I have been pondering the topic of natural learning.
My local homeschooling community here seem to be enamoured by it. And I'm fine with that, in many ways natural learning appeals to me. But what was disconcerting, IMO, on first stepping into the local homeschool community was how many of the mothers went on about how they did nothing- as they were natural learners. Doing nothing has never appealed to me, so their excitement put me off. Why would I stay at home with my kids, to do nothing?
After that I read a
John Holt book- 'How Children Learn' and I got the idea. It did appeal- but not in the way that I wanted to embrace it over everything. Also I didn't understand how these parents thought he meant to do nothing- I interpreted it as being an instigator in enabling my children to learn the things that they are interested in.
And so I've been talking to someone about it again, yesterday. She seemed very interested in it- but funnily when she was talking about wishing she'd learnt music when she was younger, she seemed like she couldn't do it now. And yet to me that's the perfect way to show natural learning to one's kids. She wants to know how to do it- she finds resources to do it. And indirectly, through her learning, she teaches her children how to natural learn.
And so I do Waldorf homeschool, and we natural learn all the time. Through doing Waldorf I expose them to things beyond myself or themselves that possibly we would never have examined. And I love that. My natural learning is the Waldorf thing. Gabriel's natural learning recently has been looking at Atlantis, because he found it interesting after a school block of Willow's. Willow loves making things (which is easier due to our craft sessions). But then my goal is not to encourage my children to be natural learners, mine is to have children that find the world an interesting and amazing place- and can be interested in anything.
And so I don't embrace natural learning as my mode of education. It's great to choose to learn what you want- but sometimes one has to learn and do things one doesn't want to. And sometimes those things are interesting, I find that usually they are. But then I must wonder, is it my view of the world that is different to the parents that embrace this? Particularly those who embrace it in the 'I can do nothing' kind of way. I loved primary school. I loved wondering what exciting things the teacher would reveal to me each day. It was high school that destroyed my passion, and homeschooling that returned it.
I think perhaps some of these parents need to find their passion and show their children how they find it- and maybe then their children will know how to love learning.
Recently (2015) I've been reconsidering my views on this, and why I still feel a balanced approach is best for our family. Here's a link to the page "
More thoughts on Natural Learning".
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2025
(Disclaimer- I have not reread my 2015 take on writing this)
So these days I would say that we are 50/50 structured and natural learners. Probably we always were, but because I hadn't deschooled myself enough I hadn't looked at the idea that as life learners we were natural learning in the times that we weren't learning using a structure.
For our family this really began with the move to Scotland, and travelling to Japan and Europe in 2004. We got in the habit of being curious and examining the world with an open minded attitude. When we returned to Adelaide in 2006 we looked at it with fresh eyes, and got in the habit of engaging with all the interesting local activities. We went to the kids classes at the art gallery, we did French at alliance francaise, we went to Womadelaide, we went to the Irish fiddle nights at a local pub, we went and learnt Scottish dancing. It turned out that there were loads of interesting things to do in Adelaide if you took the time to look.
I also realised on reading John Holt, that the idea of his book, How Children Learn, that children are naturally curious and intrinsically driven was quite obvious to me. I had loads of great learning experiences alongside my Dad, asking him questions, both when he was and wasn't doing something. Dad was always willing to explain how things worked to me, and so on a certain level this style of learning was so intrinsic to me, that we just did it anyhow.
In regards to school, particularly primary, I had a very positive experience, and with homeschooling I realised that my education had been very much inspired by Montessori, Steiner and probably even John Holt to an extent. For years I went to school, wondering what we would be shown today, and excited at the idea of learning something new. So it was obvious to me that there was a balance in the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. A teacher can create an extrinsic opportunity, that becomes intrinsic as the student engages and creates their own passion in discovering the joy of learning something that they may have not otherwise had the opportunity to learn.
It is particularly the case I think when one has something difficult and seemingly lacking of pleasure due to the lack of skills of the student. It takes time and perseverance to accomplish some things, and this requires a build up of skills to get to the level to create at a certain level. I know myself, when I was taught to knit, I became disillusioned at knitting a scarf, as I came to realise that it was "too big" and I would never finish. (Eventually I gave up and made it quite short). And as I taught the kids to knit, aged 6, I realised that it was super important to make the goal achievable in size, so that they could have the feeling of accomplishing something.
So these days we have come to the point of home schooling still within a Steiner framework, but it is much looser than it once was. I still follow it fairly closely to year 8, as I think it gives excellent life skills. I have given Arden and Irving a lot of choice of what they would like to learn within the topics. For instance we are continuing to learn Ancient Greek this year, because Irving loved our taster of it, last year when we were studying Ancient Greece.
By high school we have headed to a more child/ student led experience. The older two (partly out of necessity and partly from desire) planned and organised their own time and topics from about year 8 onwards. Arden who preferred the structure, continued doing whatever new topic Irving was doing, as well as his own learning, until he started at TAFE.
The main thing I have come to realise however, over my time home educating and home schooling, is that whatever method one uses, it will work, if one is dedicated to the process of enabling the student to learn, and understanding how learning occurs. I have met many people here with the do nothing approach to unschooling/natural learning, and in high school they either go to school, or need to do classes every day of the week, because they very often haven't crossed over into intrinsic motivation. The people overusing (IMO) structure, have fewer issues at this time with learning, because they have a system for learning, where the do nothing people do not.
