LaPaz Home Learning

Our little homeschool, as you may have guessed from reading here, is unique. At least I like to think so.

It isn’t that our “approach” to education is terribly unique. Lots of people are relaxed, eclectic, hands-on, unschoolish, whatever, home learners. I see it more and more every day, people loosening up, handing the educational reins over a bit more to their kids. Tweaking things until they fit just right. So, nothing groundbreaking happening here in the educational theory department by a long shot. We did not invent the idea of following a child’s interests, of tailoring teaching methods to a child’s learning styles, of learning through living life and following passions.

What I DO feel is unique about our homeschool is  how all that plays out here in real life. Where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

Because we, each of us here at Lapaz, bring to the table our own unique set of talents and challenges, interests and abilities, our homeschool is out of necessity going to look very different from any other. We are a unique combination, the bunch of us, in a unique set of  circumstances, the combination of which is not to be duplicated anywhere else on earth. And so our homeschool, being a mad blend of all that, is one unique concoction.

(“Thank heavens!” some might say, and I’d be apt to agree, LOL!)

But anyway, my point in all of this is that our unique situation means that we make choices of materials that may or may not resonate with other homeschooling families.

Case in point: Here is what Superboy just finished reading.

The Mutt: How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself

It is the autobiography of Rodney Mullen- an excellent book, well written, and very readable. Superboy blazed through it in a day and one long, late night.

In our school, I “count” it as history.

And why not? Isn’t history the story of people and events that influence the future?  Well, Rodney Mullen is profoundly influential in the lives of many, many people worldwide, young and old. He has a great life story of overcoming some profound obstacles to achieve his dreams. He was innovative, passionate, and driven and earned his place as an all-time great in his sport. I mean, he pretty much invented the ollie, for goodness sake! I consider that historic.

But what is more important, is that Superboy considers it historic. It is history that is relevant to him, right now.

And by respecting his choice of historical reading I am telling him that the study of history doesn’t have to be the way I learned it- an endless parade of  empires and battles, rises and falls, dates and places strange and distant, as dry and dusty as books hidden away on a library back shelf. Instead, I am telling him history can be living and breathing, close to home, and as relevant as his very own skateboard.

Because of this book we had some great conversations.

One was about Y2K  and the apocalypse that wasn’t (imagine, that craziness is history now!) because in the book Rodney Mullen shares how it haunted his thoughts for a time. I shared how that big hullabaloo was handled in our household(totally ignored) and by folks I knew (stocking up on survival foods).

Another conversation was about the age-old parental dilemma of encouraging talents in our children (like a young Rodney Mullen or Shawn White, Leonardo DaVinci or Joshua Bell) vs preparing them for reality (we can’t all be Rodney Mullen or Shawn White, Leonardo DaVinci or Joshua Bell, right? Some of us have to get real jobs…) How does a parent know which way to go?

History can be pretty personal. I want him to see that. To understand that history is about real people and the choices they make.

And armed with this much more intimate view of history,I think there is a much greater chance he will continue to want to learn history, to enjoy it and not close his mind to it, or write it off as irrelevant the way I did at his age. Hopefully the Romans and Greeks, the Medicis and the Minuit-men, all of those iconic historical figures will also become his companions, in time.

And with that in mind, I’d love to open the comments to suggestions for history books that you love, the ones  that make history alive for you.