Working From Home: Ideas for Family Support

Today’s ExchangeEveryDay comes from Sara Gilliam, Editor-in-Chief of Exchange magazine. She is bringing not only support for fellow working-from-home parents, but her words are also appropriate for sharing with families to help them be gentle with themselves. Sara writes:

“Several years ago in Houston, I had the excellent fortune of being seated at dinner next to Saira Siddiqui, a Muslim mom blogger and champion of the notion of ‘unschooling.’ I have never forgotten our lively conversation, which centered around her innovative approach to educating her own children. As days of social distancing have turned into weeks, and I’ve wrestled with maintaining my own work schedule while also trying to engage my children in the low-hanging fruit of educational activities, I was inspired to revisit Saira’s philosophy. From SairaSiddiqui.com:

‘Unschooling, or better phrased—self-directed education—values the learning that takes place simply from living, rather than restricting learning to what takes place within the four walls of a classroom. Unschoolers often learn from a variety of outlets, from interacting and taking part in community activities, traveling, to everyday experiences like going to the grocery store or planning meals. Unschoolers learn from books, mentors, online courses, and even from traditional courses and curriculum, at times. The key to self-directed learning rests upon the notion that children should have a choice. They should be free to direct their own education. That they have the option to say no to certain learning options. Why? Because the very idea of learning rests upon this choice. Almost all of the leading education theorists believe that a learner’s interest is necessary to result in learning. There can be no real learning under compulsion or coercion.’

Okay, my husband and I decided, let’s try it. We each took charge of supporting one child, and dove in. Our kindergartener identified an immediate area of interest: raccoons! (Prevalent visitors to our backyard and destroyers of our compost bin.) What, we considered, would an unschooling approach to raccoon investigation look like? Online videos of raccoon behavior; research on habitats, diets and life cycles; a search for tracks in the fresh mud behind our garage; the setting of a ‘trap’ in our yard—dry dog food left out overnight as a tempting treat for our resident trash pandas.

I’m still working out a plan with my grade fiver. We’re both interested in World War II. I think he’d be interested in the stories of paratroopers on the Western Front, and of Pino Lella’s alpine rescues of Italian Jews. My grandfather was a medic in the South Pacific, so there’s good (family) fodder to plumb there. We can listen to audio books, find archival videos on YouTube, write ‘letters from the front’ to imaginary relatives, and cook meals that were common in the 1940s.

Can we do these things between my Zoom meetings and conference calls? I will be honest… I’m not sure. It’s a constant juggling act and I’m as imperfect as the next woman, if not more so. Yesterday we jettisoned all unschooling plans as the sun came out and the temperature hit 50. It was our most spring-like day in the two-week forecast and hikes and soccer trumped any and all indoor activities. In other words… stay tuned. But meantime, remember we’re all in this together. Hang in there, and share your unschooling ideas in the comments!

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