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I think regular homeschooling is strange enough. This unschooling thing just takes the cake. People can raise their kids however they want, but we live in a society where the norm is going to school with other kids, and sitting in a classroom with kids your age, and learning some of the skills and knowledge we need to become productive adult citizens and relate to other people.Kids need to know how to relate to other people. I don't see how they will ever relate to anyone when they haven't had the same normal childhood experiences as 99% of the people in this country.
I learned to measure with a measuring cup and a ruler, too, but I learned algebra at school! It is laughable to think you can compare the two.
I agree with you about unschooling, but not homeschooling. Now that my children are young adults, I regret that I didn't homeschool my children. Homeschooling can be done right, with children being properly socialized and taught the higher maths and sciences. It's entirely possible and many homeschooling parents accomplish this. As a matter of fact, homeschooled children are usually very successful in college.
You're basing your opinion off of the extremes: Christian parents who isolate their children from society. But that's not the norm of homeschooling. Many homeschooled children are very well socialized because their parents make an effort to make sure they are exposed to other children.
There are also homeschooling networks where parents pool their resources together to teach the higher maths and sciences. These are mini classroom settings with 5 to 8 children learning alegebra, geometry, chemistry, etc. together.
Parents who don't have access to homeschooling networks often send their children to community college for their secondary education. That's very common in my state.
As a matter of fact, it's so common for homeschooled teenagers to attend college at high school age that laws have been enacted to prevent taxpayer money from paying for college credits that are being taken for high school credit by homeschoolers. If the school district pays to send children to college with duel enrollment, that's okay, but homeschooled children are not permitted access to state and federal grants and loans until after they have received their high school diploma.
The traditional school might be the norm, but that doesn't mean it's a healthy norm providing better quality. I regret that I didn't homeschool. Most of the problems I encountered as a parent were directly related to the traditional school system. I think my son would have been much better off emotionally and socially if he had been homeschooled from day one. And I'm a very social liberal, not an antisocial conservative.
Homeschooling doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with isolating children from society---just as attending public school doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with socializing children. My children have friends who attended public school and their parents isolated them more than any homeschooled children I know. They attended public school, but they were only let out of the house to attend school, RARELY to socialize, play or have fun with friends.
But you didn't "have" to wait. Why couldn't you go to your public library? There is no law keeping schooled children from delving further into a subject if something is interesting to them. They just have to do it on their own time.
I have no issue with a well planned and executed homeschool but "unschooling" to me just sounds like an excuse to do not much. Otherwise, why not just homeschool?
I didn't have to wait but as a little kid I would have had to rely a lot on my parents to teach me since I couldn't read and even if I could they didn't make kids books about WWII or the Holocaust, at least not books that would go into depth. As I got into school I lost interest because I had other things that I needed to focus on (school subjects) and when I did have free time I chose to run around outside and play with my friends or read a fiction book rather then study yet another subject. My need to be active by running around and my need to unwind by reading fiction after sitting in school all day took precedent over my interest in WWII. I did well in school but it was draining for me. I know some people can sit and study all day but I am not one of them. I need physical activity, variety and time to relax.
A parent who unschools would need to be paying attention to their child's interests. When my dd was 2 and 3 she was fascinated by bugs. She liked to look at a bug identification field guide that we had lying around the house and she even identified a few bugs she found outside. This was the book of choice for her when it came to bedtime stories. She would go out in the yard and pick up rocks to see what kind of bugs lived under them. She picked up bugs and looked at them closely. She watched ant colonies to see what they'd carry home. She also observed how many legs bugs had, how their bodies were shaped, what colors they were, what they ate, etc. From that she was learning lessons about biology and sociobiology, colors, numbers, shapes, etc. Right now at 4 she's interested in cats and the sounds that letters make. My point is that children are naturally curious about their environment and can and do learn a lot just from experiencing it. If we don't squelch that love of learning it will continue on as they grow.
As a young child I was fascinated by WWII and the Holocaust. I couldn't wait to get to school so I could learn everything there was to know about it. I was pretty disappointed when I finally got there and realized that it wasn't something that was covered in the Kindergarten curriculum. I had to wait until college to really go into depth on the subject. Unschooled and some homeschooled children have the opportunity to learn the things that interest them when they are interested and do so in depth. Lots of disciplines can be learned from almost any given interest. In school you are told what to learn and when to learn it which can be frustrating for some which can lead to boredom and a lack of interest in learning for the sake of learning.
I feel that there are many misconceptions due to how some homeschooling families carry themselves and have been portrayed by the media. In US society w/ so many dual income families, it is not necessarily so easy to homeschool. A parent must have the resources (and I am not talking pure financial here) to do a decent job at homeschooling.
A parent can have a happy & content public school student if they have the time & resources (again, not all financial). Public library. Going on walks. Going to the park. Helping to make dinner. These things can definitely instill a love of learning in children & when parents show they are interested, more than likely the child will thrive.
Unschooling is to a large extent a radical thing. It is very in your face we are annoyed so we are going to do it better sort of thing right now. I think a poster hit it right on the head saying it is a buzz word right now. The concept has a lot of validity to it, but how it has been incorporated has been quite negative.
I realize that public school is not one-size-fits-all. That's why there are magnet schools, charter schools, private schools, and home schooling options. If you never put your kid in a regular school, you won't know if it is a good fit or not. All of the examples that have been given - the holocaust, the bugs, can be studied in addition to going to school. We all have interests. That doesn't mean we don't spend time doing other things, too. In the bug example, the child wasn't even school age yet. Any parent can take their preschooler to the library and pick out a book and get them a bug vacuum or whatever else they might need to study bugs. That's not a reason to not send them to school!
I feel that there are many misconceptions due to how some homeschooling families carry themselves and have been portrayed by the media. In US society w/ so many dual income families, it is not necessarily so easy to homeschool. A parent must have the resources (and I am not talking pure financial here) to do a decent job at homeschooling.
A parent can have a happy & content public school student if they have the time & resources (again, not all financial). Public library. Going on walks. Going to the park. Helping to make dinner. These things can definitely instill a love of learning in children & when parents show they are interested, more than likely the child will thrive.
I agree. Homeschooling is not for everyone but is a great option for some. A love of learning can be instilled by good parenting regardless of how and where children are educated.
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Unschooling is to a large extent a radical thing. It is very in your face we are annoyed so we are going to do it better sort of thing right now. I think a poster hit it right on the head saying it is a buzz word right now. The concept has a lot of validity to it, but how it has been incorporated has been quite negative.
I think unschooling is misunderstood and has been portrayed negatively in the media due to that misunderstanding. I saw a piece on Good Morning America months ago about it that was incredibly biased. The term "Unschooling" was coined by John Holt in 1977. I don't think it's a buzz word but it may not be the best word to describe this particular educational philosophy. I prefer terms such as "child directed learning" or "free schooling" or "life learning". I think that the term "unschooling has negative connotations and contributes to the confusion of what it is all about. I've read a ton about it and it took me a long time before I really fully understood what it was all about. It's very much outside of the box in terms of how most people view education but I also see it's validity and can see how it would work very well for some families.
I realize that public school is not one-size-fits-all. That's why there are magnet schools, charter schools, private schools, and home schooling options. If you never put your kid in a regular school, you won't know if it is a good fit or not. All of the examples that have been given - the holocaust, the bugs, can be studied in addition to going to school. We all have interests. That doesn't mean we don't spend time doing other things, too. In the bug example, the child wasn't even school age yet. Any parent can take their preschooler to the library and pick out a book and get them a bug vacuum or whatever else they might need to study bugs. That's not a reason to not send them to school!
The bug example was in response to a poster who asked how kids even know what they are interested in. My response was that kids do know what they are interested in and if parents are paying attention to that the kids can be given plenty of resources and opportunities to study that interest in depth and gain knowledge based on that interest from many different disciplines. Sure they can go to school but they don't need to go to school in order to learn.
I don't need to send my child to school because I've weighed the options and come to the conclusion that homeschooling would be a great fit for my child and our family as a whole. When you say, "if you never put your kid in a regular school, you won't know if it is a good fit or not. " I could turn around and say " if you never homeschool you won't know if it's a good fit or not." We have choices and one of those choices happens to be homeschooling (unschooling is a form of homeschooling). There are many different reasons why families choose to homeschool and many of those reasons have little or nothing at all to do with how parents feel about school.
I realize that public school is not one-size-fits-all. That's why there are magnet schools, charter schools, private schools, and home schooling options. If you never put your kid in a regular school, you won't know if it is a good fit or not.
If you never homeschool, you won't know if it's a good fit or not too.
The bug example was in response to a poster who asked how kids even know what they are interested in. My response was that kids do know what they are interested in and if parents are paying attention to that the kids can be given plenty of resources and opportunities to study that interest in depth and gain knowledge based on that interest from many different disciplines. Sure they can go to school but they don't need to go to school in order to learn.
I don't need to send my child to school because I've weighed the options and come to the conclusion that homeschooling would be a great fit for my child and our family as a whole. When you say, "if you never put your kid in a regular school, you won't know if it is a good fit or not. " I could turn around and say " if you never homeschool you won't know if it's a good fit or not." We have choices and one of those choices happens to be homeschooling (unschooling is a form of homeschooling). There are many different reasons why families choose to homeschool and many of those reasons have little or nothing at all to do with how parents feel about school.
And my point is that a child can have outside interests IN ADDITION to going to school. No one said kids can't learn outside of school. What we said is that we don't think unschooling prepares them for the adult world.
I absolutely know that home schooling is not a good fit for my family. I don't need to try it to know my limits and my kids' personalities.
Unschooling is an extreme. No one can argue with that. Of all the alternatives, it is the farthest from the norm. It shouldn't be surprising that people don't buy into it.
I absolutely know that home schooling is not a good fit for my family. I don't need to try it to know my limits and my kids' personalities.
You think you know your children better than other parents know their children?
A homeschooling parent doesn't need to try public school to know the limits and personalities of their children anymore than you need to try homeschooling.
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Originally Posted by rkb0305
Unschooling is an extreme. No one can argue with that. Of all the alternatives, it is the farthest from the norm. It shouldn't be surprising that people don't buy into it.
Agreed. Unschooling is extreme.
But you started posting in this thread making assumptions about homeschooling that are not true.
You think you know your children better than other parents know their children?
A homeschooling parent doesn't need to try public school to know the limits and personalities of their children anymore than you need to try homeschooling.
Agreed. Unschooling is extreme.
But you started posting in this thread making assumptions about homeschooling that are not true.
Did you even bother to read the article I posted?
like what?
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I had to wait until college to really go into depth on the subject. Unschooled and some homeschooled children have the opportunity to learn the things that interest them when they are interested and do so in depth. Lots of disciplines can be learned from almost any given interest. In school you are told what to learn and when to learn it which can be frustrating for some which can lead to boredom and a lack of interest in learning for the sake of learning.
