Unschooling In Action

These are the days that just confirm to me how well unschooling works and how natural learning really is. Calista started a "mail order business" last night and she was having us all mail packages to people. She works on her adding machine and has a cash register when you are ready to "check out". I had a knock on the door while I was doing dishes this morning; a package delivery that I "mailed" last night :). When Tristan woke up, the "mail order business" turned into a video- rental-by-mail business. Tristan decided he was going to be the bank so people could come pull their money out before they paid for the rentals. After a while Tristan says, "Wait a minute, how does the banker make money if the customer puts their money in and makes interest?". So I explained how the bank invests the money so the bank makes more interest than what they are paying the customer.

He wasn't sure how he was going to put that in action as a pretend thing so I suggested that maybe in another area of the house he create a "stock account" and for every dollar that someone puts in his bank he takes a percentage out of the "stock account". That was the best way I knew to do it for pretend.

After a while the two of them started talking about the richest people in the world. Tristan decided that he doesn't really like Donald Trump so he was going to be Bill Gates. He was bragging about all the cars he had and a house made of gold, etc. Calista pipes up and says, "Well, I live in a cottage because I give my money to all the poor people that are hungry!". Way to go Calista!!

It is so fun to sit and listen to the exchange. It so naturally progresses and this is how learning should be. Kevin has been doing a bit out of a curriculum because he wanted to do more like what they do in school. It has been so difficult for me to find a rhythm to it because it is so unnatural. He wants to see what highschool is all about so he thought he would do a curriculum first to work his way into it. It's funny because he says he wants to do it but when we actually do it he has a hard time getting into it too. So much of it is not relevant to his life and it is just NOT natural. When we get into the things that mean something to him it is like a light bulb goes on and he gets excited about it. It will be interesting to see what he thinks of school when he gets there. I have a feeling it won't last very long, but then again, he may love it because he is a very confident kid who knows who he is and doesn't care what anyone else thinks.

So now Calista just came up to my room. She says that my room is now her house because she is using her "cottage" for her store and she needs a little bit bigger of a house. Martin wanted to know if she was still giving her money to the poor and she said, "I'm not giving ALL my money to the poor, but I am giving a lot of it!". Too funny!