Interest-led learning with a hesitant student

[Little Green Leaves]

My oldest kid is in the third grade. He's a bright kid and has always been a voracious reader. He loves history, stories, myths, etc. BUT he grumbles about anything that he sees as "school." 

This means that most of the time, I have to do some cajoling and prodding to get him to do his work. Once he gets started, he enjoys it and gets into it, but it does get tiring always having to prod him. 

Most of the homeschool parents I know are doing some kind of child-led / unschooling / unstructured education, and they are always talking about how much their kids "love" learning. I get really jealous. Why am I the only one with a grumpy kid? However, every time I've tried to turn one of my kid's interests into schoolwork, he says that it's ruined because now it's required. Really I think he means that it's ruined because I require some kind of output on schoolwork (oral narration, written paragraph, timeline, it depends).

Can anyone else relate? I guess I'm trying to figure out whether this is mainly a mother-child dynamic that I need to work on / accept, or whether it's a curriculum issue that I can fix by giving him more freedom. 

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I think that on this board you are going to meet a lot more homeschool parents who don't do some kind of child led/unschooling/ unstructured education.  My own experience having graduated one after 12 years of homeschooling and getting ready to graduate another one from the same, is that there is a mix of required learning and unstructured learning.  Over all, my kids do love learning but they also had to "pay their dues" learning the nuts and bolts of things before they could branch out more especially in the older grades.  So no, I did not cajole or prod them to do their work.  I told them that school was required by the state and by their parents and that there were some assignments that were necessary for them to do.  I did try to make some allowance for how they learned and to not make it drudgery but it wasn't always rainbows and unicorns every day.  If he doesn't want his special interests turned into schoolwork, then there are plenty of ways to learn the skills and content in other ways. 

[ScoutTN]

You are not the only one with a kid who doesn't like schoolwork! I have one who is 12. We have been able to do some "fun" schooling, but generally he prefers basic get-it-done school, then free time to play. It's ok to be the teacher and to require the work get done.  

 

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Most of the homeschool parents I know are doing some kind of child-led / unschooling / unstructured education, and they are always talking about how much their kids "love" learning. 

I was an unschooler for 4 years before bowing to the pressure of my older son to be more structured. I ran the unschoolers play group in my area during that time.  All of us often read about how engaged and passionate unschooled kids were about learning, but none of us saw it in our own kids on a daily or even weekly basis. I'm not saying that your friends are stretching the truth, but I think that "love" of learning is in the eye of the beholder. If your kid loves learning with a bit of pushing, then I would continue with what you are doing. Kids mature. Give him time.

Edited December 10, 2019 by lewelma

[8filltheheart]

Our kids are raised with the mantra that education is children's work and their way to serve God.  Other than our oldest 2, they have all been born into homeschooling, so it is just a way of life here.  No complaining bc it is what it is.  Not optional.  We do try to instill that learning is its own reward bc of what it enables them to do. It doesn't mean they don't have days with attitudes.  (We all have one right now b/c Friday is our last day before break and we are all just so done.  We have moved 3 times in 2 yrs with the last in Sept.  We just really, really need a long break of doing absolutely nothing bc we didn't have a summer vacation.)  But, over the long haul, my kids have all blossomed by being able to control subjects.

I do put an immense effort into designing courses that will feed their interests.  They have the option of selecting what we study and when they are older, they help design their courses.

[hollyhock2]

Just echoing everyone else.

My kids want to get their school done so that they can run away and do the things they really want to do, which involves learning all kinds of things, just not things I require for school. I structure my homeschool that way on purpose so they have lots of free time to work on their own things. And they wouldn't like those things anymore if I made them part of school.

I do try, especially with my high schoolers, to structure courses around their interests, but sometimes their interests are things that can't be made into a subject. So I guess you could say that we do half the day structured schooling and half the day interest-led, however I have very little say in the interest-led part aside from sometimes providing materials. Things like: learning programming languages, learning to film and edit videos, building gigantic sailing ships out of Lego and figuring out what all the parts of a ship are called, playing hockey outside, learning to weld in our shop with Dad, modifying bikes so that the back tire is tiny, replacing the engine on a tiller, etc.

[2_girls_mommy]

I have one that does thrive and does do better output when she's got a say in what and how she's studying it, and if she has freedom to design a lot of it herself and can include art in it. She has a lot if trouble with some subjects, but it's just frustration because she has done difficulties, so things are harder for her. So everywhere that I can give her freedom and s way to use and gain skill on her own I do, and she progresses with it.

I have another that's a bit of a grumbler and would always say, "I don't know" if asked her opinion on things. But I still managed to design things in ways I thought would appeal and followed her interests and showed her how to use them in projects and studies. I just assigned them. She didn't necessarily choose them. She eventually learned the value of the freedom and saw the fruits of her labors in homeschooling and by junior and senior year was pretty much completely in control of her curriculum. 

[Hadley]

Can I just say that third grade is really still very young?  You said that he is a voracious reader.  Pat yourself on the back.  Strew good books.  He will learn.

I have a high school junior who is EXTREMELY self-led and motivated to excel in academic pursuits.  He fell in love with math and computer science and left me in the dust years ago...but not in third grade.

In third grade, he “mathed” something, read something, and wrote something (often just copywork) every day.  I was consistent in that I required the basics every day, but we were most definitely not spending hours on official school work.  However, I considered the other hours of his day to be equally important.  

I, too, worried that he was going to hate all things academic.  I, too, worried that I wasn’t requiring enough.  

I now know that it was in those hours of LEGO play, drawing, listening to read alouds, building forts in the forest, and starting basement fires with the chemistry kit that he was weeding through all of life's possibilities.  It was in that play that he found his thing.  I found my child who  barely tolerated his daily math lesson up at midnight working through Hands-On-Equations.  He didn’t want me to know.  He didn’t want algebra to become his elementary school work.  He wasn’t ready to share it yet, because it was all HIS.  

It was magic, and it never would have happened with this child if it had been Mom-led.  Perhaps you will have the same experience at your house...

Edited December 11, 2019 by Hadley

[Ellie]

5 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

My oldest kid is in the third grade. He's a bright kid and has always been a voracious reader. He loves history, stories, myths, etc. BUT he grumbles about anything that he sees as "school." 

This means that most of the time, I have to do some cajoling and prodding to get him to do his work. Once he gets started, he enjoys it and gets into it, but it does get tiring always having to prod him. 

Most of the homeschool parents I know are doing some kind of child-led / unschooling / unstructured education, and they are always talking about how much their kids "love" learning. I get really jealous. Why am I the only one with a grumpy kid? However, every time I've tried to turn one of my kid's interests into schoolwork, he says that it's ruined because now it's required. Really I think he means that it's ruined because I require some kind of output on schoolwork (oral narration, written paragraph, timeline, it depends).

Can anyone else relate? I guess I'm trying to figure out whether this is mainly a mother-child dynamic that I need to work on / accept, or whether it's a curriculum issue that I can fix by giving him more freedom. 

 

But see, you're thinking he's going to want to be interested in the kinds of things *you* want him to be interested in. Requiring him to produce output is in no way child-led. Requiring him to do *curriculum* is in no way child-led. Your friends who are talking about how their children love learning are not requiring them to do schoolwork. They are giving their children enough free time to figure out on their own what they love to do, and then they have the time to do it.

IOW, it isn't a curriculum issue. It isn't a mother-child dynamic. It's that you aren't understanding what "child-led" means.

[lewelma]

58 minutes ago, Ellie said:

But see, you're thinking he's going to want to be interested in the kinds of things *you* want him to be interested in. Requiring him to produce output is in no way child-led. Requiring him to do *curriculum* is in no way child-led. Your friends who are talking about how their children love learning are not requiring them to do schoolwork. They are giving their children enough free time to figure out on their own what they love to do, and then they have the time to do it.

IOW, it isn't a curriculum issue. It isn't a mother-child dynamic. It's that you aren't understanding what "child-led" means.

Beautifully said, Ellie.

There is another piece of the puzzle that you may need to consider. You as the parent can subtly influence what you child *wants* to do.  Do you think that my ds had some great desire to learn to write when he is dysgraphic and every. single. time. he tried to write *anything* it was a struggle? Like, "oh, yea!  I can't wait to struggle at something I know everyone else finds easy." This is a boy who at 16 still has to remember to start an h at the top of the line so it won't look like an n. But what I can do is slowly, every so slowly, convince him that he *does* want to do this. That he believes it is a worthy goal, that he believes that he can succeed with effort, that he believes that I know it is incredibly hard and respect his effort. 

Effective child-led learning is not a free-for-all, or at least it hasn't been in my house.  I have a big picture plan to cover a breadth of subjects. Then I watch.  What does my child naturally do that I can augment carefully and slowly to meet my educational goals? The trick is to actually *see* what a child is doing as education, and then to build on it, to encourage it, to help guide them down a path that will give them opportunities in the future. 

Ruth in NZ

Edited December 11, 2019 by lewelma

[Little Green Leaves]

7 hours ago, Ellie said:

But see, you're thinking he's going to want to be interested in the kinds of things *you* want him to be interested in. Requiring him to produce output is in no way child-led. Requiring him to do *curriculum* is in no way child-led. Your friends who are talking about how their children love learning are not requiring them to do schoolwork. They are giving their children enough free time to figure out on their own what they love to do, and then they have the time to do it.

IOW, it isn't a curriculum issue. It isn't a mother-child dynamic. It's that you aren't understanding what "child-led" means.

Thanks. That makes sense. I mean, I actually think my kid DOES love learning -- he's a bookworm with lots of interests. It's just that he's grumpy about the formal school part of our day.

Mostly, I keep formal schoolwork pretty short so that he has plenty of free time to do his own thing. I just sometimes wonder whether there's a way to tailor school so that he looks forward to it.

 

[Little Green Leaves]

13 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Our kids are raised with the mantra that education is children's work and their way to serve God.  Other than our oldest 2, they have all been born into homeschooling, so it is just a way of life here.  No complaining bc it is what it is.  Not optional.  We do try to instill that learning is its own reward bc of what it enables them to do. It doesn't mean they don't have days with attitudes.  (We all have one right now b/c Friday is our last day before break and we are all just so done.  We have moved 3 times in 2 yrs with the last in Sept.  We just really, really need a long break of doing absolutely nothing bc we didn't have a summer vacation.)  But, over the long haul, my kids have all blossomed by being able to control subjects.

I do put an immense effort into designing courses that will feed their interests.  They have the option of selecting what we study and when they are older, they help design their courses.

I've seen a post you wrote about interest-led learning, and that's part of what motivated me to write this actually. If I understood right, you still use a lot of structure, but you let your kids choose their broad topics? So, they choose, say, which period in history they want to study, but then they have to produce regular output?

I'm not sure how that would work for us because our state has a lot of requirements, but I'm definitely interested.

[8filltheheart]

37 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I've seen a post you wrote about interest-led learning, and that's part of what motivated me to write this actually. If I understood right, you still use a lot of structure, but you let your kids choose their broad topics? So, they choose, say, which period in history they want to study, but then they have to produce regular output?

I'm not sure how that would work for us because our state has a lot of requirements, but I'm definitely interested.

Yes.  Interest-led, not child-led, is how I would look at it.  I cannot fathom any state having requirements that cannot be met through interest-led learning.  My kids can even meet high school graduation and college admissions requirement being interest-led.  They can choose their language, their histories, and their lit choices. Math and science are the only 2 subjects at the high school level without that much leeway.  Even so, they can influence what type of approach they want to take and which sciences they want to cover more in-depth and which more superficially. (For example, my physics grad student went in-depth with physics as well as taking additional astronomy courses every yr of high school.  My chemE ds took more chemistry.  My OTA dd took anatomy and physiology, etc).  At the elementary level, my kids have complete freedom over whatever science topics they want to study. (When they are younger, we typically discuss various options they might consider and I help them narrow down choices.)

For example, this yr my 4th grader and I are doing a Chronicles of Narnia theme this yr.  We are reading through the series and weaving in different themes as we go along.  For example, we read about Antarctica and the Arctic.  We've read about how beaver dams/lodges are constructed, etc.  We are reading about the history of Great Britian, castles and cathedrals, medieval life, etc.  During all of that we often do bunny trail studies as well.  Her baby niece was getting shots and we started talking about immunizations, so now we are reading about the history of how immunizations and antibiotics were researched and developed.  We also started talking about Joan of Arc when we were reading about the 100 Yrs War.  So, now we are reading a biography on Joan of Arc.   We are covering every subject any brick and mortar student covers.  We are just doing it in our own way with our own focus.

For writing, she is creating a "chpt book" on dinosaurs.  I print out 3 articles on whatever dinosaur she wants to focus on (she just finished one on the spinosaurus and is starting one on microraptors).  I told her to pick a science topic she wanted to write about, and she chose dinosaurs.  We will spend probably 8 weeks on her "book."   Each "chpt" is really only 2-3 paragraphs containing the main details that are known and a picture that she draws.  Plenty for me for a 4th grader.

Edited December 11, 2019 by 8FillTheHeart

[Little Green Leaves]

16 minutes ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Yes.  Interest-led, not child-led, is how I would look at it.  I cannot fathom any state having requirements that cannot be met through interest-led learning.  My kids can even meet high school graduation and college admissions requirement being interest-led.  They can choose their language, their histories, and their lit choices. Math and science are the only 2 subjects at the high school level without that much leeway.  Even so, they can influence what type of approach they want to take and which sciences they want to cover more in-depth and which more superficially. (For example, my physics grad student went in-depth with physics as well as taking additional astronomy courses every yr of high school.  My chemE ds took more chemistry.  My OTA dd took anatomy and physiology, etc).  At the elementary level, my kids have complete freedom over whatever science topics they want to study. (When they are younger, we typically discuss various options they might consider and I help them narrow down choices.)

For example, this yr my 4th grader and I are doing a Chronicles of Narnia theme this yr.  We are reading through the series and weaving in different themes as we go along.  For example, we read about Antarctica and the Arctic.  We've read about how beaver dams/lodges are constructed, etc.  We are reading about the history of Great Britian, castles and cathedrals, medieval life, etc.  During all of that we often do bunny trail studies as well.  Her baby niece was getting shots and we started talking about immunizations, so now we are reading about the history of how immunizations and antibiotics were researched and developed.  We also started talking about Joan of Arc when we were reading about the 100 Yrs War.  So, now we are reading a biography on Joan of Arc.   We are covering every subject any brick and mortar student covers.  We are just doing it in our own way with our own focus.

For writing, she is creating a "chpt book" on dinosaurs.  I print out 3 articles on whatever dinosaur she wants to focus on (she just finished one on the spinosaurus and is starting one on microraptors).  I told her to pick a science topic she wanted to write about, and she chose dinosaurs.  We will spend probably 8 weeks on her "book."   Each "chpt" is really only 2-3 paragraphs containing the main details that are known and a picture that she draws.  Plenty for me for a 4th grader.

That would be plenty for me too!

State requirements do get in the way, but some of it might be just me over-thinking things.

So the biggest annoyance, for me, is that the state wants him to do US history every year. Whereas he would love to study ancient history.  I guess we could do both, or do US history in a more cursory way and then spend more of our time on ancient history. 

Besides that, there aren't really explicit requirements. Just science, language, etc, and you're right, all of that could be met through interest-led learning. I think what happens to me is that, because I have to send a detailed report on his education, I end up looking up the state guidelines on each subject and loosely following them, even though they aren't requirements. I'll have to rethink this approach though.

[Ellie]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Thanks. That makes sense. I mean, I actually think my kid DOES love learning -- he's a bookworm with lots of interests. It's just that he's grumpy about the formal school part of our day.

Mostly, I keep formal schoolwork pretty short so that he has plenty of free time to do his own thing. I just sometimes wonder whether there's a way to tailor school so that he looks forward to it.

When he's doing what he does during his free time, that is also "school."

When you try to turn something he's interested in into what you think of as "school," that's where you're always going to have problems. How would *you* feel if there was someone looking over your shoulder while you were pursuing your own interests, expecting some kind of output?

Perhaps if you let his free time be really free, and keep the formal learning in its own space, he would be less grumpy about the formal learning.

[....]

I haven't had enough coffee yet to read all the other replies, but I can tell you how we homeschool.  I probably am kind of a weirdo on this forum - that's why I go through periods of time where I don't post anymore.  I understand this is a classical education forum and I don't want to mess up their space.  Most of mine are teenagers now, but when my son was younger, he was just as you described.

I basically let them pick everything out.  They tell me what math they like....what literature they are interested in reading....what unit studies they want me to put together.  It's not as daunting as it sounds when I type it out.  And they pick interesting things, too.  For example, ds16 was in the hospital last week waiting for his surgery to start and he and I were talking about our options for our next unit study (trying to keep his mind off everything).  Together, we came up with a big study we're going to call Revolutions.  We're going to study the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution - and compare/contrast the three of them and how they affected Europe.  There is some great literature we can tie in with that topic!  Tale of Two Cities, for example. 

Our upcoming unit study (we're calendar year homeschoolers, so this starts in January) is like a Physical Science unit study.  We're reading a biography of Albert Einstein and a book about the Manhattan Project.  We're doing a lit study on Fahrenheit 451 (or whatever # it is).  We're working through 2 chemistry kits and a VEX IQ robotics kit.  I'm going to have them work in a group with the robotics kit and give them a task each week for a robot.  They have to build a robot that can complete that task.  I bought Happy Atoms - this is mostly for the 12 year-old, but I has having fun trying it out, too.  I *want* to learn how to use a 3D printer - so we might spend a week on that at the end.  Anyway, this unit study is going to take me out of my comfort zone (it's not just read this and narrate) and I think we're going to learn a lot.

Anyway, yes, you can put together an endless number of unit studies that are fun.  We did a Harry Potter semester one year (a loooong time ago).  We even had the hat ceremony in the beginning and separated them into their "houses".  They made shields with their house symbols on them.  We had "potions" class (chemistry), etc.  We did a unit study based on My Side of the Mountain one year - did survival skills, first aid skills, made first aid kits, went hiking, got a book on knot-tying and practiced tying different knots, learned fire safety and what to do in a fire, etc.

Another thing you might be interested in- we did two Sonlight cores one year when we were having a rough time (ds4 was slowly killing our homeschool).  Those are absolutely unit studies (IMO).  We did core 100 - which is US History.  Oldest two did core 300 (20th century history).  My kids learned a ton.  

I don't think I ruined my kids' educations running our homeschool like this.  My oldest starts college in January and she did just fine on the college placement tests.  No remedial classes.  She placed right into college level classes.  (In fact, she tested out of a bunch of math.). She's very excited to start college (so she's not burned out).

 

[Little Green Leaves]

46 minutes ago, Ellie said:

When he's doing what he does during his free time, that is also "school."

When you try to turn something he's interested in into what you think of as "school," that's where you're always going to have problems. How would *you* feel if there was someone looking over your shoulder while you were pursuing your own interests, expecting some kind of output?

Perhaps if you let his free time be really free, and keep the formal learning in its own space, he would be less grumpy about the formal learning.

I mean, I do let his free time be free. 

When I say that I tried to turn his interests into school, I was thinking of times when I brought home a book and he got excited about reading it until he found out it was a "school" book which he'd have to narrate. That's when I get told that turning "fun" stuff into "school" ruins it. Or there have been times when I give him a writing assignment and I try to give him some leeway on picking the subject. Generally, I get told that he doesn't want to write about anything he's interested in because that turns his interests into "school" and, yup, ruins them. 

So I've backed off from those types of suggestions! On the other hand, there are times when he's totally happy to produce output. Like he loved reading the Narnia books and wanted to create a set of cards to represent the characters. Or he'll spend hours figuring out basketball statistics. I never suggested that stuff at all. 

I want his free time to be free. I want him to have lots of space. I just sometimes think he'd get more out of his formal schooling if he had a little more say into the broader shape of it. Like he'll say things like, I wish we were studying ancient history, or, I want to learn about plants. I know he is still going to grumble about school, but I'm thinking of experimenting with giving him a little more say in things.

 

[Little Green Leaves]

1 hour ago, square_25 said:

Interest-led versus child-led... I like that distinction! It successfully describes a difference in philosophy I've been having trouble verbalizing.

One way I deal with onerous state requirements is by not worrying about them too much ;-). I don't know what the requirements are like in your state, but around here, all you need to do is submit paperwork, and doing enough to satisfy the paperwork isn't as hard as it looks. However, I do run what I think of as a rigorous interest-led homeschool, so I can describe what that looks for us. 

We do most academic subjects as interest-led. That means that DD decides on her projects and on she wants to study. Since she's only 7, we are mostly focusing on the 3R's, so let me describe what being interest-led looks like for those. 

For reading, that means that we have tons of books around the house, go to bookstores and libraries, and let her read whatever she feels like. I taught her to read when she was 3, and she's been reading fluently since around 4, so she reads a ton. Not all of the reading she does is "good literature," but heck, not all the reading I do is good literature either, and there's plenty of good, thoughtful stuff mixed in with what she reads. I don't expect any output as a result of her reading (although I've suggested related projects as possible output, and as I described below, she took me up on it once.) 

For math, that means we follow lots and lots of rabbit trails and do things in whatever order she feels like. I'm a mathematician, so it's pretty easy for me to create something like "unit studies" that allow us to progress. For example, when we were working on subtraction, I told her that 1-2 is not the same as 2-1, and that if she ever sees a question with a bigger number taken away from a smaller, she should write a question mark for the answer to indicate that we haven't learned how to solve that yet. Well, that didn't satisfy her for long! She really wanted to know what the mysterious question marks were. So we delved deep into negative numbers when she was 5, before she had her addition facts to 20 memorized. Similarly, when she was 6, she heard me telling my much younger sister about binary and was absolutely fascinated. So we worked on counting in binary and converting numbers to and from binary and on doing calculations in binary for a few months. At the same time, we worked on two and three digit addition and multiplication. We progressed while indulging her interests. 

For writing, we've chosen projects together and then followed them through. Last year, we made an animal alphabet book, and a joke and rhyme book, then we spent a good number of months creating our own Mad Libs. She wrote stories using Story Cubes, then she underlined certain words in the stories and decided on which part of speech they were. Finally, she wrote down a good copy on cardstock and I copied it over for her in pen. I made a cover for them that resembles the usual Mad Libs cover and we've been playing them occasionally :-). 

This year, she wanted to make a Kids' Manual describing how to do a variety of things around the house (sample entries in the table of contents: "How to pour a Glass of Milk," "How to Give your Sister a Piggy Back ride.) After that, she started working on a really long and involved book summary for a book series she read recently, which is called Sisters Grimm. Since it turned out to be something like 10 pages (!), we decided to reorganize it by writing an outline, then to rewrite it. After we're done rewriting it, she really wants to learn about viruses and write a paper on them. We're thinking we'll start with an outline first :-). 

She's also requested a variety of other things. She really wanted to learn to play piano, so she's been taking lessons for two years now, and we insist on her practicing for 45 minutes every day. She wanted to add a foreign language, so we gave her a number of options and she chose Russian, which is my first language. As a result, we now try to have conversations solely in Russian for half an hour every day. She also begged for gymnastics and now does it once a week. And she loves classes at our local homeschooling center, so we spend a lot of time there. 

For us, the best way to stay interest-led has been to stay cognizant of our goals. It's not so hard to let kids choose their projects if you have a good sense of what skills you're currently working on, since you can then suggest projects that allow you to work on those skills. Would I have guessed that she'd want to practice her two-digit addition using binary? No. But she was much, much more excited about her math work having had a say in what it looked like, whereas a simple page of two digit additions caused serious tantrums. Did I expect her to write a ten page summary of a book series? Nope. I was having trouble getting her to write more than a sentence last year. But she chose it and it made a huge difference. 

By the way, I want to again emphasize that giving her a lot of latitude hasn't resulted in her not fussing about her schoolwork! She still whines when it's time to sit down and do her math, just like any other kid. But ultimately, she feels like she likes math, and she likes music, and she likes writing, and she feels like she's good at them. So for us, at least, being interest-led has really paid off. 

I love this -- it's inspiring and also liberating. Thanks for taking the time to write this out. I also really appreciate the reminder that kids are going to be grumpy sometimes, no matter what. This gives me a lot to think about.

[Jean in Newcastle]

So really the problem seems to be writing?  He loves reading unless you do the narration (which is basically pre-writing). 
 

I didn’t formally teach writing to either of my kids. (I did teach handwriting and spelling and when they were in middle school they did Analytical grammar). One child loved to write. One child hates it. But both were able to write just fine because we read great books and essays. I personally identify with finding writing a five paragraph essay boring drudgery!  

[Jean in Newcastle]

Adding on because I was still in bed when I wrote the previous post. Not teaching writing formally didn’t mean that we didn’t write. We wrote letters and plays and persuasive papers on why we needed rabbits (we now have rabbits) and how-tos on rabbit care and....  I just didn’t make them write sentences. Then turn it into a paragraph and then a paper. I just asked them to communicate in writing. Dd never got into it ss much as ds (hers were the “just the facts “ communications on rabbits, but she is equally prepared for college and now that she sees a purpose for writing an essay or paper does just fine. 

[Little Green Leaves]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

So really the problem seems to be writing?  He loves reading unless you do the narration (which is basically pre-writing). 
 

I didn’t formally teach writing to either of my kids. (I did teach handwriting and spelling and when they were in middle school they did Analytical grammar). One child loved to write. One child hates it. But both were able to write just fine because we read great books and essays. I personally identify with finding writing a five paragraph essay boring drudgery!  

Hm. Thanks. I never thought about it that way. I don't know if it's a writing issue exactly -- I think it's more like he wants to plunge into the book instead of having to plan out the narration in his mind. In a way, it's sort of like how he would rather do math in his head instead of working things out on paper. I don't fuss about how he does his math (also he can see how sometimes it doesn't work in his head and he NEEDS the paper) but I do think narration is a good skill to have. Still, maybe I need to think about switching up how we do this... 

[Ellie]

3 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

I mean, I do let his free time be free. 

When I say that I tried to turn his interests into school, I was thinking of times when I brought home a book and he got excited about reading it until he found out it was a "school" book which he'd have to narrate. That's when I get told that turning "fun" stuff into "school" ruins it. Or there have been times when I give him a writing assignment and I try to give him some leeway on picking the subject. Generally, I get told that he doesn't want to write about anything he's interested in because that turns his interests into "school" and, yup, ruins them. 

So I've backed off from those types of suggestions! On the other hand, there are times when he's totally happy to produce output. Like he loved reading the Narnia books and wanted to create a set of cards to represent the characters. Or he'll spend hours figuring out basketball statistics. I never suggested that stuff at all. 

I want his free time to be free. I want him to have lots of space. I just sometimes think he'd get more out of his formal schooling if he had a little more say into the broader shape of it. Like he'll say things like, I wish we were studying ancient history, or, I want to learn about plants. I know he is still going to grumble about school, but I'm thinking of experimenting with giving him a little more say in things.

 

I don't blame him for being disappointed when he found out he'd have to narrate back to you. Would *you* want to have to do that? Ditto *having* to write about things he's interested in. You say you've backed away from those types of suggestions, but I don't think you've really understood the lesson. 🙂

If he's interested in studying ancient history, add it gently, and don't make him narrate or write papers on it. If he's interested in plants, let him check out books from the library about plants, but don't require output. Let his narrations and writing papers be specific, directed "school." Let the other stuff go.

[lewelma]

5 hours ago, 8FillTheHeart said:

Interest-led, not child-led,

Yes! Brilliant distinction. 

[Ausmumof3]

10 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

That would be plenty for me too!

State requirements do get in the way, but some of it might be just me over-thinking things.

So the biggest annoyance, for me, is that the state wants him to do US history every year. Whereas he would love to study ancient history.  I guess we could do both, or do US history in a more cursory way and then spend more of our time on ancient history. 

Besides that, there aren't really explicit requirements. Just science, language, etc, and you're right, all of that could be met through interest-led learning. I think what happens to me is that, because I have to send a detailed report on his education, I end up looking up the state guidelines on each subject and loosely following them, even though they aren't requirements. I'll have to rethink this approach though.

What we did here was used the IEW Australian history themed writing so we could get that out of the way as a writing program and still do history.  Something similar might work for you.

[Ausmumof3]

7 hours ago, Little Green Leaves said:

Hm. Thanks. I never thought about it that way. I don't know if it's a writing issue exactly -- I think it's more like he wants to plunge into the book instead of having to plan out the narration in his mind. In a way, it's sort of like how he would rather do math in his head instead of working things out on paper. I don't fuss about how he does his math (also he can see how sometimes it doesn't work in his head and he NEEDS the paper) but I do think narration is a good skill to have. Still, maybe I need to think about switching up how we do this... 

For my kids I’ve allowed the narration to be artwork instead.  So I need some output to show learning but didn’t have to be written.  They are moving toward more writing and names in their art.