Unschooling - what is it and how does it work? (girl, classes)
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The thing is, a great number of parents do all of the things an unschooler does, in addition to sending their kids to a 'regular' school or in addition to a more structured approach to homeschooling. We simply call it parenting. To me, it's somewhat inconceivable that going places and having many resources available is a kid's only form of schooling.
Well - it's NOT schooling! It's learning. Two different things. My goal is learning; unschooling is creating an environment where learning takes precedence.
Many kids who go to school get wrong ideas about learning: that there's only one way, that things HAVE to be learned in a certain order, that if they're good with their hands and not so good at remembering history facts that they're dumb. Schools can actually short-circuit learning! Certainly not for every child - many children's lives have been saved and bettered by going to school. But many children come out of school believing they're deficient somehow, either socially or "I can't do math" or any number of things.
Those children's ability to learn naturally is hampered. A child who doesn't go to school or have homeschool lessons, who has supportive parents and an enriched environment, who is supported in doing what they wish to do, will learn and learn and learn and learn - everything they need!
Well - it's NOT schooling! It's learning. Two different things. My goal is learning; unschooling is creating an environment where learning takes precedence.
Many kids who go to school get wrong ideas about learning: that there's only one way, that things HAVE to be learned in a certain order, that if they're good with their hands and not so good at remembering history facts that they're dumb. Schools can actually short-circuit learning! Certainly not for every child - many children's lives have been saved and bettered by going to school. But many children come out of school believing they're deficient somehow, either socially or "I can't do math" or any number of things.
Those children's ability to learn naturally is hampered. A child who doesn't go to school or have homeschool lessons, who has supportive parents and an enriched environment, who is supported in doing what they wish to do, will learn and learn and learn and learn - everything they need!
I totally agree 100% that traditional schooling does not work for some children.
But you refuse to acknowledge that unschooling is also not perfect and can harm some children as well. Just like some children benefit from the nature of unschooling at least an equally large group of children benefit from structure, guidance, etc that is found in traditional schooling and would be fundamentally damaged by unschooling.
That is my issue with "unschooling" it is not a panacea and will not work for everyone. Denying that fact is the exact same hypocritical stance as saying traditional schooling works for everyone.
Fair enough. I disagree with the sentiment posted by CharlotteGal (sp?) that unschooling will work for the majority of people including those with learning disabilities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkb0714
I totally agree 100% that traditional schooling does not work for some children.
But you refuse to acknowledge that unschooling is also not perfect and can harm some children as well. Just like some children benefit from the nature of unschooling at least an equally large group of children benefit from structure, guidance, etc that is found in traditional schooling and would be fundamentally damaged by unschooling.
That is my issue with "unschooling" it is not a panacea and will not work for everyone. Denying that fact is the exact same hypocritical stance as saying traditional schooling works for everyone.
Ah. There's the disconnect! I don't believe it will work for the majority of people! There are too many factors in place, with environment, parental support (or not), resources, etc. I want to provide information for people who want to learn about unschooling - I don't want unschooling to be THE way every person learns. Though I do think the world would be a better place if there were more radical unschoolers in it.
Hopefully, if someone is curious about unschooling and willing to research it, they are involved and dedicated enough to do it well. I DO think it will work for most people like that, learning disabilities or no. Nearly every temperament, every personality, every learning style - even those who need more structure - can be supported through unschooling. All it takes is dropping everything you "know" about learning!
The only way a child can be damaged by unschooling is if their parents aren't actually unschooling, but are practicing neglect. I will admit that happens. Hopefully rarely, but I have heard stories.
I've been thinking about your question! Life goes on, and you make a series of choices - it's interesting to go back and look at "why".
A note after writing this: I wrote a book! Sorry.
I was certainly not raised with these ideas - mine was a typical, for the time, parents are in charge, kids should do as they're told without question, childhood. Perhaps not so typically (or maybe very typically?), there was a lot of dysfunction and distance in our family.
Before I had kids, I began a meditation practice, looking within, becoming in touch with my "core self". I had hit a point of very deep depression, and this practice was one of things that helped me overcome that. I know that has certainly played a part in my parenting and unschooling.
I practiced attachment parenting with my youngest, at first, without knowing that was an actual practice, with a name for it. I held him when he let me know he wanted to be held (a lot!), I coslept because he slept SO much better when he was cuddled next to me, I nursed on demand. Those choices were about raising a child who would know I was there for him, who would know he was not alone in the world.
I intuitively knew that when he 'misbehaved', that he was actually doing the best he could with the knowledge he had. I did not want to punish him. Slapping his hand might keep him from touching the light socket, but I felt if he was reaching for the light socket, it was because he had an innate curiosity about the world, and slapping him would cause that curiosity to dampen. This came from me, I didn't read that in a book; I felt it in my gut, and I had learned to trust my gut.
That was relatively easy until he became 3 - 4 years old. All of my friends who were attachment parents put their kids in half-day preschool "for a break", they began parenting more traditionally. I didn't know about radical unschooling then. I began to not trust my gut as much, I bought the idea that you have to TEACH your kids "how the world works". It felt horrible! But I didn't know there was another way. I found out about 'Positive Discipline' and jibed with some of the ideas there: Kids don't have to feel bad to learn. Focus on the positive. We had family meetings as advocated in the book, which I see now, were just a way for me to manipulate and get my way in a nice way.
When he was old enough to start school, it felt so wrong for him to go! I mean - here was the whole wide world, and then, there was this building that he would be stuck in for 6 hours a day. I really enjoyed being with him, but I thought that if we homeschooled, we would ruin our relationship. I didn't want contention between us, and from what I knew about homeschooling, I'd create that by doing lessons, "making" him learn.
I helped start a charter school here, with a few other parents. We wanted it to be a place where kids could flourish, where positive discipline was used in the classroom, where the kids would have a garden and lots of outside time. I had done some research on Waldorf Schools - I thought that kind of school would be a perfect fit for my sweet, sensitive son. It couldn't be a Waldorf school for reasons I can't remember now, but we wanted some of those same principles to be in effect there. Educate the child, heart, hands, and mind. Don't push reading. Unfortunately, those ideas were not written into the charter. We got a TON of high-needs kids at the charter school, which I've since found happens. We had parents who didn't want positive discipline used - and they voted that out. The school, while it had its good points, was not what I wanted at all by the time he was of an age to go. It was still, I thought, the best we could do, so he went there for first and second grades. There were good things about it - a very low student/teacher ratio, community involvement.
In those years, I saw his enthusiasm for learning wane. I saw him start to lose his spark. I spoke with a homeschooling friend, and she said, "There are many different ways to homeschool." There are?! "Different ways to homeschool" was one of the very first things I ever put into a search engine (way back before google), and unschooling was one of the first things that came up. The more I read, the more I loved it, and thought it fit how I *really* wanted to live, not how I thought "society" was saying we should live.
I also found out about Sudbury Valley School around that same time. I ordered many of their books, and was in tears the first time I saw their video (on that same webpage linked above). THIS is what learning should be! I was going to start a Sudbury Valley School, and I figured until it opened, we would unschool. I immersed myself in Sudbury, and really gained an understanding of how it worked, and through doing that, came to trust unschooling more. During the time I was finding like-minded parents, and getting a start-up group going, I realized I really, really enjoyed being with the boys, and they were absolutely thriving, so I dropped the idea of starting a school and made a full-on commitment to radical unschooling.
It has taken years for me to gain a real grasp of radical unschooling, years for me to drop ideas I had about how kids learn, about how families should function. My mindfulness practice plays in HUGELY here. Mindful choices, that's what it's about.
I *so* wish I had found unschooling earlier! It would have saved us all that time of unnecessary disconnection. Sandra Dodd has a collection of thoughts about that - If Only I'd Started SoonerMy oldest son and I are still healing from some of that! Things come up when you least expect. We come across a stuck place, and realize, "Oh, this is from when I made you eat that dinner you didn't like" or something like that. Not that we're the walking wounded - we're both happy and stable, and my youngest is one of the happiest kids I know - but, like I said, things come up.
I certainly had my hippie-ish time: I followed the Grateful Dead, believed love is all you need (still believe that, just in a different way!), believe in freedom, justice, harmony, and peace. And that time must play a part in who I am now, though it's in a less conscious way than do attachment parenting and mindfulness.
As with anything, I'm sure there are advantages and disadvantages. With this I see MAJOR disadvantages. Sure, you have seemingly happy kids who have learned about things that are of interest to them. The major disadvantage that I see is that they don't seem prepared to deal with the real world. With no structure, no rules, no deadlines, and no sitting in a classroom, how in the world would they be able to function at work?? How would they function in college if they've never had to sit in a classroom, or read a book on something that really doesn't interest them?
In the part I bolded are you referring to disconnection between yourself and your son? It is nice to have a close parent-child relationship, but there is such a thing as over-doing it. Do you really think he suffered emotional damage by going to school, and being away from you? Why do you think your oldest is in a tough spot right now? Is he afraid to leave the nest that he's been tied to his whole life?
I think the intention of showing your kids the world around them was a good intention, but I think that it might have had the opposite effect, and perhaps made them too dependent on you.
Even if your kids are happy now, will that last into adulthood when they can't find a job, or hold a job because they don't know how?
Unfortunately, studies have not been done but there are some adult unschoolers out there sharing what they are doing and there are many success stories. Those stories would be anecdotal though so I'm not sure it's worth my time to find any and post them here.
Yeah the whole unschooling without any classroom structure at all, doesn't give kids a chance to learn (notice I didn't say it doesn't teach - I'm following the vernacular)...how to sit in a cubby and work quietly on your assigned tasks for 7.5 hours a day, taking 1/2 hour off for lunch at an assigned time, one 15-minute break, and accepting this lot in life until it's time for a promotion.
In other words, it sounds like unschooled kids are not prepared for -any- kind of entry-level office job. They might have heard of rules and regs, and break times and cubbies. But they've never had any need to endure mandatory work time - such as exists in traditional -and- homeschool atmospheres.
They would know intellectually, but they are not experientially or emotionally prepared to actually do it. And so, they wouldn't even know if they're capable of it or not, until they get their first job (assuming anyone would hire them with zero experience comprehending a disciplined, rigid setting). And by that time, it's too late. If they're not prepared, they won't last a day.
That, to me, is what you're setting your kids up for, by letting -them- decide what is best for -them.-
Children are not emotionally, intellectually, mentally mature enough to know what's best for them. That's why parents are charged with the responsibility of parenting their children. What Charlotte is describing, is active parenting. Kids should have parents who do that IN ADDITION to structure, not INSTEAD of it.
All it takes is dropping everything you "know" about learning!
Ya this is just plain old BS.
You want people to give up on 200 years of research on child development (which btw pre-dates traditional school) based on your anecdotes. Regardless of traditional schooling we clearly know how children learn and what you are talking about will not work for everyone. The fact that you cannot acknowledge its shortcomings mean we cannot take your opinion of its positives since you cannot be objective about it. Experts understand both the positives and negatives about their topic. You continue to refuse to acknowledge the fact that no one system is perfect or works for everyone. You seem to have more faith in this system then actual knowledge.
She has more faith in her belief, which is based on her own personal emotional need to be pals with her kids and not hurt their feelings and make them feel loved...
than her faith in the fact that the human brain does not have the development required, by age 13, to be capable of preparing themselves for their own future by virtue of their own personal interests and/or desires.
Her entire post outlining how she came to use the unschooling concept, is heavily - HEAVILY - influenced by her own personal emotional needs. What makes HER feel more comfortable. She feels her role as a parent is to make sure her kids are happy. That isn't true. Her role as a parent is to prepare her child for adulthood. PREpare..adulthood involves ritual, detail, discipline, timelines, deadlines, following rules, civil disobedience and understanding the difference between violating a law "just cause I feel like it" and violating a law "to intentionally draw attention to an injustice."
She is not preparing her child for any of these things. She's letting her child decide what her child will do with her life -at an age when she doesn't possess the mental faculties yet to make such decisions.
This is the worst set of experiences to support the unschooling movement. I am not a supporter of unschooling, but I had certainly thought that there were some stories of real success out there. The only story that even suggested a path of some life success was the one of the 17 year old that would like to be a doctor...... BUT hasn't been accepted into a college yet because of her unconventional schooling. I did only read the first set of stories on their site, and not the links to other sites.
Now I understand that people's level of success are very different, and I do admit I put way too much weight on numbers.... GPAs, test scores, low admittance percentages, salary potential, etc. But being a nanny, working at a bookstore, having to take an adult high school class, living in a van, having a blog, being a "writer" with books that don't sell, going from job to job only when something interests you or when you need cash to facilitate an immediate need...... and these are the stories that are validating this movement? The thing that they all do seem to have in common is the rejection of conventional society.... and doing things for their own enjoyment (which I guess was the point.... so, good job.... I guess) and self gratification, at the expense of a stable life and financial security.
But that is only my reaction to the list of stories listed. I do agree that conventional schooling has many negatives, but I can certainly come up with much better success stories.
This is the worst set of experiences to support the unschooling movement. I am not a supporter of unschooling, but I had certainly thought that there were some stories of real success out there. The only story that even suggested a path of some life success was the one of the 17 year old that would like to be a doctor...... BUT hasn't been accepted into a college yet because of her unconventional schooling. I did only read the first set of stories on their site, and not the links to other sites.
Now I understand that people's level of success are very different, and I do admit I put way too much weight on numbers.... GPAs, test scores, low admittance percentages, salary potential, etc. But being a nanny, working at a bookstore, having to take an adult high school class, living in a van, having a blog, being a "writer" with books that don't sell, going from job to job only when something interests you or when you need cash to facilitate an immediate need...... and these are the stories that are validating this movement? The thing that they all do seem to have in common is the rejection of conventional society.... and doing things for their own enjoyment (which I guess was the point.... so, good job.... I guess) and self gratification, at the expense of a stable life and financial security.
But that is only my reaction to the list of stories listed. I do agree that conventional schooling has many negatives, but I can certainly come up with much better success stories.
I agree. I read some of them too and was actually a bit surprised that they would be used to defend unschooling. Aside from the real lack of careers, several of them also talk about the difficulties they had growing up in an unschooling household. A couple interviewees indicated they were lonely, that they had difficulty being in such unconventional families and that they had trouble dealing with structure and real world realities when they tried a college class.
In some cases too there is some mention or hint at the fact that a seemingly more motivated family member is paying the bills, which allows the unschooling family members to have their lax lifestyles. I read a little more thinking there had to be at least one good story. I did read one, but she seemed to be the exception more than rule, and she talks a little bit about how she enjoyed the structure of college.
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The thing that they all do seem to have in common is the rejection of conventional society.... and doing things for their own enjoyment (which I guess was the point.... so, good job.... I guess) and self gratification, at the expense of a stable life and financial security. 
