Goal Planning and Unschooling

It's been about 8 months now since our homeschool journey began. And with the holiday break came a lot of time for reflections. I sat back and questioned myself numerous times as to whether or not my methods were actually benefiting the kids. More often than not our Quran and math sessions would begin or end in tears. I wondered, "What am I doing different than a teacher would be doing at school?" Wasn't homeschooling supposed to be about the kids loving to learn instead of being forced to learn? I decided to take a step back and give myself and the kids a break. I had some family visiting during the holiday and one member told me that I should sit down and think about what I had accomplished last year and list them, and then think about what I would like to accomplish next year and list them. I did just that. And wow! It did seem like I accomplished a lot the previous year, but the upcoming year looked worrisome. How would I accomplish all these goals? The next step, my brother-in-law told me, was to create a document with the families goals listed next to each other (including my children's goals) and try to find commonalities and themes, and then create synergies, or win, win, wins. You can check out an example of this here:
http://www.ahmadfahmy.com/blog/2014/12/26/tripplewins

This goal planning tactic was very useful in helping me to see not only what my own goals were, but what was important to my husband and daughter. By looking at Ameera's goal I clearly understood that my ideas and plans for her were not at all what she planned for herself. This led me to the conclusion that our homeschooling would become more Unschooly in nature as we shift to Project Based Learning. I went from structured learning to a much more laid back style approach over the course of 8 months. I find myself thinking a lot about deschooling myself, which basically means that because I went to school, I still very much have a predisposed way of thinking about education and learning. I want to free myself of this thinking and recondition myself to let my children lead me, but it is an incredibly hard and scary thing to do. Keeping goals and setting a plan has helped clear my mind and made me feel more confident in what I want and need to do. I am going to start with cutting way back on any structured type of setting and spending more time observing my kids and listening to them. I believe taking notes will be key in this unschooling process as will creating a special space for my kids to conduct their projects in. This is one of my main goals for this year.

Discoveries

I'm learning in homeschooling that I am making my kids do what I think they should be doing or what I think will benefit them in life. But I am not asking if this is what they want. Mainly bc I believe they don't know what they want or need because they are children. But why is that? My kids are very capable of knowing what they need and want to learn.

I noticed the other day Ameera and I were working on multiplication when I asked her to think about the answer to a problem we were working on and she started to cry. I was really shocked as she had given no hint beforehand to any struggles. When I asked her why she was crying she stated fearfully that "it's hard." I told her that it wasn't hard and that she had to think about it a little. Recently, she had taken to guessing a lot during our math lessons.

Her guessing game started to increase even when working on the simplest of problems. What was happening was that because she wasn't enjoying herself, she was no longer thinking about what she was doing, therefore she was no longer learning. She was just interested in getting the "right" answer so we could move on and be done with it. And if she couldn't produce the right answer then she knew I would eventually give it to her. The lessons became simply a drag. Something she had to do because I was telling her she had to do it.

What I hadn't stopped to consider was if she was ready for this next step in math and was it even necessary for a 7 year old to know how to multiply yet? The only reason I was doing it with her was because it was the next chapter in our math book. I was moving through the motions and checking off the boxes of "ok that's done, now what's next?" Perhaps if I had waited for the subject to be introduced more naturally, like in a real world situation, it might not have been such a painful experience, but one that sparked interest. 

I realized that the way we are learning was not her style of learning. She is simply not a text and workbook type learner. She is more of an auditory learner . By continuing to observe my kids I am able to make adjustments as needed in our learning practices at home which is essential if we are to continue on this path. 

As the parent I have to let go of my expectations of what learning should look like or be like. I have to deschool myself first in order to really let change set in the household.