"Unschooling" the rebellious twin of the home-schooling movement

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

One of the benefits of traditional schooling is that it introduces children to a wide variety of subjects. No doubt most children prefer one or two subjects and would rather not study a few at all. Of course the drawback to this is traditional schooling does not usually provide kids with opportunity to really study one subject of interest in depth.

It almost seems to me that unschooling is like letting kids ‘pick a major’ very early in life and I hesitate about the wisdom in that. Sure, let your kids go off and learn and read in depth about whatever they want, but that must be balanced with a rounded education. I wouldn’t have had exposure to many subjects that I now am interested in if they hadn’t been forced upon me.

I think there is a lot of pressure now on kids to decide what they want to be early on. It used to be that you had at least a year or two of college to experiment, now it seems like you need to know your major before you even apply. I would hate to see that extended all the way to grade school. It is good for creative artsy children to learn math and it is good for science geeks to paint a picture. Kids tend to fixate on one thing at a time - how many kids would study only dinosaurs?

42

Ay, there’s the rub. Those coddling hippies who unschool their children aren’t preparing them to be actualized individuals, they’re preparing them to be cogs – cogs who can do nothing except what’s directly in the field they “chose” when they were nearly babies, who can’t appreciate great works because they don’t understand them, and who can only be a drag on society because they never got taught critical thinking but we still have to give them the damn vote. I was under the impression that we’re living in a society, but I guess it’s just a collective.

–Cliffy

43

A fancy, new-age term meaning “spoiled, undisciplined brat.”

:wink:

44

I think unstructured schooling would be OK – make that lightly structured – but there has to be educational opportunities, and I think there needs to be quite a bit of socialization. Experimental schools would be better. There would be a trained educator, books and educational games and things in the room, and other kids.

I think it’s interesting that one of the kids featured in the article is going to “live in Paris a few years,” then “apply to Harvard.” Does she think she just applies to Harvard whenever she feels like it and gets in? Does she just show up in Paris and everything works out? That’s not confidence, it’s naive narcissism.

45

I can’t help but think that if “unschooling” or whatever it end up being called became the norm that many fields like Engineering, Law, and Medicine and such would essentially be depopulated. Engineering for example isn’t a field where you find your own path and end up working in a Ally McBeal-like office as a freelance designer or Wesley Fucking-Crushering a new design over your lunch break, it’s a field involving standards, rules, procedures, and policies for getting shit done in the safest, most reliable, most consistent, and most correct way. I’d be really interested in seeing any statistics on how many “unschooled” or “indigo” children make it through Engineering school - and how many end up getting licensure post graduation. I’ll hazard it’s fairly small; IME through work and networking with fellow Engineers over close to 15 years, it’s exactly “0”.

Maybe I should hope for a rise in the fad. If no new Engineers graduate, then my salary has to go up…

46

My first thought was “Wow, I wish I’d been raised like that,” since I’ve often had the feeling lately that I’m just wasting time in school. Then I realised it wouldn’t have worked for me. No way. The only reason I know algebra and calculus and statistical distributions and Australian and European history and chemistry and French and art history and VBasic programming and how to work spreadsheets and how to paint and the difference between different brushes, paints, supports and other media is because I learned it in school. And I’m glad I learned all that. I CHOSE to learn all of it, but I wouldn’t have been able to on my own. I don’t have the expertise or resources to teach myself, and everything has parts that are slow, or boring, or too hard but useful and necessary nonetheless, and sometimes the threat of failing is the only thing that can motivate you to learn those things. Some things, like French, are just damned near impossible to learn outside some sort of structured environment (unless you, you know, move to France). And some things, like just about everything I did in art class, I found interesting but would never have thought to do on my own. Oh, and I wouldn’t have been able to do most of the things I did in art even if I did think of it, because I wouldn’t have been able to supply myself with the materials. School was good.

The only reason I feel restless now is because, after 12 years of formal education, I feel ready to move on. Okay, so I want to do art, so just about everything I’ve done in school up to this point is unrelated to that goal - but it’s provided me with a well-rounded education, and it’s helped me make that decision. When I was 9 I wanted to be an architect, when I was 10 I wanted to be an engineer, when I was 13 I wanted to be a journalist, when I was 14 I wanted to be a photographer, and I did not make the decision to be an artist until less than 2 years ago. If I’d gone down any of those earlier paths that I’d had my heart set on at the time I’d be a very unhappy panda right now. The point is, I didn’t always enjoy school but it’s given me a solid base to work with. Even in art class I didn’t want to paint or sculpt and draw with anything other than pencil or in any style except anime, and if I’d been left to my own devices I’d have carried on doing stagnant anime pencil drawings forever. I seem to have lost track of my original point. But most kids would only eat dessert if they were allowed even though a balanced diet is obviously better.

47

That’s the thing, you don’t know you want to study something until you do do it. I didn’t want to study physics until I had to, and now I love it.

48

Ditto.

49

Too many chiefs, not enough Indians >_>

50

I really can’t say that any better, but it bears repeating. There were no end of things that I had no interest in as a child that have become not just enjoyable but essential to me as an adult. In fact there were things that I wouldn’t have studied at university if someone hadn’t realised they were essential for a well rounded professional and made them course requirements. And if I hadn’t studied those things I would now be lost.
And yet I think I would be considered an ideal candidate for unschooling. I taught myself the alphabet by asking my mother what signs said while sitting in a shopping cart. Apparently I deciphered it on my own. I taught myself to read from reading comics well before i started school. I taught myself basic Latin by the age of 10 from books on dinosaurs and so forth.

And yet I never had any interest at all in history or human geography until well into my 20s. My interest in maths never developed until well after I started university. My interest in botany was non-existent even after I finished undergrad. I was good at all those things as I was at almost anything academic, but if I had been given the choice I wouldn’t have devoted a single second to studying them.

So as someone who was a self-motivated learner as a child I really have to say that self-motivation sucks in developing the rounded education needed to actually decide what we want to do.

The other great danger I see is that it seems to reduces flexibility immensely. It’s all well and good to say that the child studies what it wants to do with its life. So a child who wants to be a physicist might even study physics. But the fact is that most children will never qualify for entry into a college physics course.

Yet there seems to be no way at all of keeping options open. It seems like a child could easily spend 6 years studying towards physics, and then fail to get a college place. That’s not a tragedy in normal schooling because the child will have been educated just as thoroughly in history and shop and computer operation. But how does unschooling deal with this probem? It seems like once a parent forces a child to diversify away from what theyw ant to study then it stops being unschooling. Yet if the child isn’t forced to diversify then how are options left open?

51

It is interesting how many people seem so defensive about traditional methods of education. Really, interest in one plan does not mean condemnation of another. It’s possible for both to work well. I know traditional education works fine for a lot of people but not for everyone and it didn’t for me. If a child is not motivated to learn then they will probably refuse to do so no matter what their educational environment whether that is public or private school, home schooling or unschooling. I also notice quite a few misconceptions about the various methods of education - formal education is not always stifling and rigid, home schooling is not always removing children from social education and unschooling is not always about letting children sit around doing nothing.

For me, school was not working. I’m not sure if that was about me or the educational establishment i was in - probably a little of both. Someone has commented that unschooling would only work for a genius child. I am not a genius though i am a member of Mensa - it could be construed that it takes an intelligent child for it to work. I couldn’t comment with any authority on that though i suspect that an average child would work out just as well provided they had support and access to resources.

Provision of resources was one of my major problems - not as an unschooler but in formal education. I live in the UK and the majority of kids go to state schools here. High School runs from age 11/12 to age 18. Because it’s a state school system it’s not heavily funded and the resources are a bit lacking sometimes. Fellahbilongzelie was sent to a private boarding school and i have to admit that i am jealous of some of the learning opportunities he got. I suspect i would have stayed on in formal education if i had had similar resources.

As it was i felt frustrated at school and chose to opt out at 14 - in the UK you are obliged to be in education (not necessarily formal education) as a child but ‘unschooling’ counts as education. To be honest, i don’t think formal education was doing anything for me. I’d certainly benefitted from being exposed to different subjects but at the age of 12 the system forced me to make choices about my education based on the job i wished to do as an adult. IMO that’s far too young to be restricting oneself.

For some subjects i wasn’t understanding what was going on and the teachers did not wait for those who were new or uncertain. In other subjects i had already covered the course material at home with my own reading and i was pretty bored. Anyways, my grades dropped from As to Cs and Ds in most classes - even the ones i enjoyed. I refused to attend school (against the wishes of my parents) and instead educated myself by reading and choosing classes at local colleges. By taking responsibility for my own education i was much more motivated to learn - after all, if i failed i had only myself to blame. Consequently i went back up to gaining As in end of year exams. It was when my parents started seeing these grades that they finally respected my wishes to learn at my own pace and focus on my own interests. Having said that, they never took any active part in my education whether i was at school or not - it’s not always necessary to have involved parents to succeed.

One other feature of unschooling which i appreciated - the wider variety of subjects i could find out about. We got the 3 main subjects the govt thinks are important (English, Maths and a language) and then education to varying standards in other subjects. I clearly remember requesting courses in Latin, Geography, History, English, Maths, German and Religious Ed when i was at school. Instead i had to dump Geography for Art and Latin for Home Ec - what the hell did i want with Home Ec? My mother had taught me how to cook and sew by that time :rolleyes: I felt my education was ‘dumbed down’ at school - there wasn’t the resources or teaching staff and everything we did went according to their set timetable. When i started taking charge of my education i found i could learn the stuff i wanted to without worrying about whether it fit into someone’s timetable. And boy did i learn. I have taken classes i would never have considered taking at school or which were simply unavailable or not pitched at girls.

Education is not a simple matter. It’s certainly not the case that ‘one size fits all’. There are definite pros and cons to every system and really it’s down to the learner to work out if they system they are in is working for them.

(In answer to what remains of **ZipperJJ’s ** questions - no there is no GED in the UK. Getting into uni is based on A levels (England) or Higher exams (Scotland). I picked these up as i went along and used them to go to university (i’m not sure what junior college is but i don’t think we have it here). I left home at 19 and i was at secondary school during the early 90s.)

52

If you’d stop rapidly tooting your horn for just one second zelie, you’d maybe take the time to capitalize “i”. For someone who is apparently so intelligent, you apparently are ignorant of a simple english rule.

Mothers lie.

53

Gaudere strikes again.

54

Hey, I’m not claiming I am intelligent.

55

My 16 year old daughter has been “unschooled” for the past six years.
She’ll be thrilled to hear someone call her a rebel. :wink:

56

…instead of just asking her to supersize it, eh?

57

I can’t tell if this is supposed to be sarcasm or not. Assuming it is, since I can’t imagine saying ‘coddling hippies’ in a non-sarcastic manner. I still don’t understand what your last sentence is trying to convey. If you are saying that I think traditional schooling is the only choice for every child, that is not what I said.

But you know, all in all traditional school is just another brick in the wall, man. Down with homework!

58

Does anyone seriously think their children are better off without a high school diploma? It just seems ludicrous to me to think that because school “doesn’t work” for your kid, that they’ll be better armed for life by staying at home watching TV and surfing the web. Hence my response to Rushgeekgirl. Life isn’t always about what “works for you,” it’s about adapting and getting along. I have my doubts about homeschooled kids in the real world, but unschooling sounds like a sure way to stunt the emotional and social growth of a child.

59

I’m going to ignore the snarkiness. My daughter already works in a shop that specializes in what she loves, but she has higher aspirations.

Now, before I type this response I ask you to please forgive typos; I’m typing one-handed while nursing my baby.

I don’t recommend unschooling for everyone. I didn’t plan to homeschool at all; it was just a reaction to school counselors telling me my daughter had a learning disability that they couldn’t really accommodate. She was diagnosed with dyscalculia in third grade. Their only suggestion was putting her in a full resource class but their teacher wasn’t experienced with this disability and they just didn’t know what to do with her. I checked out places like Sylvan and talked to some folks online and discovered the best thing to do was start from the beginning. I tried giving her extra work after school but there was only so much time after homework, plus she still had math from school to deal with.

In frustration I started checking out homeschool options. I found an umbrella program and read everything I could on different methods. At the time, unschooling seemed perfect for what we had to deal with, but I wasn’t about to just dive in. For the first two years we mostly used structured methods; I followed the TN guidelines to a T. Math was the only place where I got creative. I was delighted to find that her TCAP scores (umbrella school required them) that by ninth grade her scores in math were considered “average”. I was thrilled to see she was above average in everything else, but she’s a bright kid.

By this time I was allowing her to decide what she wanted to learn, as long as she understood that we had to create a portfolio for her to graduate and get into the college she wants to attend. She will receive a diploma this way.
She knows she needs to work on certain things to get into college so even though she doesn’t enjoy certain subjects she must push herself because it’s all about achieving a goal. In addition to this, she has a great love of classic literature and has read far more in her 16 years than I ever have (and I love the classics too!). She has studied Japanese for two years; she can carry a conversation with native speaker and practices the Kanji every night-for fun. Ah hell, I won’t go through every standard subject, but as the person that handles her annual portfolio I assure you she’s getting the basics.

Thing with Laura is, she’s goal oriented. She is self-motivated. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve left it up to her or if she’s just naturally this way. I do know that she pushes herself FOR herself, not for number or letter grades. BUT she does know that those numbers are important to other people so she works on getting the highest ones she can. She must take the Gateway exam, she must take the SAT/ACT, she must prepare for structured learning if she wants to go to college, and she definitely wants to go to college. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t put forth the effort. But she has fun too. She wanted to learn to cook and bake so we worked that into the basics. She wanted to read everything by Shakespeare one year so we worked that in. This year she’s picked up guitar, and I hear her in the other room right now playing Greensleeves over and over. My brother is a HS History teacher so she makes him drill her or calls to ask him questions all the time…this is fun to her. (It bores me to tears!) While we were gathering books for the start of this school year, she told me she wanted to learn everything she could about religion and philosophy. Whoa. That’s a heap o’larnin’ child! But we looked for good basic books to start. Six weeks into the year and she’s read those, decided she wanted to know more about religion this year and put off philosophy until next year.

In all honesty, I don’t see how it could be any worse for HER than traditional methods. If anything it’s better for HER, and that’s all I want for her. I’m all for traditional methods when it works.

Socially, she may be behind. I don’t know. I’m very shy so I am a poor judge. I do know the phone rings a lot, she goes to a youth group, MAGY meetings, is working part-time, and seems to have no problems carrying on a conversation with cashiers at McDonald’s when they Supersize her. Well she didn’t until she saw that movie; now she won’t touch the stuff. :wink:

I didn’t read the article; I don’t have time to deal with the pop-ups and other ads. I wonder though, if the writer was being honest because the remarks here make me feel like they are saying that unschoolers don’t really do anything but lay around watching tv all day. We don’t do that. All unschooling is to me is unstructured education. I don’t teach her the subjects, she learns them on her own. BUT I observe and guide occasionally and if she needs help I’m here. I may not be able to help her with Algebra (she’s just now getting to Algebra 2-behind but she UNDERSTANDS what she’s doing…this probably would never have happened at the rate she was going) but I can get her help. We don’t do weekly tests or pop quizzes, but I’ve been known to pick up her book and get her to tell me about something she’s reading. She writes essays. She loves writing–her blog has book and movie reviews, short stories…that sort of thing.

Geez, baby’s finished nursing. I could write a book here but Bella tells me it’s time to go play outside. :wink:

60

Ah! I knew this sounded familliar! Check out Sudbury education. Kinda the same thing.

I think there’s a misconception that the unschooled kids lead the same lifestayle as regular school kids except they don’t go to school. That’s not correct. Parents who do this even remotely properly may not even own a TV let alone a Nintendo. I know, I know, borderline child abuse there, but believe it or not sometimes kids will find stuff to do besides sit and stare at the wall where the TV would normally be.

“Back when I was a kid TV was called ‘books.’”

My brother dropped out of school officially in his freshman year of high school. The system had labeled him as a “troublemaker” in 2nd grade. In truth, he was bored and couldn’t operate on the school’s timeline-day to day or within the scheduled progression of grade-level academics.

Once he was on his own he got himself educated. Taught himself how to program in DOS, Pascal, C & Visual Basic (this was in the 80s) and by & by got himself a BS in Marine Biology & landed a job making $80k/year in the tech industry. Bought himself a house & anticipating the tech market crash dumped the corporate stock he’d been collecting in his compensation packages for a cool $million.

This was a kid who’s temperament didn’t work for The System, so The System stopped serving him, gave him Ds to skip him off to the next grade until he finally just quit. Granted, he is batshit crazy and always has been, but he’s also a brilliant individual who taught himself all kinds of things from motor mechanics to quantum theory. Had my folks been hip to unschooling his life may have been a lot easier, but instead they and the system insisted on ramming the square peg through the round hole.

My point is, just because you don’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about doesn’t mean you’re remotely correct in what you assume about it. This system that y’all seem to think is so necessary to develop functional adults seems to have failed you miserably when it comes to teaching you critical thought.