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I have always felt like I was destined to unschool.
Back in the good ol’ days when I was baby-free, I was absolutely oblivious of the term. No one in my immediate social circle homeschooled, let alone unschooled. Yet it didn’t prevent me from experiencing the magic of unschooling. In fact, I felt so empowered from one specific experience that I came to realize that personalized, interest-based learning is really the way future education should be.
I’ll tell you why.
Prepping for The Grand Tour
The year of 2014 was an interesting time to foster new dreams and goals. It was the year Mr. T and I got married. Life was fresh and exciting ahead.
That summer, I started watching Journey to the West (2011) every night. The Chinese classic has always been my favorite. I was obsessed with ancient explorers and I spent a good amount of time researching the historical life and adventures of Xuanzang. Then one day that same summer, Mr. T shared a news article with me about two men driving a Jeep from Lisbon to Hong Kong. He knew I love that kind of stuff. I was intrigued, but considered it impractical to do a similar journey.
“Well, if you don’t try, you never know,” said Mr. T.
We started making plans.
The goal was to drive from Hong Kong to Europe. We expected the trip to be at least 6 to 9 months long. To prepare such a long, extensive trip, we made the following preparations for the next 6 years (I’m marking relevant “subjects” in parentheses as in an actual unschooling situation, and I’ll explain why later):
- We joined a number of overlanding groups online and researched on visa policies and overlanding laws for vehicles. (government, interanational laws)
- We studied the world map and drew out all possible routes. Points to consider included sightseeing, safety, cost, travel time, distance, temperature, and climate. (geography, history, international relations, economy, weather, seasons, climate)
- A detailed budget was prepared for the trip. (math)
- There has been a handful of overlanders sharing their experiences traveling between Asia and Europe. We studied their blogs and took notes on what they have done. We even paid a special visit to Dongguan to meet with Mr. Zeng and check out the RV he used to travel across 28 countries back in 2012. (research skills, communication)
- I started doing exercises daily to build better health and physique. I jogged every morning and worked out following Jung Da-yeon and Fitness Blender on YouTube. I even participated in a District Race and a 10K run–quite an achievement for someone who had never succeeded in working out regularly in the past. (physical education)
- Mr. T learned a lot about how to modify and insulate our car to make it more suitable for our drive through the Nordic countries and Russia. (physics, engineering)
- Mr. T really wanted to drive a manual transmission vehicle for this trip, so I learned to drive stick shift. He praised me for succeeding doing so, though I freaked out most of the time and often had no idea what I was doing. I have lost this skill since. (mechanics, driving)
- Language is the key to effective communication. We took Beginning Russian together at Russian Culture Association Language Centre because a good portion of our trip was set to be going through Russia and Kazakhstan. I then took Beginning Spanish with an Argentine teacher at CityU SCOPE and watched some German 101 videos on YouTube. (language)
- Traveling is more interesting when you have done your research. I re-read my old high school art history textbook Gardner’s Art Through the Ages to refresh my memories on art and world history. It was really fun to read all the stories and trivia. (world history, art, art history, geography)
- I wanted to keep a blog to document our “Grand Tour”, so I created my first WordPress blog, Road Trips 360, documenting my usual travels. I learned to design the page and tracked traffic with it. I also created a simple Wix website for our great adventure, though it has been abandoned since I have discovered my pregnancy with Miss R. (web design, blogging, writing, photography)
What Do These Have to Do with Unschooling?
You may be wondering by now about how the adventure went, or even how it was related to unschooling. After all, we have gone through so much trouble learning and re-learning everything! The truth is, this trip never happened. It was postponed twice due to personal health and pregnancy, and it has been on hiatus since. We still long for this trip to happen some day in the future, but for now, we are putting it on hold due to financial reasons.
However, I want to use this example to point out how unschooling, or interest-based learning, works. At the time when we were making all the preparations above, we didn’t think twice. We learned what we had to learn, and were passionate about everything we encountered (yes, including MATH!). What seemed to be chores in the past suddenly became interesting and easy to retain.
When I knew we were doing math to create a budget that works for such an amazing trip, I was more than willing to punch those numbers in to make the plan sounds right.
When I knew we were learning new languages to communicate with actual people in exciting, foreign places, I imagined every way possible to memorize phrases and vocabularies.
When I knew I was reading history for a better understanding of cultures that we would soon encounter in person, every story came alive and became super interesting.
When I knew I was working out to train up my body and soul, I was ten times more disciplined than normal to keep the exercising going.
So can interests alone drive all the learning? It’s hard to say, but I know one thing for sure–that interests IS a great motivation to all learning. Unschooling, being heavily relying on interest-based learning, is an effective way to motivate and engage learners to learn. I knew it from my experience above. It blew my mind how eager I wanted to learn. No special rewards needed. My own intrinsic motivation was my reward. I learned because I wanted to, and I was willing to put my whole self into it. Never in my past schooling life had I felt such a strong urge to learn and absorb. I was thirsty for knowledge and skills. It felt SO great and mesmerizing.
That’s why when I first learned about unschooling some years later, everything clicked. I am all for unschooling. By identifying children’s interests and pairing them up with the right resources, kids can be so engaged. Their learning experiences can expand to such an unimaginable extent. Be ready to run into rabbit holes and discover something big!