"Radical Unschoolers" - Is this irresponsible parenting or simply ahead of the curve?

[simply_cats]

I’m not an expert on this topic, but I will throw in my two cents as “unschooling” is something I’ve been looking at quite extensively in the last year.

First, let me say that I am currently a high school English teacher. Save this year, I have always loved teaching, and have taught for about 12 years. Now, with that said, due to the abominable things happening in Indiana education, and a poorly timed school system move, I am being “riffed.” I’m struggling right now with what I want to do, and if it is even worth it to fight to stay in education with the things/legislation/bad and good ideas that are coming down the pike.

I’ve looked into starting charter schools, alternative schools, and the ilk. I have two children of my own, a seventh grader in advanced classes and a fourth grader who is extraordinarily artistic, but absent-minded- his grades won’t ever get him in the advanced programs.

I was fascinated when I started reading about unschooling. In my mind, it is a brilliant opportunity for some students. For my daughter, the public school gifted program is perfect. She is naturally reserved, highly analytical, and does well with structure.

I’m seriously looking for ways that I can generate an income next school year that would allow me to “unschool” my son. He is incredibly curious, and he loves to just “know” stuff. He is extremely friendly, and will find someone to talk to no matter where he is.

I do not think you can assume that unschooling means you don’t have any chores, resposibilities, civic duties, etc. I also don’t think that you have to “learn” to be bored by going to school and learning to do things you don’t want to do.

Sorry if this is a bit disjointed; I’m having to write this in bits and pieces, and many posts that I wanted to address I’ve gotten all mixed up In short, I think it depends on the child. I think many unschooling parents know the capabilities and limits of their children and are doing a wonderful thing for them. I also think there are a large number of “parents” that are “homeschooling” their children who couldn’t pass a home visit to adopt a dog from the humane society.

[Cat_Whisperer]

@Marley23

Boredom does happen in life outside of school. What you learn in school is how to deal with it in increments of 40 minutes or so while trying to avoid attention from an authority figure. I don’t think that has very many applications in the workplace. Quercus is right; there’s a lot of ‘I had to suffer, so they should too’ going on here.

It sounds like you have an enviable job history; I don’t think I’ve ever had a job where I didn’t struggle with boredom (and usually avoiding attention from an authority figure {read PHB} too).

[msmith537]

@Zsofia

Exactly - a lot of what you learn in school is how to do things you don’t want to do and get the hell on with your life. How to deal with petty bureaucracy. How to work with people you hate. How to manage from below. Even astronauts have to do dumb shit sometimes.

Well, to play devils advocate, institutional schooling is pretty much a training ground and class stratification program used to assign people to whatever corporate job they will eventually perform in adulthood. The only reason people have to deal with petty beurocracy and politics is because they are forced into taking a job doing the one thing they have spent their life doing - learning to confirm to institutional beurocracy and politics and procedures.

Once you have learned to read, write, speak proper English and do basic math, you pretty much have an edge on a lot of high school graduates already. And most people forget half the bullshit they are forced to learn anyway. So imagine if you spent all your time studying something you are actually interested in. You might actually reach a point where you didn’t need to take some boring crap-job that anyone can do.

[Marley23]

@Cat_Whisperer

It sounds like you have an enviable job history; I don’t think I’ve ever had a job where I didn’t struggle with boredom (and usually avoiding attention from an authority figure {read PHB} too).

I didn’t say I’ve never been bored. I said school only teaches you how to deal with a very specific kind of boredom. If we’re really going to treat that as a skill, I don’t think it’s one that would help most people at their jobs. If I’m bored at work, I can’t sit around for 40 or 50 minutes and wait for the period to end so I can do something else. Maybe it gives you some tips on how to deal with meetings…

[Chronos]

I should be clear that I’m not weighing in on the “dealing with boredom is a useful skill” debate. I’m just trying to pin down what the goals of the movement are. Is the goal to educate kids better, or is the goal to keep them entertained? If, as most advocates of unschooling claim, it’s the former, then how is it relevant that conventional students are bored sometimes?

[dangermom]

Whoops, I totally managed to miss this thread (was too busy homeschooling my kids I guess). But my friend Terrie, a homeschooling author, posted her thoughts on this piece: Response to GMA, and the family itself has tried to do some elaboration on the piece, saying that it’s not true that anything goes. Terrie notes that in fact Mass. (where the family lives) does have regulations on homeschooling.

I can’t comment myself, didn’t see it. But it sounds like GMA took a very fringe family, portrayed it as even more extreme than it actually is, and called it unschooling. Unschooling is actually a highly intensive parenting style that takes a lot of work and can have wonderful results. It’s not for me though–too much work!

I myself am a classical homeschooler; we’re on our 5th year. So I’m happy to answer questions and try to fight ignorance–I did an Ask the Homeschooler thread a couple of years ago and am willing to do it again if that’s wanted. I’m way late to this thread though.

[Renee]

Even if dealing with being bored is a useful life skill which needs to be practiced daily for a period of 12 years, I doubt it trumps, say, learning how to mange your time so more things can be achieved on a given day, which, arguably, these unschoolers would have an advantage in.

I’m not seeing the child abuse here, either, but I’m one of the kids this would have worked well for. I went to a very advanced school, but was hugely bored most of the time and would likely have learned just as much or more being self-taught. I doubt every child is this way, but some are.

@msmith

Well, to play devils advocate, institutional schooling is pretty much a training ground and class stratification program used to assign people to whatever corporate job they will eventually perform in adulthood. The only reason people have to deal with petty beurocracy and politics is because they are forced into taking a job doing the one thing they have spent their life doing - learning to confirm to institutional beurocracy and politics and procedures.

Once you have learned to read, write, speak proper English and do basic math, you pretty much have an edge on a lot of high school graduates already. And most people forget half the bullshit they are forced to learn anyway. So imagine if you spent all your time studying something you are actually interested in. You might actually reach a point where you didn’t need to take some boring crap-job that anyone can do.

Well put.

[Zsofia]

@msmith537

Well, to play devils advocate, institutional schooling is pretty much a training ground and class stratification program used to assign people to whatever corporate job they will eventually perform in adulthood. The only reason people have to deal with petty beurocracy and politics is because they are forced into taking a job doing the one thing they have spent their life doing - learning to confirm to institutional beurocracy and politics and procedures.

Once you have learned to read, write, speak proper English and do basic math, you pretty much have an edge on a lot of high school graduates already. And most people forget half the bullshit they are forced to learn anyway. So imagine if you spent all your time studying something you are actually interested in. You might actually reach a point where you didn’t need to take some boring crap-job that anyone can do.

Yeah, because a job you’re interested in never has any unpleasant parts that you have to endure. Sure.

If I’d been unschooled, I wouldn’t know how to do basic math. Sometimes life is about doing things you don’t want to do.

[suranyi]

@Zsofia

Yeah, because a job you’re interested in never has any unpleasant parts that you have to endure. Sure.

If I’d been unschooled, I wouldn’t know how to do basic math. Sometimes life is about doing things you don’t want to do.

Yes, but many of us are lucky enough to limit that part to as small as possible.

ETA: In other words, there may be good arguments against this movement, but “it doesn’t teach them how rotten real life is” is not one of them. Because real life doesn’t have to be so bad.

[dangermom]

@Zsofia

If I’d been unschooled, I wouldn’t know how to do basic math. Sometimes life is about doing things you don’t want to do.

Even unschoolers usually have a math program, though they tend to start by doing things like “let’s double this recipe” and “how many apples can we buy with our money?”

[Mtgman]

Our homeschool is a little more structured, but unschooling has some merits. And let’s not blow this out of proportion, every parent screws up their kid in some way or another. It’s a perk of a generally thankless job. Somehow pretty much all of us survive our parental fuckups. Either we learn from friends, experience, or we follow paths which don’t require the kind of knowledge we didn’t acquire. The number of people who have ever died because they couldn’t do rapid mental arithmetic, the kind of skill that gets drilled into kids in mainstream compulsory education, is extremely small. In our homeschool co-op we have a couple families which are largely unschoolers. The kids want to come to co-op and learn. A couple are in my game theory class this semester and while probability theory makes their heads hurt, I can’t say it seems to make their heads hurt any more than it does for kids who are in public school.

They’re learning how to do some rapid arithmetic when we calculate the odds for blackjack hands or the right ratio of cards of various types for a deck to play Magic: the Gathering with. Once I put a bunch of cards down in front of them it was amazing how much more relateable the lessons became. Suddenly it became obvious to them why knowing what your odds of pulling certain cards, which existed in various proportions in the deck, are valuable skills.

Enjoy,
Steven

[heathen_earthling]

@Palo_Verde

This sounds like the ‘taking children seriously’ movement which states that parents shouldn’t force children to do anything against their will, because the kids never asked to be born.

http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/

It’s moronic, irresponsible and flushing your child’s future down the toilet.

The “future” being flushed down the toilet is one that a lot of kids never asked for either. Here’s a radical thought: how about we start taking people seriously? Unschool the kids, unemploy the adults, freedom for everyone.

[Chronos]

Even unschoolers usually have a math program, though they tend to start by doing things like “let’s double this recipe” and “how many apples can we buy with our money?”

Which is exactly how the math programs in schools do it, too. What’s the difference here, again?

[Trepa_Mayfield]

@heathen_earthling

The “future” being flushed down the toilet is one that a lot of kids never asked for either. Here’s a radical thought: how about we start taking people seriously? Unschool the kids, unemploy the adults, freedom for everyone.

How?

[Ruminator]

@Chronos

Which is exactly how the math programs in schools do it, too.

Typical school curriculum doesn’t motivate math in this fashion regularly. They really don’t have time to do it. The closest approximation is “word problems” which is really just a thin veneer over “plug-n-chug.”

dangermom didn’t put much detail in her last blurb but if I infer the spirit of what she’s talking about, you can’t do that type of math interactivity with a teacher-to-student ratio of 1-to-30. Logistics.

[Qin_Shi_Huangdi]

Idiocy. Clearly these people are unfit to be parents and should be taken into the custody of the State.

[Czarcasm]

@Curtis LeMay

Idiocy. Clearly these people are unfit to be parents and should be taken into the custody of the State.

If this is sarcasm, it’s not very good.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Czarcasm

If this is sarcasm, it’s not very good.

Sarcasm is a skill that takes years to develop. Like math, or something.

[dangermom]

@Chronos

Which is exactly how the math programs in schools do it, too. What’s the difference here, again?

They do this math while cooking and at the grocery store, or perhaps while building a trebuchet in the backyard? They allow children to learn money management by actually managing money? Anyway, my point was that unschoolers do not generally allow their children to get to 18 without ever doing math–they’re just often doing it by arranging for their children to need math IRL, at least during the younger years, and then requiring a math program. My good unschooling friend is thinking of joining my charter school next year and using part of the funds to get a tutor to teach math to her kids, since she doesn’t like doing it (she does it, just it’s her least favorite part).

A primary tenet of unschooling is that children will learn whatever they need to learn, when they need to learn it. You set up a rich environment that encourages exploration, and support what they want to do, etc.

And of course the point of homeschooling and unschooling is not necessarily to teach math differently, though it may be. Several of the most popular math programs for homeschoolers are also used in schools–Saxon and Singapore, for example. Homeschoolers like the ability to tailor the program to the child, moving quickly at times and pausing to concentrate on something difficult until mastery is attained. Or, if necessary, to throw the program out and find something that works better.

[msmith537]

@Zsofia

Yeah, because a job you’re interested in never has any unpleasant parts that you have to endure. Sure.

I don’t know what that has to do with anything. The point of education should be to learn how to DO things you want to be able to do. It shouldn’t be about learning to endure unpleasent bullshit.