it.

But they were allowed to just do slides and he came through and he delivered. I honestly didn’t know he could do that and I was impressed.

Here’s a video of him sharing his ideas to his team during their meeting.

I was secretly surprised that he takes notes of his meetings and log into them on his own. He doesn’t even feel that he needs me to remember them for him.

But he also learned the consequence of tardiness! He missed the time for presentation and came in 30 minutes late. I’m not sure if it was the consequence for him being late, but his group presented last. And although Judah knew his design very well, I could sense a feeling of uncertainty on what he was supposed to do because he missed the instructions.

He apologized to his team for coming in late. He understood that him being late could have caused the entire group what they worked hard for.

He can draw?!?!?

He’s also been faithfully meeting with his illustration teacher, Tony Candolea of Art Start online on Tuesday afternoons. Tony, along with his wife, Czy, are professional animators and illustrators who have worked with companies like Disney and Pixar. They have worked on animations such as Lilo & Stitch (yep, THAT Lilo & Stitch!) and Curious George, among others.

Judah did not draw. It was one of the things that he didn’t do because he had trouble using his hands for finer mobilities. I swear he has never drawn before his first meeting with Tony.In fact, he wants to publish his anime book and had asked his brother, Pablo, to illustrate it for him.

Okay, so there were instances in the past when he tried to draw because he saw that Lukas, who is just a year older than him, drew a lot. And when he was younger, he felt that he had to be able to do everything his brothers were able to do.

But he struggled with the pencil and for a long time, did not touch it unless it was necessary, such as when he had to work on his lessons in his workbooks. Otherwise, he didn’t write nor draw.

But because Pablo became very busy with shows and dance training, his book was shelved until Pablo will find the time to work on them again. I guess that this is what pushed him to learn how to draw. Judah has always been the type that when he wants to accomplish something, he wants to get them done. So he asked me if he could take drawing lessons.

I’ve been reserving Art Start classes for Pablo because I felt he needed to learn from professional animators. I’ve talked to Czy before and they were willing to mentor him. Unfortunately, he never seems to find the time to take their classes.

I got in touch with Czy again to let them know about Judah. I told her he’d be starting from scratch and all. But I was  dumbfounded when, during his assessment with Tony, Judah drew.

He didn’t just draw. He drew so well for a first timer!

And he just continued to improve from there.

One of the things I like about his classes with Tony is that Tony encourages him to practice daily. Of course, as parents, we must remind our children. But sometimes, when they hear it from someone else who they see as authority in that field or industry, they tend to listen more. And that’ s okay. That’s good. Because through these instances, someone confirms with them that it’s how the world works outside our home. Sometimes, it is what they need – someone else affirming what you have already been teaching them all along. I read that about teenagers. That they want to know if what you say about the world is really true. They want to explore it, themselves, and they want to test the knowledge and principles they have been taught.

Math

Math is one of our non negotiables because I think that Math skills (along with Writing, Comprehension, Research and History) are crucial for everyone. I used to try to help the boys with their Math, but decided that it would be best for them to find someone who can guide them better in it. So I got them a Math tutor.

The Math tutor meets with Judah for an hour every week to check up on how he’s been doing with his equations and teach him to analyze and solve numerical problems. Judah is currently going through Everything you need to ace Math for middle school, which I thought would be a big leap from his Brain Quest workbooks, but he, again, surprised us with the how much he’s been applying what he learned in the previous years to the word problems in this book.

I was worried before because Judah always struggled solving more advanced equations and solving word problems, but it looks like he’s able to keep up with his current lessons. He does get some stuff wrong, and with the help of Esther, his tutor, I think that he’s doing just fine.

I know that some people might think that if we were going to get him a tutor anyway, why not send him to traditional school instead. They think it’s the same banana, but no.

First of all, his Math tutor is a former homeschooler who understands the principles of homeschooling and has lived it, so she doesn’t approach the sessions like a traditional teacher would.

In their meetings, Judah is allowed to process the word problems out loud and they have discussions to get to the solutions. She encourages Judah to figure out how to get there instead of her just feeding him the formulas and the answers. The whole point of Math is real life application, otherwise, the lessons are useless.

Also, unlike in traditional school, Judah does not have to keep up to a schedule of lessons. If it takes them two or three sessions for him to understand a concept, so be it.

Finishing up!

Anyway, I’ve been trying to finish this blog for three days now, hahaha! What I’m really getting at is that, I would not have seen this side of Judah had we not given him more autonomy this school year. When we were trying to conform to a curriculum, we kept falling back into simply getting things done and over with, and submitting grades at the end of it.

I know that it’s important for other people, but it isn’t for us.

I know that people are afraid that my kids will not learn what their kids learn in school. Or even in mainstream homeschool. But at least in that aspect, I am confident that they will when they’re ready and they feel the need for it. My eldest son is entering that season and I’ll talk about that another time.

Sure, there will be some concepts that traditional learners know that my kids may not know yet, but it’s okay. I’m certain that my kids know things that traditional learners don’t know either. In fact, I went all the way in traditional school, myself, and I still don’t know many things that my friends know and I know things they don’t.

My point being is that it’s really just a fact of life that we learn more about the things that we are curious about.

There are times when I’d get scared, mostly because I talked to someone who’s doing something opposite to how we do things, or when something happens that causes me to have second thoughts about how we do things. And I think it’s good, too, because it makes us reassess what we do and make improvements when we have to.

Going back to Judah, he is studying other things, too, He has, in fact, read, more or less, 10 books in the last four months — books by Max Lucado, Ken Gire, Rice Brooks, Joey Bonifacio, Ralph Muncaster and the likes. He’s currently going through The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

Last school year, he joined a book study on The Screwtape Letters with his friend, Tax, his brother, Lukas, facilitated by my friend, Ilene (who is also Tax’s mom and the adviser for the STEM club). And he learned so much from that discussion.

I think that we need to find him a new literary material to go through. The ones in my shelf – Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and the likes, don’t appeal to him very much.

He’s also been requesting for music production lessons from his dad, but it may have to wait. I’ll have to lay this all out and see how we can work things out. Like I said, if we have to go back to the drawing board, we will. It’s one of the best things about homeschooling as a whole — you can be as flexible as you want to be.

He took a break from teaching in Kids Church, but he is learning how to do photography so he can volunteer as a photographer for events. Last August, he was able to take a few photos at the Me & My Dad camp. A typhoon caused a change in the camp’s schedule and some of the volunteers who were supposed to help out were no longer available, and it was just as good that Judah came with Jay to the camp. Jay got him to work, and JC, Jay’s colleague, gave him a few tips in photography. Only a few of his photos were used, but it’s a good start.

And there’s also his baking business that we have to resume. He was able to sell a few brioche a few months ago, but it stopped because we had to take care of other things, but he’s been eager to get back to it.

He hasn’t decided yet what he wants to do in the future, he’s still in the process of discovering his strengths and exploring different interests.

So yeah, Judah’s journey is unconventional to his peers, but he’s learning, and to us, it is more than enough.