Having a five year old again and making the choice to homeschool that five year old again means I’m constantly met over and over with the question “oh! How will you teach her how to read. You aren’t a teacher.”  

This is my fourth child so the fourth time I’ve been met with this predicament. My answer is  “I’m not.“

The conversation can get a little bit awkward at that point because our over culture has spun a bit of a tricky story on us that if we don’t “teach” a child to read when they are a certain age they might not read. Ever! Perhaps  people imagine that I might be somehow disadvantaging my children.  That they will be “behind” and won’t fit into “the real world” whatever that means. 

What do I mean by teach? 

To “teach” , it usually means that we would decide for the child that it is time for them to learn something we think they need to learn. Regardless of how the child feels about it. 

This is the bit that doesn’t sit well for me in any way. 

To decide something like this for someone else has a story attached to it that I don’t resonate with. 

When I feel into the story underneath  that belief system, it lacks the trust I yearn to develop in the human beings natural capabilities. 

I don’t see it encouraging true thinking and development of the self in the way that I would feel good about. 

She is my fourth so I’ve got four different stories on how learning can unfold when it is left to unfurl and express in its own stunningly diverse way. 

It’s actually breathtaking and sometimes  strongly challenges the status quo not to mention me! 

I should state here that I strongly value diversity. 

Ive seen how it strengthens systems  in life forms and leads to thriving. 

So I’ve watched my four young people take completely different learning journeys which are still morphing and changing and becoming. My eldest is 19 yrs And I hope with all my heart this  will continue until their last breath. Because learning is living. 

To stop is to stagnate. 

Learning,  in my observation,  is inspiring, driven by the heart and curiosity. It is messy and frustrating and joyful. It is also really hard to distinguish when it is viewed through the lense of the very recent school based education system. 

I choose not to look at it through that lense. But through a more ancient lense that has stood the test of time in creating healthy living conditions for all. 

Our biological design has learning at its core. 

When we understand that we are in fact nature. We are not seperate from it. 

WE. ARE.  IT.  

We would be wise to look at the natural world around us. If we dared to, we would see and understand that learning happens as a result of living. Through play and interaction with life.

Everywhere. All the time. Not at 9am Monday morning. 

Mother Nature didn’t mess up. When we are living from the heart, from our truest  nature, we have strong , clear impulses that guide us very clearly in different directions. We are guided to learn what it is we need to understand to reveal our very own unique expression of the life force that we are. 

Any form of monoculture breeds weakness and disease. 

I know this with every fibre of my being. 

There is no question in my mind that is is truth. I’ve seen it over and over again. 

My conditioning however,  having attended school, is quite different . My experience was being “taught” things that I didn’t really want to know and told that the things I did want to learn more about were topics  I was “allowed” to do after I “learned” the things I “needed” to know according to someone else’s idea. 

Can you feel the different undercurrent? 

One says trust yourself. 

One says your are untrustworthy 

One says “you have so much to give the world that is already inside you. Let’s find people and experiences that will draw that out and strengthen it”

One says” you are an empty vessel and need to be filled with another persons ideas. Yours aren’t important. “

There are times in my parenting journey when I have come from fear or conditions and I have tried to force or manipulate learning  onto my kids and what I’m met with is resistance. 

When I journey alongside them and come from my heart  and observe and  trust them , they learn in the most fabulous , creative ways that I could never have thought of. 

My young people are like detectives. 

They feel instantly when I’m coming from a place other than trust and I am immediately met with the same lack of trust. 

So back to my five year old and this funny obsession our culture has with her and reading / writing the English language. 

I have ZERO attachment to weather she learns to read / write at 5 or 13. I really don’t. At 15 nobody will know the difference. 

I trust the process. 

As it turns out she is really interested at the moment. Like really interested. Asks questions all day long. 

Reads the letters on signs, packets, books,  the bottom of cups, lists …. Anywhere she sees these strange symbols she’s trying to figure out what they are. 

The temptation is to see that interest and begin to “teach” 

Aaaahhhh the old conditioning sometimes tries to lead me down that path. 

But my yearning as a mother for her to feel a deep sense of trust in herself wins out. 

The temptation into being the wise almighty one that knows all almost gets me. 

But my curiosity into how her life force wants to explore and learn about this world around her triumphs. 

Thankfully. 

And in the greatest plot twist I end up learning!!! 

I strew her path with beautiful ways of exploring letters, closely feeling her energy the whole time, disciplining  myself to stay non attached to outcomes. 

I respond to the gizzillion questions  with only answers of what she’s asked. Making sure I don’t get a nasty case of “teacheria”. A term coined by author and education activist, Naomi Aldort explaining our incessant adult desire to over explain or over teach.

Which is , she explains , one of the quickest way to stunt exploratory learning. And after doing it a few more times than I care to admit I’d have to agree! Strongly 😉

I make sure I’m totally ok if the questions stop tomorrow and her interests take her somewhere completely different. Like bugs for example  or even what seems like play. It’s all valid. 

So in short, no I’m not going to teach her how to read or write. 

What I will do is open to trust and follow her life force. 

I will answer her questions and leave beautiful inspiring invitations/ activities around her space taking care not to have an attachment to whether she takes them up or not. 

I’ll play her games when she’s sees letters in trees and the clouds and want to make her body into her name. 

Try it. It’s hilarious. 

I’ll spend time in presence with her when she invites it really listening, watching and feeling into her. Who is this creature I get to live with? 💚

I will be as self responsible as I can with the thoughts and feelings that come up for me around what she “should” be doing at this age according to the man made system that our current narrative abides by for this tiny moment in human history. 

I’ll read her soul nourishing books that will fill her with love for herself and all of life around her. Inspiring inner images that nurture the loving being she naturally is. 

That strengthen and encourage hope and the truth that she is a powerful being beyond measure. 

I’ll write down the wild and whimsical stories that flow from her lips if she wants me to. I’ll read her poetry. Ill write down her poetry. I’ll have her immersed in sacred stories told by the fireside at dusk by the ocean. Stories told by people who love the word and use it wisely. I’ll speak to her of how the original people of this land read the country. This whole earth is their book. The seen and the unseen. I’ll speak to her of our people way back when, that exist in our blood and bones who did the same. 

She’ll witness the love I have of reading and the nourishment and clarity I get by writing. 

I’ll place people around her that will fuel her passion if that feels right in the future. 

I’ll speak with her at just the right moment , when her soul gives me the nod,  about the power words wield and how we can use them to shape our world. Quite Literally. 

But “teach” her to read……. No, I think I’ll let life take care of that.