Help me teach others about Unschooling!

[cgmama]

Hi Ladies,

I have been asked to be on a panel of moms representing different educational practices. I am the official unschooler in the panel. I need your help in writing my talk and preparing to answer questions. So tell me . . . what is the most important point about unschooling? If you were to drive home one important piece of information to non-unschoolers, what would it be? What makes it different (better?) than typical homeschooling? What are some cons?

Or any other information you think is important to address.

Thanks ladies! I plan to post my talk on my blog after I have presented it, so I will return here and post a link. Thanks for all of your help!

Sarah

[SundayCrepes]

I think there are two most important points for me.

1. My children will always be enthusiastic learners.

2. My adopted daughter's birth family develops a bit slower than typical. This pigeon holes them. They are perfectly competent people, but because their bodies are slower at developing than others, they are berated. My daughter will never have that. She will develop on her own time schedule and never feel bad about herself because she's not following someone else's calendar.

[ASusan]

Who is your audience? Are they traditionally schooled or doing traditional home schooling? I have found that traditionally schooled people are NOT receptive to the idea without a lot of background prep. Plus, it seems to offend their very sense of self, for some reason (that I'm too tired to analyze right now), and they get defensive and unable to hear the benefits of it.

Are you able to do a basic description of "external rewards decrease internal motivation"? That might be something to include.

I would also be prepared to discuss unschooling vs radical unschooling. (I know it is something that comes up in this forum).

[cgmama]

Thanks, ladies. Unfortunatly, by the time I got your replies, the talk was over. It was rather last minute! It went well -- the audience was interested and receptive. The one other panel member, who was from public school, was NOT! Hopefully I enlightened her, but I doubt it. Here is my blogpost, if anyone is interested. I handed copies out to the audience as well.

http://mythreelittlemonkeys.blogspot.com/

[ASusan]

REALLY good point about adults being internally-motivated learners and the reason they were all in attendance. People will learn what they are interested in learning.

[Piglet68]

I loved this post. I'd like to link to it on my unschooling blog, but there appears to be no post title and I can't find the page that just has the post on it...?

[cgmama]

I added a title, which should solve the problem!

[Piglet68]

Thanks!