Is unschooling really a good idea? - Page 28

[mamarhu]

Ds, with LDs and assorted special needs, was in public school for a couple years, where all manner of specialists and therapists tried to fit him into the mold. His IQ tests at 72, and he reads on a mid-first grade level. He cannot do even the simplest math worksheet, because his mind at this point hasn't made the connection between the printed numeral and the concept of the value. He can't add or subtract abstractly - answer the equation without a concrete reference point. I have never done anything even vaguely resembling a math lesson with him. But one day, about a year ago, he asked me, "Mom, will you pay me $20 to clean the whole house?" Sure, kid, go for it. A few minutes later, apparently overwhelmed by the size of the project, he asked, "How about $10 to clean half the house?" OK, fine by me. A few seconds passed, I imagine he remembered the price of a toy or something he wanted, and he asked, "Can I do 75% for $15?" This kid, who can't tell you what 5 plus 7 is if you ask, clearly has a deep and functional understanding of fractions, percentages, and money. I tell this story as an illustration of a kid with overwhelming learning disabilities in the school structure, but with a great, albeit untestable, understanding of his world. I don't know if he will ever read. I have yet to see a reading program that I have high hopes for. More time in the same unsuccessful programs would not push into this brain skills that don't fit. Unschooling gives his unique style a chance to shine.

[hahamommy]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

There are people who were born, raised, and (ostensibly) educated in this country who are unable to communicate effectively because they were left to their own devices. There are people attempting to communicate over the internet, on these very boards, who are so impaired that they cannot effectively communicate through text, despite an apparent desire to do so. I think that's absolutely tragic, and I think that radical unschooling is, of all home education methodologies, the most likely to lead to such an outcome.

Wow!! You know A LOT of unschoolers, then?? *I* imagaine that most of those people you describe are products of traditional government institutional educational facilities -- schools. But if not... there's a whole, huge pocket of unschoolers I've yet to meet -- please, please introduce me!!

~diana

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by hahamommy

*I* imagaine that most of those people you describe are products of traditional government institutional educational facilities -- schools.

Absolutely! People who were "left to their own devices" in school classrooms! Which is a far, far different situation than what we've been describing here. Unschooling does not mean leaving kids to their own devices at all - although there are plenty of times when they do indeed seek out and find their own means for learning an awful lot about one thing or another all on their own. And that's what we want for them in the long run - to be able to find and absorb all the information they want and/or need in later life. Lillian

[illinoismommy]

What would you do if your child really didn't learn any math beyond fractions? Maybe that doesn't concern some people, yeah, what can I say I am the child of a mathematician? I'd say all children should go as high as through Algebra and through Geometry and into the basics of Trigonometry, like Sine/Cosine. So what if your child doesn't care, and all their math consists of is adding fractions in a recipe? Okay I'm getting over math now.

When I was first looking into this homeschooling thing the first thing I did was read a book about unschooling. It was called The Unschooling Handbook. Thoughts on this book? It didn't strike a chord with me at all, even their examples of learning didn't seem much like... well, it seemed too easy.

Do you require that your children learn something, ANYTHING? When they are older, particularly, will you require them to write things about anything that interests them?

[illinoismommy]

Originally Posted by Tigeresse

The biggest thing I have learned in the process of homeschooling and eventually unschooling is that my kids learn best when supported in their endeavors rather than directed. The respectful approach that unschooling allows results in learning that is authentic, genuine, and belongs to the learner. To me, that is of utmost importance, rather than a specific "body of knowledge" that must be acquired by a certain date/age.

Okay, I have another question. Suppose your child decides at 6 they don't like history, so they don't learn any. Does this concern you? What do you do? Are there certain standards, and then set them free? For example, perhaps you require them to know the basic history but then let them pick which direction to go. Is it really so free that there's no structure?

[Dar]

Yes, it's really that free... but then, they live here, in this world, surrounded by people who are doing neat things and taking them neat places and talking to them about life. Can you imagine a child going 18 years - or even one year, or one week - without having something related to "history" in his world? You'd pretty much have to shut him up in a closet... history is in video games, books, tv shows, museums, street names, musicals, songs - everywhere! And kids who are unschooled notice these things, and ask about them or take it upon themselves to learn more. They may not learn what school's consider "basic history", but since that's generally a pretty biased and heavily edited historical viewpoint anyway, I don't see that as much of a loss.

dar

[cottonwood]

Originally Posted by illinoismommy

I'd say all children should go as high as through Algebra and through Geometry and into the basics of Trigonometry, like Sine/Cosine.

Why?

I like math quite a bit. But I've never has an actual use for anything beyond fractions, percentages, and basic algebra and geometry, and those are all things that I could have easily learned in the course of simply living life and doing things (and would have learned them better by doing so.) And that's how my kids are becoming aware of these things.

When I was first looking into this homeschooling thing the first thing I did was read a book about unschooling. It was called The Unschooling Handbook. Thoughts on this book?

I know that a lot of people have found it helpful. I flipped through it, and it seemed that everything was either non-relevant to our situation, or self-evident and overly simplisitic. I just couldn't get into it. A few books that have been much more engaging for me:

Homeschooling for Excellence, Micki and David Colfax
anything by John Holt, but perhaps especially Escape From Childhood and How Children Fail
John Taylor Gatto's essays
Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook
Rue Kream's Parenting a Free Child: An Unschooled Life

There are a lot of great essays as well on Lillian's site Besthomeschooling.org and sandradodd.com/unschooling.

Do you require that your children learn something, ANYTHING? When they are older, particularly, will you require them to write things about anything that interests them?

No. I don't need to. Their natural desire to learn and search is intact.

[mamarhu]

Originally Posted by Dar

Yes, it's really that free... but then, they live here, in this world, surrounded by people who are doing neat things and taking them neat places and talking to them about life. Can you imagine a child going 18 years - or even one year, or one week - without having something related to "history" in his world? You'd pretty much have to shut him up in a closet... history is in video games, books, tv shows, museums, street names, musicals, songs - everywhere! And kids who are unschooled notice these things, and ask about them or take it upon themselves to learn more. They may not learn what school's consider "basic history", but since that's generally a pretty biased and heavily edited historical viewpoint anyway, I don't see that as much of a loss.

dar

: Just what I was going to say. When we drive or walk around, they ask questions about the world they live in. How could they not? Helium balloons at the grocery store sparked a week worth of research into how helium was discovered and produced, on to the periodic table of the elements, history of chemistry and physics discoveries, Big Bang theory, and on and on.

A Bob Marley song introduced us to Buffalo Soldiers, and we learned about the Civil War, reconstruction, agrarian and industrial economics, ethical considerations and more.

Seeing prisoners working at the side of the road brought up discussions on criminal justice, ethics, the history of prisons and orphanages, reform, political action, discrimination, politics, voting, democratic system, and I don't remember what all else.


What they learned may never appear on an SAT (or perhaps it could), but my kids are getting a tremendously broad education.

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by illinoismommy

Do you require that your children learn something, ANYTHING? When they are older, particularly, will you require them to write things about anything that interests them?

No. Living an interesting life presents "requirements" that children learn certain things. Growing up a curious and autonomous learner fully integrated within family and community means that interests develop and get followed. We human beings are driven to learn, unless that drive is somehow corrupted -- a that corruption of the natural drive to learn is what unschooling families are working so hard to avoid. And so of course unschooled children do learn. No one is imposing expectations and agendas from outside, so the motivation and meaning of the learning comes from within them.

One simply can't say "well, I would certainly never have learned _____ [algebra, medieval history, the timestables, etc.] unless someone had forced me to," and apply that observation to unschoolers. Because we were conventionally schooled, most of us -- and so our curiosity and optimism and autonomy were, to a greater or lesser extent, undermined. Who's to say what we'd have decided if we'd been trusted and supported, rather than directed and expected to learn?

Originally Posted by illinoismommy

Suppose your child decides at 6 they don't like history, so they don't learn any.

No, no. That's not how unschooling works. First of all, an unschooled child would be unlikely to encounter "history" as a subject per se. I can imagine an unschooled 6yo deciding he wasn't fussy about all that Ancient Egypt stuff or didn't enjoy visiting historic monuments or some discrete dislike like that. With no one battling him over it, his disinclination would likely pass as he got older and his perspective changed. But outright declarations of dislike of a "subject" are pretty much the stuff of coerced schooling -- they are expressions of counterwill applied to an artificial subject-area construct. And so ultimately there's no doubt that learning about history would occur through that child's interests, though likely not labelled as such. To decide not to learn about history while living a life not chopped up into subject areas makes about as much sense as deciding not to learn about anything that starts with the letter R. History is a part of everything and unless someone is there organizing learning into separate boxes called subjects, an unschooler will learn history.

Secondly, 'learning [history]', as separate from 'living one's life' is not a distinction that unschoolers would make, at least not most of the time. When my kids read a novel they don't think to themselves "ooh, this is a piece of historical fiction, so it's educational" or "this is a fantasy novel, so it's not for learning." My 7yo is just as likely to pull up a reading comprehension quiz about "City of Ember" as she is to play "Runescape" on the internet. To her it's all "computer play". My kids are academically quite advanced for their ages, but if you ask them what they do all day for their homeschooling, they might very well tell you "We mostly just play and do what we want. We don't really do any learning stuff." That "playing and doing what we want" includes many things that outside observers would deem quite schoolish and learning-oriented. But my kids don't think of them that way. So for an unschooler to "decide not to learn" makes no sense. They don't perceive learning as a separate task that's distinct from just growing and living.

Thirdly, it's never too late. If learning the history of the Japanese invasion of Mongolia suddenly becomes relevent to a previously-history-disinclined unschooler at the age of 18, it's not going to be a problem. He'll just set about learning about it. I know an unschooler who dabbled in a K-3 math program as a young child, worked on memorization of the timestables and some mental math tricks at age 13, and declared at age 14 "I am SO not a math person" and totally set math aside. At age 19 she decided she wanted to be an architect. It took her less than two months to learn what she needed to enter a first-year university pre-architecture math course full of confidence and all the skills she needed to maintain a 4.0-average.

Miranda

[eilonwy]

Originally Posted by fourlittlebirds

No. I don't need to. Their natural desire to learn and search is intact.

This is what I find so offensive about rabid unschoolers-- the notion that unschooling is the only way to end up with a child who has a natural desire to learn. I realize that I couldn't possibly know anything about this because my children are young, but I don't think that it's a fair or logical implication.

[illinoismommy]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

This is what I find so offensive about rabid unschoolers-- the notion that unschooling is the only way to end up with a child who has a natural desire to learn. I realize that I couldn't possibly know anything about this because my children are young, but I don't think that it's a fair or logical implication.

I agree. My natural desire to learn is intact, why just earlier today I picked up a book to read. I read both fiction and non-fiction. I love to learn, and didn't need to be unschooled to get there.

But, thanks for sharing guys I'll keep it all in mind. I tend to find that as my ds grows, my intuition tells me what is the right thing to do. For now, we're unschooling (he's two). So we'll see.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by illinoismommy

What would you do if your child really didn't learn any math beyond fractions?

You could list "what ifs" till the cows come home, but they're just not likely.

When I was first looking into this homeschooling thing the first thing I did was read a book about unschooling. It was called The Unschooling Handbook. Thoughts on this book? It didn't strike a chord with me at all, even their examples of learning didn't seem much like... well, it seemed too easy.

I think it's a wonderful book. I'm one of the contributors, and if I had it to do over again, I'd leave out the part about how it didn't harm to ask our son to study a few things we thought were important because we had enough mutual respect that he was okay with our input. I was WRONG and didn't keep that up long - it was silly and unnecessary and, to borrow an expression from a previous poster, "based on fear." But as far as unschooling seeming too easy, I think that's a lot of the point - learning is a lot easier than people usually assume it is. Mary Griffith did the book, by the way, because her own experience was that unschooling works, and she thought it deserved more coverage than she was able to include in her first book, The Homeschooling Handbook. One of her unschooled daughters, a talented actress, has graduated from a prestigious theater school in N.Y, and the other one, a national fencing champion, is off to college on scholarship. She's now doing an update of The Homeschooling Handbook, and I predict that a lot of what's going to turn up in the updates people have sent her is that they turned more and more to unschooling as they got more experience. I know of several who have already stated so.

Do you require that your children learn something, ANYTHING? When they are older, particularly, will you require them to write things about anything that interests them?

The first question is coming from the assumption and misconception that they probably don't want to learn the normal things they'll need in life. If you read all the unschooling threads in this forum, it's clear that unschoolers are getting as broad an education as those being orchestrated. As for "requiring" them to write things that interest them - I'm not sure what that means, but I never ever required my son to write anything, and he's a gifted writer who is majoring in journalism in college. As a matter of fact, his first college English teachers were absolutely delighted with his writing and told him he was the best student they'd had in years. And he attributes a lot of this to the fact that he was given so much intellectual freedom. But that's just one of the many personal unschooling success stories that will probably be ignored or somehow discounted in this thread . I"m sorry if I'm comng across kinda' snarky - not intended - but I'll have to admit that it can get frustrating. - Lillian

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

This is what I find so offensive about rabid unschoolers-- the notion that unschooling is the only way to end up with a child who has a natural desire to learn. I realize that I couldn't possibly know anything about this because my children are young, but I don't think that it's a fair or logical implication.

With all due respect, I've never seen an unschooler say it's "the only way" to end up with a child who has a natural desire to learn. Lillian

[pookel]

Originally Posted by eilonwy

This is what I find so offensive about rabid unschoolers-- the notion that unschooling is the only way to end up with a child who has a natural desire to learn.

That implication bothers me too. I am not sure I like the word "rabid," but I do think that many well-meaning unschoolers fall into the trap of assuming that kids who are not unschoolers must be subjected to boring, formal schooling and have all the desire to learn sucked out of them.

One of the main reasons I want to homeschool is a girl I knew through youth orchestra, who was homeschooled and then went to university with me. I remember particularly how she and I were among a small handful of non-science, non-premed students in freshman zoology (everyone knew biology and botany were easier). She was a music major and I was a history major. Now, I breezed through straight As in high school and scored off the charts on every standardized test I ever took, *and* I liked zoology and didn't mind studying it. But I worked my butt off to scrape through with a 91 in that class, whereas she got a 99. I had to conclude that her homeschooling experience had given her superior study habits (plus she didn't mind taking hard, non-required classes just because she felt like it).

I don't know exactly how she was homeschooled ... but I know it wasn't unschooling. She comes from a fundamentalist Christian family, loving but strict, and they did some version of school at home in the '80s and '90s. And it was obviously infinitely better for her than public school, and it didn't kill her love of learning either. (She was also one of the most emotionally stable and well-balanced people I knew in college. Friendly, mature, secure in her beliefs but not afraid to get to know people with different values than hers. No stereotypical "sheltered Christian homeschooler," in short.)

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by illinoismommy

Okay, I have another question. Suppose your child decides at 6 they don't like history, so they don't learn any. Does this concern you? What do you do? Are there certain standards, and then set them free? For example, perhaps you require them to know the basic history but then let them pick which direction to go. Is it really so free that there's no structure?

It just doesn't work like this. First of all, a child simply doesn't decide at age 6 that he doesn't like history. Awareness of history is just something woven into the fabric of living. A child in an active and curious household can't help but pick up and be interested in history in a big way. You really don't need structure in order to be learning. Children are curious - learning about the world is a very natural instinct. Learning happens. - Lillian

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by moominmamma

But outright declarations of dislike of a "subject" are pretty much the stuff of coerced schooling -- they are expressions of counterwill applied to an artificial subject-area construct. And so ultimately there's no doubt that learning about history would occur through that child's interests, though likely not labelled as such. To decide not to learn about history while living a life not chopped up into subject areas makes about as much sense as deciding not to learn about anything that starts with the letter R. History is a part of everything and unless someone is there organizing learning into separate boxes called subjects, an unschooler will learn history.

Secondly, 'learning [history]', as separate from 'living one's life' is not a distinction that unschoolers would make, at least not most of the time.

Exactly ! And yes, it's never too late anyway. I shouldn't even be bothering to write this afternoon - everytime I click to post, I look up and find that someone has just posted the same thought more eloquently. - Lillian

[captain crunchy]

Hi, I have been reading this thread with great interest -- though I admit I haven't read every.single.post. in the 28 pages, but I will continue reading definately!!

I have to say, our daughter is only 14 months and we have "unschooled" from the day she was born and see no reason whatsoever to stop. Anything I have ever learned which has been enriching to my life has been through pursuing interests that appealed to me and things I loved. Sure, I was forced to learn some things in school, but little of it stuck with me and little of it interested me. College was somewhat better, as I could make active choices in what I wanted to learn. I could do homework or not, the only sanction being something I, as an adult, agreed upon -- that I had to do certain things to pass the class.

I have to say I agree with ALL of Lillian J's posts!

I just don't understand the fear I see in many posts. I completely trust my daughter's ability to seek out the things she wishes to learn with my help, information, support, and guidance if she expresses desire for those things -- which in an attached relationship, I think she will (maybe not always).

I think anything you want to learn can be found in the things you love to do and cmon, everyone has something they love right? If you love to cook, there is measuring, and math, and science, and reading of recipes and knowing symbols, and critical thinking, and creativity in presentation, and even history and learning of other cultures (international cuisine for instance).

If you love to draw there is algebra in figuring out perspective, there is attention to detail, there is combining of colors and understanding of shapes and form.

If you love to play video games, there is strategy and hand-eye coordination, some games even involve math and science, and history or knowledge of historically accurate weapons or tribes etc...

If you love to dance there is math involved in the movement and combination of steps placed together. There is history in where the dance originated, there is culture, there is critical thinking/math involved in choreography etc...

I mean I could give 2349732049 examples of how a child's natural love of learning combined with embracing them and allowing them to do what they love leads to them organically learning the things they "need" to learn without force.

I have complete faith in my daughter's (and all children's) natural inclination to seek knowledge. My only job is to provide her the tools she needs to pursue what she loves and the rest (imo) is easy.

People made comments to the effect of "unschooling just sounds too easy". Why shouldn't it be?? I mean, is there a rule that says you have to be bent over a notebook of homework cursing your teacher and math in general in order to learn? I want my child to think learning is fun and *easy*. I want her to embrace any challenges with excitement and desire to achieve a better understanding of what she wants to learn. I will be there to support her all the way.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by pookel

I don't know exactly how she was homeschooled ... but I know it wasn't unschooling. She comes from a fundamentalist Christian family, loving but strict, and they did some version of school at home in the '80s and '90s. And it was obviously infinitely better for her than public school, and it didn't kill her love of learning either.

Well, my son has aced college classes, like chemistry, that some of his schooled classmates found difficult, even though he was an unschooler and didn't grow up with externally controlled study habits at all. In an e-book I've mentioned before, See, I Told Me So!: Homeschool Veterans Declare “You Can Stop Worrying, all but three of the 18 contributors were conservative Christians who started off assuming they'd be doing school-at-home and still ended up on the unschooling end of the spectrum even though I doubt that they even thought to use the word "unschooling." Lillian

[joesmom]

Man what a long thread. No way for me to read it all right now, so I will just answer your questions & then babble on for awhile.


1. If you're an unschooler, aren't you concerned that your child will never learn some of those skills that are fairly fundamental to almost every other form of learning -- and I'm thinking specifically of reading and math?

I am not concerned. He taught himself to walk, to talk, to run & climb. He taught himself simple addition & subtraction, & simple phonics skills. He is smart- I have no doubt that he will continue to put the puzzle pieces together to be able to read fluently & work more complicated math...

2. If your answer is something along the lines of, "I want my child to decide for him- or herself what's important," what about the fact that she or he may decide they need a particular skill long after the optimal "window" for learning it is gone? For example, research very clearly demonstrates that optimal foreign language learning takes place before about age 12, and that after that approximate age, you can pretty much count on never speaking without an accent and (probably) never being truly fluent.

If the optimal window to learn a foreign language is before age 12, it is too bad that most PUBLIC schools don't offer these till high school. Must be why I can't speak Latin even though I took a year of it in high school. : I think being MOTIVATED to want to learn something is much more important than being told that this year, just because you are in 7th grade, you will learn this, that, & whatever...

3. What if they decide at, say, age 17 that they want to go to college, but the unschooling method has left them very much unprepared to do that in terms of basic skills?

I went to 12 years of school & scored in the 98th percentile on most subjects in achievement tests. When I graduated, I had NO desire to attend college, because of the negative school experience I had had. If I had been allowed to learn at home, at my pace, I believe I would have loved going to college as a first time schooler.

4. What if your circumstances change, as in the example I posted above, and you now are faced with the fact that your child is considered "behind" when he or she gets into school?

What if all the public schools burn down, & kids have to be taught at home? No point asking it, because to those of us who fervently believe in unschooling, we know we will do whatever it takes to ensure that our children are taught (or not!) the way we believe is the best.

I think it is ironic that the original poster has concerns about unschoolers wanting to learn certain things, but then says that she, AS A TEACHER, knows of many, many kids who do not want to learn to read. That should make you realize that there are all sorts of kids, in all sorts of schooling situations. My nephews are in school & the older one is the fastest reader in his class, & I am genuinely proud of him, but yet, I have NO desire for that for my son. We are happy doing things the way we are, & we won't change.

[Dar]

Originally Posted by captain crunchy

People made comments to the effect of "unschooling just sounds too easy". Why shouldn't it be?? I mean, is there a rule that says you have to be bent over a notebook of homework cursing your teacher and math in general in order to learn? I want my child to think learning is fun and *easy*. I want her to embrace any challenges with excitement and desire to achieve a better understanding of what she wants to learn. I will be there to support her all the way.

See, I don't think unschooling is always easy... and I don't believe that Rain thinks that learning is always easy. There have been times when she left a dance class or rehearsal as red as a tomato and so tired from concentrating that she fell asleep in the car. I seem to learn a new technique or two with every knitting project, and sometimes I struggled and curse for quite a while over my needles. But that's okay, really, because I don't think we want easy all of the time. There's something about working hard at something and succeeding - or even making progress - that feels really good.

Unschooling flows nicely, though, if that's what you mean by easy. It's like riding the river as it flows, rather than trying to dam it or divert it.

dar