PBL connections to Unschooling

I'm all over the place on this post, so forgive me if I'm not making perfect sense.  I guess I need to write through some ideas that have been swirling around in my head.

I have been thinking a lot about the concept of unschooling a lot lately.  I heard a

NPR piece on unschooling yesterday that prompted this post, although I've been reading a good deal about unschooling from my hippie friends' parenting blogs.  Sometimes, as a teacher and a product of traditional schooling, I'm offended and roll my eyes at their impracticality.  But once I put my pride aside, I see a lot of truth in these ideas.  I know for me, as public educator, I believe in the public school system and, although I know it's a flawed institution, I believe the public school system can do wonderful things for children.  But I also think that I can learn from unschooling principles and-- here's where all this connects-- I believe PBL is a nice combination of traditional schooling and unschooling.

Let me tell you why, while telling you a bit about my childhood education.

I grew up in a family of educators but I also grew up in a family of learners.  My parents kindled my brother's and my curiosity and I feel like I was constantly reading, discussing, or debating about something growing up.  My dad very much believed in the importance of play-- pretending and creating-- and he made an concerted effort to give us time for that, even if it meant sacrificing scheduled activities like team sports or music lessons.  (We had those too, but we certainly weren't one of those hyper-scheduled, always-on-the-go families.)  My mom took a more structured approach and sought out opportunities for learning-- family vacations out west that paralleled the books were reading, backpacking trips to learn about ecosystems, time in the kitchen to learn about cooking and food.  Both my mom and my dad felt like parents concentrated too much on not letting their kids get bored, when real learning and conversation happened after boredom set in. 

My brother and I also attended public school and were high achieving students.  I think the structures in school were good for us.  I learned a lot about "playing the game" and succeeding within an organization.  Granted, we attended a "good" public school in which we were in the majority of the while, well-educated, middle class-- it was suburban bliss at its best.  I had many advantages at school that others do not in public school.  

I guess what I'm saying is that at home, I benefited from many of the things that unschoolers believe in and at school, I also benefited from many of the things that traditional educators tout.

Let me give you a specific example:
My mom was the assistant principal at my elementary school and when I was in fourth grade, my teacher went to her at the end of the year.  My teacher told my mom, "Naomi is really borderline A-B in math.  I really want to give her an A because a B will devastate her."  And my mom, so wise (although annoying at the time), told my teacher to give me the B because she didn't want me to put pressure on myself to make all A's.  She wanted me to achieve in school because it represented learning, and to not just focus on the grade.  And it worked, because, although I cared enough about grades, I was not grade-obsessed and I think I had a healthy relationship with grades. 

Let me give you another one:
I've always had this love affair with pioneers.  I think it started when my mom and read all the Laura Ingles Wilder books together in second and third grade.  In fifth grade, we had a social studies unit on pioneers and I was thrilled to learn about the specifics of Laura's life.  We even had pioneer day, where we sewed bonnets, cooked cornbread, and had a make shift wagon trail across the playground.  When my family went camping, I pretended the we always cooked our food over the fire, and when my brother, neighbors, and I played in the woods, I always wore my bonnet and pretended that my bike was a horse.  Again, in seventh grade social studies, we learned about pioneers, but this time I learned about dysentery and infant mortality and the effect of Manifest Destination on the Native American populations.  I was crushed-- I had made such a personal connection to the pioneers-- but I think it was a totally appropriate and natural progression of learning and understanding how the world worked.  I was able to makes connections the synthesize the greater forces within the context of that time period, but also within the context of my own life.  And then,  this past winter, I visited the Booth Museum of Western Art and I truly felt a connection to the pieces of pioneer art because my education on that subject had been so personal.  I think my formal education and my learning at home combined to a really wonderful understanding of that time period.

Here's my take away point: Unschooling has a lot of merits but will never be practical for all school children.  But the benefits of unschooling-- passion, timing, autonomy, authenticity-- can be harnessed in a project-based learning classroom.