Not-Back-To-School Picnic

We’re lucky to live in a city with a huge homeschooling network, many of whom are also unschoolers. This year we joined the network, and I’m really enjoying the communication with other homeschoolers through the various e-mail lists and websites. Already I have a lot of ideas through them, and I can see how such a group could be a lot of fun in the future for planning field trips and play groups as the kids develop their interests. On Wednesday, we attended the annual not-back-to-school picnic, which was held at a local beach. It was a beautiful, sunny day for a picnic.

We got there right on time, and were some of the first to arrive. In retrospect, I’m glad we got there as early as we did, as it got pretty crowded and busy later on.

I was immediately impressed by the freedom and trust most of the children were accorded. There was no coercion to participate in specific activities; no segregating the kids based on age, last name, or ability level; no broken recordings of parents calling for kids to be more careful or to stop doing what they were doing. The kids naturally congregated in groups loosely based on whatever activities were going on that interested them. Older kids and younger kids worked together, with some kids working in large groups, others in smaller groups, and others by themselves.

The main activities for the kids centred around a pool of water up the beach a bit from the ocean. Some kids were busy collecting sticks and driftwood and rocks to put in the water, others were scooping water and dirt out, and still others were digging a trench from the pool to the ocean.

I watched Meredith as she went from one activity to another, or one group of kids to another. She really seemed to be enjoying herself and the kids were able to solve most of their conflicts without intervention from any adults. They really were quite free to do as they pleased. As it got busy, Meredith seemed to want to be by herself more, but that was okay too. At one point, she went and sat by herself quite far down the beach, she’s only a speck in the second picture past the group of kids in the foreground.

Someone had brought a huge board for the kids to colour on, and it seemed like many of the kids did take a turn adding to it. Once again, there was no right or wrong. No one encouraged the kids to colour in the lines or to stick with certain colours. The younger kids’ contributions were just as important as the older ones. The whole experience was really quite refreshing for me.

Fiona slept through most of it but was awake for a bit before we left. (Check out the gorgeous longies my sister-in-law made for her!)

About an hour and a half after we got there it was starting to get quite crowded and our kids both seemed to be feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the people, so we decided it was probably a good time to head out. But I did really enjoy the time we spent there and feel like it’s a whole new culture of people, especially the obviously unschooly ones. It was also really great to meet some friends we already knew from other places, like Deirdre from Continuum Family who is an unschooler, as well as a work-at-home mom who sells all sorts of awesome things for EC’ers and natural family living.

The experience left me even more confident about home schooling. Watching the older children interact with each other, the younger kids, and the adults; it was clear that they didn’t have socialization problems. If anything, they were better socialized than many traditionally schooled kids I know, as their network of friends involved kids (and adults) from all age groups.

I honestly don’t know how anyone could think that this:

is a better experience for kids than this: