One subject that I devote considerable mental energy to these days is the education of my young children (still only 3 years old and 20 months). I registered with some home schooling online forum so I could learn more about exactly what these parents do on a daily basis. There was an interesting post today that I would like to share:
What is unschooling anyway?
I can't pretend to be an expert on unschooling, I can only say that its been an amazing gift for our family. I've been unschooling my son (who is 10 yrs old) for three years now. Unschooling will look different in different families, and "radical unschooling" simply means extending the philosophy of unschooling (that children will learn what they need to know when they are ready and want to learn it) into every other aspect of life (i.e. children will go to sleep when they are tired, eat when they are hungry, and will learn to be a functioning, helpful member of a family/household without being forced/required to do things like chores, given punishments, limited on tv/videogames, etc.) Radical unschooling could also be called Mindful Parenting, or respectful parenting (although one could be parenting mindfully, and their children attend school). In any case, I cringe when I hear parents say "We unschool except for math" or "we only do two hours of seatwork a day, then we unschool" or "we unschool on the weekends" or "we unschool, and I only require "X" amt of written work each week, but they get to choose the subject!" While all of that might work for a family, its not really true unschooling. That's like saying you're a "little bit pregnant"...if you're following a curriculum, or requiring work, it may be very relaxed homeschooling, or eclectic homeschooling, but not unschooling.
A couple of excellent websites to learn about unschooling are:
Joyce Fetteroll's site: link
Joyce has a daughter (i think she's an older teen?), and has been unschooling for quite some time. Her site has TONS of info about what unschooling is, how to get started, positive spins on chores, food, sleep behavior, etc. Enough info here to keep a new unschooler reading for some time!
Sandra Dodd's Website: link(Click around on the links to different pages, to read interesting
essays on chores, college, videogames, and much much more.) Sandra is a mom whose three children (I think they are 14,17, and 20 now) have always been unschooled. Sandra is a former school teacher, and author of the book Moving a Puddle. I've seen her speak several times at two separate Live and Learn unschooling conferences, and she's really funny.
When I first began unschooling, and was asked what it meant, I would say that it was homeschooling in a child-led, hands-on way. That instead of learning math from a workbook or science from a textbook we'd bake cookies (with all that measuring )and plant a garden (photosynthesis and all that)....and while both of those activities have value, after a few years of unschooling I've come to learn that unschooling isn't really *that*, it isn't really a way to "teach" your child that is fun or hands on. Now I realize that when we bake cookies its because baking cookies is fun and we want to eat cookies, or if we plant in the garden its because we find joy in that. I, as the unschooling parent, TRUST that learning is happening with each activity because children are learning all the time. I don't place any more value in an hour of my child reading a book than I do in an hour of him playing on online computer game or videogame. It's all learning. It's all wonderful. It's my job as an unschooling parent to recognize the learning that is taking place, see its value, and
encourage my child's passions.
Homeschooling parents usually say to me "But when left alone, my child will just play video games all day" or "unschooling is great for a highly self-motivated child, but mine is lazy and needs to be exposed to other things." That's another vital component to a successful, vibrant unschooling home, that gets missed from the definition of "unschoolers don't use curriculum"....the concept of *strewing*. Strewing, as coined by Sandra Dodd, means that an unschooling parent will create a home environment that is rich and interesting, fun and hands-on, an environment that will spark new interests and connections. Unschoolers probably have the same types of materials in their home as most other homeschooling families:maps, globe, microscope, blocks, art supplies, musical instruments, books, games, etc. But unschoolers also see everything else around them as fodder for learning. I can't tell you how many conversations about history, politics, sociology, anthropology, science, economics, etc. has been sparked by something in a videogame, online role playing game, tv show/dvd, song on the radio, comic book, etc. And yet these are the very same things that some parents try to limit in favor of more so-called "educational" items. Another vital component in an unschooling home is Trust. A parent needs to take a leap of faith, and trust that their child is learning. This is usually the biggest one for many parents to overcome. They have to let go of the "school voice" in their head, the one that wants to tell their child to put down that controller and go do something "educational" or worries that if their child isn't reading, writing, or "doing math" on the same schedule as other kids, they'll never get into college. A new unschooling parent needs to give their child time to deschool, which often looks like sitting around doing "nothing" and they have to deschool themselves as well. I would say another vital component is Joy—how to get it and how to keep it. Its Priority Number One in our household, making sure everyone is happy. My son and I both have to time to follow our interests, separately and together, we have open communication, and a completely punishment-free home. We try to figure out ways that everyone can get what they want. Joyce Fetteroll wrote "Always Say Yes. Or Some Form of Yes" and it's a philosophy I try to live by.
Unschooling can look very confusing to those on the outside looking in. It might look like the parent isn't doing anything at all, or it may look like the child is spending "all day" on activities that have "dubious" educational purpose. Often, people will confuse not *requiring* something (chores, reading, bedtimes) with the child not willingly doing those things. (Just because I don't expect/require my son to clean, he quite happily does so. Just because I don't insist my son have "good manners" doesn't mean he refuses to say Please or Thank You. Indeed I have my suspicions that it is precisely *because* I don't require, that I get so much willing cooperation from my son.)
I've seen the positive impact unschooling and mindful parenting has had on my son, such as going from a "nonreader" and one who hates to write, to a child who willingly and passionately does both. I've seen our parent-child relationship go from one filled with power struggles, yelling, stress, and the occasional spanking, to a home filled with respect, love, kindness, and the real sense that we are both on the "same side" instead of me vs. my child. I've seen what happens when hundreds of kids, all of whom are being raised similarly to my son, are "set loose" in a hotel for four days, to play, learn, and live, and it's a beautiful sight. (Particularly touching that in an entire four-day period in a hotel at an unschooling conference with probably 600+parents and children of all ages, I did not see ONE child spanked, yanked, yelled at, demeaned or talked to disrespectfully. And the children were bright, outgoing, imaginative, friendly, and kind.)
That's unschooling in a nutshell.
Katherine
Speaking of NUTS, Katherine's last parenthetical remark is beyond ludicrous.
"I did not see ONE child spanked, yanked, yelled at, demeaned or talked to disrespectfully..."It certainly says more about her own scarred(?) childhood and hypersensitivities than what may be a more optimal way to impart knowledge and skills to your kids. Is she serious, talk to a child "disrespectfully"???
For every ideological movement on planet Earth, there's always an element that takes it too far.
Faced with these nitwits, we all have to be careful not to reject an idea based on some of its proponents.
I should point out that "unschooling" is one of many varied methods of homeschooling. The two are not one and the same. As you could gather from above, unschooling is a completely libertine, child-led approach to education. (Economic discussions prompted by video games???) Plenty of homeschoolers use standard curricula, text books, and strict schedules to teach their kids.
Here's a broad breakdown of the reasons why families choose to homeschool:
Sorry it's not such a great chart. Click on it to enlarge.
This survey asserts that 48.9% of parents chose to homeschool because they believe they can give the kids a "better education" at home.
The second highest reason people opt out of mass schooling is for "Religious reasons" - 38.4%.
As far as I am concerned, if you don't think you can teach your kids a whole lot more than they'd pick-up from a 1-on-30 teaching ratio then you are most likely an uneducated
Moron yourself. Furthermore, you and your brood will remain self-fufilling, circular arguments for government education for generations!!!
Like I said at the beginning of this post, I have done a considerable amount of research on homeschooling and am almost 100% certain that I will give it a go. The pathetic resistance to homeschooling should, all by itself, almost be enough to sway one's mind. I would confidently rank arguments against homeschooling even below the low carb arguments of anthropomorphic global warming.
Click here to find the "socialization" myth debunked - for the billionth time.
Last week I read a book titled:
Real-Life Homeschooling: The Stories of 21 Families Who Teach Their Children at Home. These types of testimonial books are more raw data than literature. For the most part, the profiled homeschoolers all got flack from their parents (kids' grandparents) and various other friends and relatives. When you do something as boldly self-righteous and
morally superior as reject mass schooling, the insecure are guaranteed to take offense. When it comes to "sensitivity" and "taking offense" I always offer up this analogy:
If a three-year old kid came up to you and called you "stupid", there's hardly a chance you would take offense, right?
Now if someone older, more within your peer group, made the same allegation, any little reaction you have admits to a degree of credibility for the accuser.The unwitting fact is, most people who outsource the mind control of their children do realize its folly. And when you homeschool (in their face) their guilt will fester into feelings that well, aren't that grown-up.
Homeschooling will especially agitate your parents. They don't want to think for a second that they were derelict in sending you and your siblings to government or private mass schooling factories. While all the homeschoolers in the book had to endure some social resistance, all but one of the profiled families' parents (et al) eventually came around loving the idea of homeschooling. (In a couple of cases, family members reported the homeschooling to the authorities. One man in Jacksonville was arrested, sent to jail, and fell into crippling debt fighting for his homeschooling rights in court. Years later he found out it was his mother-in-law who dimed him out! This was 25 years ago, before homeschooling was accepted by state legislatures. Though, without a doubt, mother-in-laws have since devised sundry new ways to terrorize.)
The one family who couldn't ever win over "Grandma" to homeschooling described her as a "career public school teacher" who was just extremely defensive of the system she devoted her life's work to. This is sort of where I am at with my own mother. I've known for a while now not to even broach the subject with her - herself a high school teacher. Her ego is, also, just way too wrapped up in what she does (or rather, what she thinks she does).
Her aversion to homeschooling isn't based on any in-depth research; she hasn't read any testimonials; she hasn't noticed homeschoolers winning National Spelling Bees. She's totally ignorant of the sordid history of mass compulsory schooling. Heck, she can't even find any time to read my blog.
No, her tireless
argument for sending kids to factory schools goes like this, "We have one kid in town that I know who's homeschooled....The mother can't even spell."
There you have it. Send your kids to those government schools and they will get science teachers like my mother who thinks "for example" is rigorous PROOF.
Nonetheless, I'd still have been better off being homeschooled. Try not to extrapolate my mother's intelligence quotient from this one issue - it'd be ironically ignorant!
ALL the homeschoolers stridently claim that in the process of teaching their kids, that they themselves have stretched their minds to new heights.
I wouldn't doubt that for a second. What I have learned in the past 18 months or so about education: its theories, practices, and history, has been staggering. This one little door that
John Taylor Gatto opened for me has already aroused my brain and fundamentally altered the course my family's lives.
And y'all remember that when I inveigh against mass schooling I am excoriating a system in which I thrived. I graduated early from UPenn (currently tied for 5th in those insipid
rankings) with a double major and GPA high enough to merit an embellishing Latin phrase.
The unsettling truth is that the system held me back; it stunted my potential and sapped my humanity. I learned how to play the game - how to ace tests. I didn't attain or retain any real knowledge; I wasn't sculpted into a lifelong learner; and I certainly didn't develop any perspective on the real world into which I
graduated. So much for a liberal arts education!
The realization that I was essentially brain-dead from ages 20-30 depresses the absolute hell out of me. For this I squarely blame the "school system" I was unfortunately born into.
On the bright side, at least I didn't wake up when I was forty or fifty.
