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Excerpted and adapted from Creative Home Schooling for Gifted Children: A Resource Guide (Great Potential Press, 2002, in press). Reprinted by permission of the author.

[A] child whose self-directed learning is interfered with, who is forced to follow adult learning priorities, may acquire a strong sense of guilt about any self-initiated activities. One risk of early formal instruction, then, is that it may encourage a sense of guilt at the expense of a sense of initiative.
- David Elkind

Home schooling based on the child's interests and needs is often referred to as unschooling. Although unschooling can be understood as a specific form of home schooling, for many people it is more of an attitude toward learning than a specific method. Grace Llewellyn writes in Freedom Challenge: African American Homeschoolers, "I often use the term 'unschooling.' 'Homeshooling' can sound like doing school at home, while the kind of home schooling that excites me does not resemble school, and often takes place as much out in the world-museums, workplaces, riverbanks-as in the home."

There are nearly as many definitions of unschooling as there are people who consider themselves unschoolers. Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child's Classroom, defines it this way: "Unschooling, to me, means learning what one wants, when one wants, where one wants, for one's own reasons." Unschooling is sometimes referred to as child-led learning, and most dedicated unschoolers advocate a non-coercive education in which the child has a significant role in choosing both the content and the pace of learning.

Many people, however, are suspicious of unschooling. They think that unschooling parents let their children run wild or provide no educational guidance or are ignoring their children's learning needs. Parents of children know as gifted learners may worry that unschooling will not provide their children with enough challenge.

Unschoolers may not fit the stereotype

The truth is that many people who call themselves unschoolers do not fit the stereotype. Some people who consider themselves unschoolers use the child's interests on which to base cooperative learning activities and projects. Some unschoolers use textbooks. Some require music lessons. And because no constraints are put on how much or how fast the child learns, this approach can allow a highly motivated learner to master difficult subjects in far less time, with more challenge, and in more depth than is possible in a more outer-directed environment. There are no artificial standards to put a ceiling on knowledge or parcel out a limited amount of learning per grade level.

Self-directed learning is an educational philosophy

I prefer to use the phrase self-directed learning or self-directed home schooling to unschooling as a way to describe our home schooling approach because it is a more positive description of what actually occurs. Self-directed learning and unschooling are not necessarily synonymous. It is possible for children to be self-directed within a highly structured learning environment-e.g., a child who does independent study with a distance learning course or a formal curriculum. It is also possible for unschoolers to do little to encourage development of self-directed learning skills in their children, such as when a child is not exposed to challenging learning materials or new areas of knowledge, or when parents relinquish their role as informal mentor and facilitator.

Self-directed learning is an educational philosophy that emphasizes the child's role as an active learner. Self-directed learning is very different from a traditional model of learning that has teachers and other adults deciding what will be learned, when it will be learned, how it will be learned, and whether it was learned. Students can be self-directed in several ways and in different degrees. Children are self-directed whenever they

• decide what they need or want to learn,
• set their own goals,
• identify and find resources for learning,
• choose and use strategies for learning, or
• evaluate their own learning.

By finding ways to encourage the above skills and activities, home school parents can choose to make self-directedness an integral and important part of their child's education, regardless of whether they consider themselves unschoolers. All children benefit from exposure to and training in self-directed learning, but self-directed learning is particularly useful for children known as gifted learners because, as a group, gifted children tend to prefer tasks that are self-instructional. They learn more when they control their pace of learning; they have a strong internal drive to do things their own way; and they have intense, broad, or divergent areas of interests they want to explore.

Self-directed learning strategies

Parents can introduce self-directed learning to their children is by giving their children input into the content of study, materials used for study, and the pace of study.

Content

A child's interest is often the key to joyful and successful education, especially with children who are full of self-determination and creative ideas. L. S. Vygotsky wrote that a teacher's job is to find a child's interest and then organize the environment and provide scaffolding in such a way that the child can use that internal interest as a way to learn. Gifted children will often skip from one interest to another, driven by a curiosity to understand all parts of their world and a desire to make connections. By letting the child rather than a pre-set curriculum determine the intensity and scope of the interest, parents can keep alive the child's love of learning.

Materials

An older child may be ready to have even more control over and responsibility for what he or she learns, including what materials to use. If you are deciding what algebra program to use, for example, talk with your child about the different options: CD-ROM, traditional textbook, untraditional textbook, workbook, on-line course, distant-learning course for credit, manipulative-based program, and so on. Spend some time sampling and researching the options, then ask your child for her preference, which may be one algebra program or a combination of two or three. Talk about the reasons for her choices, and together set up a schedule for using the materials.

Pace

Children can also learn how to pace themselves in their study rather than rely on someone else to set their pace and schedule. If a child is doing math workbook pages that contain several practice problems for a concept he or she already understands, encourage the child to make the decision to do only every other or every third problem. If those problems are done correctly, the child can then go on to the next section; if the child does several of the problems incorrectly, explain that this is an indication that the full set of problems is probably necessary at this point. By including the child in these kinds of learning strategies, the child will be better able to direct the pace of his or her own study in future years.

Good habits for self directed learning

Many of the following habits of self-directed learning are valuable for every home school family:

• Read aloud to your children or to the whole family on a regular basis, regardless of your children's ages. You can read picture books, classic stories, non-fiction books, newspaper articles, anything that is interesting.
  
  "The Magic Bookshelf" interview
  
• Keep all kinds of reading material in the house and easily accessible to children.
• Provide leisure reading time for children when they immerse themselves in books of their own choosing.
• Make library visits a regular part of errands. Allow enough time for children to browse the shelves in addition to looking for specific books.
• Be a model of someone who writes for different purposes throughout the day. Let your children see you writing grocery lists, to-do lists, instructions for caretakers, journal entries, letters, poetry, short stories - anything that requires putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard.
• Keep a variety of writing instruments and paper in different rooms of the house. Remember, not every piece of children's writing needs to be evaluated or even commented upon.
• Start a collection of interesting maps, such as those from National Geographic, and have an up-to-date globe in a common area of the house.
• Play board games and card games regularly, daily if possible.
• Keep puzzles available for pleasant self-challenge and relaxation.
• Encourage children to make their own art and expose them to art forms from different eras of history and from different cultures.
• Watch high quality television programs that explore biographies, history, current events and science. (Don't call it "educational.")
• Encourage children to participate in everyday household activities such as cooking, cleaning and yard work. Keep it fun! Prepare a favorite recipe together, make a game of dusting the furniture or choose new flowers for the garden; these activities can be favorite childhood memories to cherish.
  
  "Kids Around the World Cook!" interview
  
• Encourage your children to "try out" sample curriculum resources before you make a decision to buy. Ask for their input in any educational purchase or materials.
• Show your children how to adjust the pace of learning; explain ideas of compacting and telescoping (see Chapter Ten) and the theory of self-directed learning.
• Allow your children to check their own work when possible; ask them what percentage of correct answers they consider adequate for mastery. Talk about their answers, and experiment with the best way to make corrections (Re-do the problem? Re-read the passage? Find a different approach to the material?)

Enjoy your children every day.
Learn with your children every day.
Learn from your children every day.

The Lessons of Volunteerism:
Giving is Receiving
by Shay Seaborne
In my family, there is no clear distinction between volunteering and living; we work to help others, and for good causes, simply because we are able. As Caitlín and Laurel grew, we began volunteering to monitor a bluebird trail. Over the past six years we have seen dozens of bluebird pairs successfully raise and fledge over 200 nestlings. Our trail's role in the increase of the local bluebird population led to the addition of bluebird interpretation at the site. Find out how Caitlín and Laurel consider assisting others as a normal, natural part of living and perhaps how this can become a part of your life.

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