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homeschooling is about control...

2K views 27 replies 17 participants last post by  mammal_mama 
#1 ·
We were at my in-laws for dinner tonight. My dh is a teacher, they were teachers, and I also grew up in a family of teachers. I am considering p/t unschooling and p/t democratic school for dd. Dh is not so sure.

My MIL said that she understood my desire to homeschool - after all, as a teacher she thought that she would be able to teach her children better than anyone else could. That it was hard letting go of the control. But that we could do so much outside school hours during dd's extracurricular activities.

I said that wasn't really the issue for me - I don't want control of dd's learning in that way. I want her to control her learning. My concern is more about curriculum. I don't like the idea that curriculum becomes more and more restricted as school goes along and that everything else in life is placed into the "extracurricular" box, for overtaxed kids to do when they're not doing school.

I don't know if my parents-in-law will come to understand this in time, but it is important to me that they understand that to me, homelearning is NOT about me controlling what my child learns.

If you had to explain that to someone, how would you do it?
 
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#3 ·
i dunno. i guess i'm a control freak myself. i want to control what kind of "US history" my kid learns. i want to control whether he gets improperly labeled as ADHD and a "problem student". i want HIM to control how he gets to spend his day (presently playing with cars, doing "math homework" on the abacus, and watching "return of the jedi") instead of a bell or buzzer doing it for him. i want HIM to control when he uses the toilet and eats snacks.

maybe that's the real problem. not the parental vs teacher control but the kids vs adults control. that scares the bajeepers out of a lotta folks.
 
#4 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by caspian's mama View Post
maybe that's the real problem. not the parental vs teacher control but the kids vs adults control. that scares the bajeepers out of a lotta folks.

Exactly! I don't think my own mom will ever grasp the idea of unschooling -- so to people who can't grasp it, we're just replacing school control with parental control.
 
#6 ·
Well, yeah. I do want control over my children's educational experiences. I want to protect DD2 from being with teachers who will penalize her for being herself. I want to protect DD1 from boredom and wasted time in the classroom. I want to protect DS from these things as well, but I know and respect my limits and right now school is "the lesser of the two evils" as emotionally he'd be hurt by being around an overwhelmed mom all day (and all four of us would suffer.)

I want to take back control over my kids' education so I can share that control with them. In this adult-oriented society, if I don't stand up for my kids and give them control over their days, nobody else will.
 
#7 ·
When all other arguments fail this is the one people always seem to grasp at for me... after years of having answers for everyone's issues and concerns about not sending my kids away for hours a day I got lots of 'you are trying to control your children's lives... they need more freedom from your control...' etc. Honestly, I don't even know how to respond to this? I got the same thing with extended breastfeeding though... I swear, it's like people get real anxious about children being attached to parents and needing as many ways as possible to break that bond and connection and society's been very good at making us all so paranoid about standing in the way of our children's independence. It's ironic to me, because the main reason I parent the way I do is exactly because I want my children to be completely free to be their own person... I see way more attempts at control over how children think and what they believe within the school system -not to say that there aren't homeschooling parents attempting to control their children by controlling their environment, however even in those situations I still firmly believe a child cannot be nearly as brainwashed by their own parents as they can within a large collective group with specific expectations, it is so much easier to 'rebel' against mom and dad, than against a controlled village environment.

I agree with a pp that you really expressed it well in your op

Quote:

Originally Posted by widemouthedfrog View Post
I said that wasn't really the issue for me - I don't want control of dd's learning in that way. I want her to control her learning. My concern is more about curriculum. I don't like the idea that curriculum becomes more and more restricted as school goes along and that everything else in life is placed into the "extracurricular" box, for overtaxed kids to do when they're not doing school.
yes, in addition to all the imposed restrictions as you stated they are kept so busy they are too overtaxed to think for themselves (and discouraged from doing so, absolutely, that is not the way to get an A!), there is just no way as parents we can possibly control our children in the home to this extent even if that was our goal...
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ygle View Post
a child cannot be nearly as brainwashed by their own parents as they can within a large collective group with specific expectations
I think people are more okay with their kids being indoctrinated into the same values that mainstream society holds. But God forbid parents have their own strong values. In that case kids need school to balance it out, to avoid them being only exposed to one set of values.


What I read from previous posts is that homeschooling is about control. Away from the school, back to the child.
 
#9 ·
I got a "control" lecture from my mother-in-law last spring, and it sent me off the deep end... right into the mouth of unschooling!! Of course, I haven't seen them since then and am curious to see how they will react to our family's new directions. My in-laws were also public school teacher/librarians.
 
#11 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruthla View Post
I want to protect DD2 from being with teachers who will penalize her for being herself. I want to protect DD1 from boredom and wasted time in the classroom.
These are two main reason we are homeschooling as well.
 
#12 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by 4evermom View Post
I want to control the amount of contact my ds has with controlling people.


And the amount of time he spends in controlling environments.

I totally agree.

I would also go into why we feel it is important to nurture our LOs desires and passions when it comes to information and skills. Follow their lead. Allow them to grow in the direction they are led by life.
If we wanted our LOs to follow someone else's curriculum, we would be limiting their learning time to what we want them to learn (or, rather, what the curriculum's author thought they should learn...).

Did that make any sense??
 
#13 ·
Yep, yes, you bet, and amen to all of the PP's!

We're "external schooling" (how's that phrase for ya?) by necessity right now: we could legally probably get away with HS here, but DD would have NO chances to see other kids during the day since all of them go to school. It's a good school overall, but I still have such a problem with her learning being controlled by someone else.

But I don't mean *I* want to control it, I'd like to see her have more say in what she works on. Not to mention when she's allowed to have a snack or go running around the room to burn off a little excess energy.

And OP, I thought you stated your position very well
 
#14 ·
O, I admit that I do want some control over what dd learns, especially in the areas of human rights and Canadian history.

But mostly I suspect that my MIL's experiences with homelearning don't include unschooling - because this is what I want to do....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruthla View Post
I want to take back control over my kids' education so I can share that control with them.
I'm usually able to articulate these things fairly well, but when someone else who is articulate really disagrees with me, sometimes I feel like I don't do a great job explaining myself on the spot.
 
#15 ·
Riiiight.

Because it's not controlling to drag your kid out of bed every morning, put them on a bus, make them sit quietly and listen and take notes and then come home do homework, and make them go to bed at a certain time because they have to do the whole thing over the next day...

Sigh.

There is a world between controlling and neglectful, why do homeschoolers/unschoolers so often get pegged as one or the other?

-Vijay
 
#16 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by VijayOwens View Post
Riiiight.

Because it's not controlling to drag your kid out of bed every morning, put them on a bus, make them sit quietly and listen and take notes and then come home do homework, and make them go to bed at a certain time because they have to do the whole thing over the next day...
Thanks. I guess that I'd thought of it that way, but not quite in that way.

So - in a family of teachers, how would you voice concern about the control of the school system and a desire for your child to control her own learning?

This is important to me not only because my parents-in-law were teachers but because my husband is a teacher. It can be hard to talk with him about this because it sounds like a critique of the school system is a criticism of his job choice.

I chose to work in teaching but outside the school system, because I am not fond of that system. But I think now that I am inflicting my odd habits on my daughter...things are different. When it was only me that was weird, that was ok (after a while).

Interestingly enough, my parents gave me a box of old stuff the other day. In it, I found my high school diaries and a LOT of moaning about how restricted my life was because of school. So I thought I'd changed...but I guess I've had these thoughts for a long time.
 
#22 ·
So - in a family of teachers, how would you voice concern about the control of the school system and a desire for your child to control her own learning?

My DH is a teacher - and we are unshooling (for now, with the knowledge that they can choose school as they get older, and that's okay, or they can stay home, and that's okay, too.)

But we just acknowledge that he KNOWS what goes on in school, and we don't want it for our kids. The No Child Left Behind is reason enough in our books. His high school had five goals for the year...not one focused on the children or learning - they were all about passing the PSSA's (our state tests..)

So it's about not letting the school control their learning and box it within the parameters of tests and such, if you want to take that angle. (as you know, unschooling is about SO much more than that, but for the naysayers, saying what you are AGAINST in schools is easier than explaining what you are FOR in unschooling...)

Deb
 
#17 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by caspian's mama View Post
i dunno. i guess i'm a control freak myself. i want to control what kind of "US history" my kid learns. i want to control whether he gets improperly labeled as ADHD and a "problem student". i want HIM to control how he gets to spend his day (presently playing with cars, doing "math homework" on the abacus, and watching "return of the jedi") instead of a bell or buzzer doing it for him. i want HIM to control when he uses the toilet and eats snacks.

maybe that's the real problem. not the parental vs teacher control but the kids vs adults control. that scares the bajeepers out of a lotta folks.

: well said!
 
#18 ·
I want to make bumper stickers that say, "I have seen the village and I don't want it raising my kids"

That pretty much sums up my idea about school


Unschooling is not about control for me. It is about honoring my daughter and her (imo) God-given thirst for understanding and exploring things she loves and things she believes will serve her well in life -- without muddling it up by having others try to define that for her
 
#19 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by captain crunchy View Post
I want to make bumper stickers that say, "I have seen the village and I don't want it raising my kids"
sweet. i'll take one if you do!
 
#23 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by captain crunchy View Post
now someone is going to steal my idea and become a multi thousandaire with my bitchin' sticker.

You'll just have to hurry up and get it on the market now!
 
#24 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Prism75 View Post
My DH is a teacher - and we are unshooling (for now, with the knowledge that they can choose school as they get older, and that's okay, or they can stay home, and that's okay, too.)
We're in Canada, so we don't have exactly the same context. However, we do have a lot of standardized tests now, and dh teaches a grade that has to do one. He does have to teach to the test sometimes. So he does understand the failings of the system, most certainly.

I guess that he sees the children in his class thriving and takes pride in that. So he wonders why I would want to remove dd from that experience. All of my teacher relatives take so much pride in their teaching. I am trying to seperate the teaching from the system. It's the system I have a problem with, mostly.

The control part comes in when I question the default option of sending her to school at age 5.

My thought is that we go to a local democratic school or do p/t classes somewhere AND that she has a lot of unschooly free time. To me, this doesn't close any options and allows her to explore many different avenues for learning.

I think that others think that I am depriving dd of the school experience. I am making her not go to school when she should and could go to school...when we live right next to a school...when the vast majority of our neighbours go to that school.

And in some ways, I think that dd will want to go to the local school at 5. Dh is a teacher and all of the children in our neighbourhood go to school. I need to start hanging out with some homelearners to show her that option, too!

I dearly wish her grandparents would support this option. They have a lot to offer dd, and I would love it if they would continue to care for her for a little while every week.
 
#25 ·
We live right next door to our elementary school, too! And yes, all her friends and relatives and neighbors are there
And she'd LOVE it, to be honest....at THIS point!

But I will say her one friend came home on day one and said school was "boring and annoying"....and that's just kindergarten! LOL!!!!

I also feel I'm depriving her in a way...but I keep thinking about what she'll be gaining in the long run...which is hard, trust me...

Deb
 
#26 ·
Yes, one of the older neighbor friends of ours has some negative things to say about school this year. Mostly that it takes up a lot of time. It's a bit sad - I remember her going off to Kindergarten a couple of years ago and she was so keen.

There is one homelearner (much older than dd) in our townhouse complex. Actually, now that I think of it, many of the children also go to the local French school or the Waldorf school, so going to a different school isn't totally odd around here.
 
#27 ·
Tricia, I stumbled onto this thread while searching for my own lost thread, sorry if it's irrelevant now...

has your dd visited WH (the local democratic school)?? She seems a little on the quiet side for it (from what I've heard) but you never know what the next crop of kids will bring, so maybe she'd love it.

Will the grandparents still look after her as much as they do now if she doesn't end up going to school? That would be nice, you're lucky to have so many loving grandparents close by!

My eldest really wanted to go to school when she was 3. I told her that if she were a school kid, she'd have to wait until she was 5 to be in kindergarten, but since she's a homelearner, she could start kindy at 3!! she quickly graduated herself to grade 1, then grade 2, then grade 9.
I photocopied a friend's oak meadow curriculum and we did that a little, and to this day she still likes to ask me for homework occasionally, but she really strongly identifies with being a homelearner, and wouldn't want to go to school. I think the "I want to go to school" phase lasted about a week or so, and it seems that all kids do go through it. get her a backpack, a lunchbox, some new supplies, and have fun with it, but I don't think that just because a 3/4/5 year old wants to go to school is a good reason to send them. If they're 12, its definitely worthy of a good long look, but at 3/4/5 it's usually about riding a bus, or a neat lunchbox or just because she sees other kids doing it (and having so much fun on the walk to school!!). The best thing, for me, was to get involved with the local homelearning community and once she had friends there, she identified as a homelearner, and that was it.

as far as framing it for your dh and parents, what if you framed it in a schooley way -- your dd will get a custom designed education, specifically for her, with one-on-one tutelage, in addition to having copious amounts of time to pursue her interests, participate in the community, spend time with her family, etc. Who could argue with that?? Especially since there is so much happening in your area with the homelearning community??

anyway, best of luck!!
 
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