I've said unit studies are great. Does that mean we throw out all textbook or workbook learning?
Has the baby went out with the bath water?
The Questionable
When working with textbooks and workbooks children often groan about it. They may lack excitement and wonder why they have to do these things. As they get older, they may even wonder if they will need to know this topic they are forced to read about.
Workbooks and textbooks can be time robbers. Wouldn't it be much more fun to do real life and learn real subjects instead?
Workbooks and schedules can cause anxiety. Do you feel obligated to finish what you've begun? Do you feel stressed to keep up with the schedule?
Textbooks contain predigested information. Someone else or a committee of people have already decided what the most important lesson to learn is. Then the children spend time looking for the right answer instead of drawing their own conclusions.
Do you like to be stifled?
So it's not that textbooks are bad or that they don't work. They will get the job done.
Some subjects are just presented better in a workbook format. The path of least resistance I would call it. Phonics and Math come to mind. A guided bible study is nice too.
But if given a choice, wouldn't you prefer to do better?
A Step Above
What is a step above a workbook? Many things.
- Oral narration is an efficient and effective way to know if a child is learning from what you have discussed and read.
- Children learn from being with us and participating in our activities.
- Learning with real life experiences helps your children find out what types of activities they enjoy and could start to lead them to their purpose and mission for their life.
- It's better to have discussions. It should get more comfortable over time.
- Multiple subjects can come together as a whole when you study real people and their real places and place in time.
- Stop worrying about gaps in education. We could spend every hour of every day and not know everything there is to know.
- Maintaining a schedule in a way that maintains flexibility and maintains the family's sanity.
- Learning to teach according to your children's current needs and not to the schedule.
- Relaxing and supporting your children so that learning lasts a life time.
- Freeing your family of busywork and boring work.
Unit studies support all of these things. They aren't the only way to go about accomplishing them, but they are an easy way to get started.
Doing unit studies doesn't take special training. It doesn't take a special curriculum. It only takes a decision to begin and activity to follow through.
To your unit study success,
Suzanne
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