Anne Ohman

Excerpt from *Making Connections* conference talk
Anne Ohman

In our unschooling family, learning is nothing that's separated, categorized, planned, judged, graded, or forced. It's just a natural, joyful part of all of our lives.
Because real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the Joy.
Real learning happens when our children make real connections that have meaning in their real lives.
Real learning is not what we were told it was. It's necessary for us, as unschooling parents, to make a shift in our perception of what constitutes learning. That's sometimes difficult for parents to do, because our old definition of education and learning is so deeply ingrained in our society and in us.
So in order to make that shift, we first just need get out our erasers and clear away the old crap ~ because real learning is buried under that school definition of learning. Erase that away, and then shift your focus.
Focus on that connection with your True Self and focus on allowing your children the freedom to connect with their True Selves.
Focus on that second connection ~ connecting with each other.
Focus on living. Living joyfully. Live a full, rich, connected life with your children.
Focus on the Joy and allow your children to focus on the Joy. They are constantly and joyfully and effortlessly making connections within their own minds and hearts. Their body of knowledge that they possess within themselves has the chance to grow every day. What does that mean? It means with unschooling, they're learning every day!
We also need to erase away the harmful fallacy that learning is something that can be forced. Real learning is nothing that can be forced upon another person. The connections have to originate within themSelves. It has to come from that first connection. Otherwise, it's not real learning. It's temporarily memorizing something in order to pass the test.
John Holt once said in an interview, "Children are interested in the world, as far as they are able to get into contact with it." That's our job. To put before our children as much of the world as we can.

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