"Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the
product of the activity of learners." - John Holt
While some of John Holt's concepts of childhood and children have no
relevance to the Bible's teaching, the "unschooling" (his word for it) that came
out of his activism is actually a much older concept, one that dates back to
ancient Israel. As such, it's a well-founded concept.
Unschooling is about walking through life with your children - letting life's
experiences lead you into new learning. You wake up in the morning together, and
you do things around the house. You have chores and social commitments, and you
go out together and do them. You end the day with discussions over supper,
reading time together, and conversations that spark imagination. You break
things and fix things. You read and laugh and forgive, and you are always
mindful of what God's word says about each situation that arises.
Biblical Christianity is not about doing, it's about being.
1 Tim. 1:15 (NASB)
It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.
2 Cor. 5:17 (NASB)
Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed
away; behold, new things have come.
Learning, really learning things, is also about being. It's about being a
kind of person who takes interest in the world, in life. It's about being
unafraid to seek out what curiosity and exploration demand. It's about being
ill-content with accepting what one is told, and instead seeking what can be
demonstrated as truth or fact. (Acts 17:11)
Religious beliefs are explanations -
frameworks of thinking that put facts together and make the best sense of them
possible. They are about attempts to eliminate contradiction. The Bible is the
only consistent explanation that takes into account every fact life can throw at
it. Accepting that, however, was more about letting go of my own ideas
and trusting God's.
Unschooling is talking of
things of great import, wars and issues and the nature of the universe.
It is looking at the complexity of leaves and bugs and animal life and society
itself when we walk on the roadside. It is reading God's Word together at
bedtime and waking up to learn and discover some more. It is about letting go of
our children, dedicating them to God and giving them over to be what He intends
to make of them.
God has no grandchildren.
We cannot "pass on"
true belief in Jesus Christ to our children. We can't indoctrinate it into them.
All we can do is make it available and open to them. The same is true of much
lesser things. The child who decides that math or writing is not relevant to his
life's needs will not truly absorb them. Like Sunday School, church, or even
Bible reading, he may do them by rote. That is not the same thing as living them
out.
“…essentially I realized that each subject area is NOT a collection of related
facts and skills which is largely how I taught in the public schools. Each
subject area is a method of reasoning to analyze the world around us. We
strive to learn the vocabulary of the subject, its history and its purpose. We
practice using the subject area to advance our own knowledge.” – Dana Hanley,
Principled Discovery[i]
May I add, all the more with the Bible.
How is your child meant to be? That is the
fundamental question of unschooling, the answer we journey in search of. We do
it with the knowledge that they are what God made them to be, and while we can
expose them to knowledge, to attitudes and social behaviours, every human being
is an indefinable essence known only by God. Life-led learning, like faith in
Jesus Christ itself, is about letting go and trusting God to do what He says He
will do.
