In response to my last post, Jen asked:
I just read and wonder, can parents who choose to traditionally school their kids still adopt some of the philosophy here? For us, I don’t think that we would feel comfortable choosing unschooling for our kids, but could we not also create a balanced outlook/life for them by letting our kids learn through experiences, trusting them, letting them see how things happen for themselves and encouraging them to pursue what really interests them? And I guess my other question is (being rather unknowledgable about unschooling)…how does that affect their ability to move on to other schooling if they wanted to (e.g. highschool, college, trade school, university)?
In response to the first part, I think parents who traditionally school their kids could definitely adopt a similar philosophy at home, and I think that’s a fantastic idea! I know one mom who sends her kid to school that doesn’t allow her daughter to read her report cards and talks with her about whether she’s learning, how she’s enjoying her subjects, and how grades don’t really test what you’re learning - and I think that’s fabulous! The major problem I see with that, though, is that kids spend, generally, more waking hours at school than they do at home … so I wonder at how quickly the trust would become overcome.
As for the second issue, there is a great post called 7 Ways to Get into University Without a High School Diploma. Apparently it’s actually more difficult to enroll in a college or trade school than into university, but that can be accomplished by taking a few university credits and transferring in. There are also, apparently, ways in which life experience can be transferred into high school credits, although I’m not entirely familiar with them - I figure I’ve got a ways to go before I have to figure this all out!
My sister Jenny said:
I had no idea you struggled with this because, honestly, you give off the impression you could really care less what anyone else thinks and you’ve always done exactly what you wanted whether or not anyone agreed with you.
Also is unschooling the same as home schooling in that you would keep them home and teach them? I couldn’t figure it out by reading your link.
I’m glad that I appear not to have an issue with this! Generally speaking, by the time that I’ve made a decision I have, pardon my language, researched the CRAP out of it and feel good about it and it’s true - by that point, I don’t care what people think. That doesn’t, however, mean that I’m not agonizing about making the decision or worried about whether the parents will approve. It’s odd - I don’t mind at all whether or not people respectfully disagree or want to discuss a decision - it’s the thought of letting someone down that bothers me. Maybe that’s why I don’t care what people think … if I can’t “let them down”, they don’t need to agree with me - and there’s only a few people who I feel like I could “let down”. Wow. That really sounds pathetic of me.
As for your question on unschooling, someone once defined it to me as homeschooling without a curriculum. Now that I have been researching it, that seems like a very shallow definition. Unschooling is allowing children the freedom to engage in self-directed learning - a method of learning which is highly supported by literature to be one of the most effective ways for people to learn. Why would I do this? I enjoy the following quote from John Holt’s article, The Right to Control One’s Learning:
Young people should have the right to control and direct their own learning; that is, to decide what they want to learn, and when, where, how, how much, how fast, and with what help they want to learn it. To be still more specific, I want them to have the right to decide if, when, how much, and by whom they want to be taught and the right to decide whether they want to learn in a school and if so which one and for how much of the time.
No human right, except the right to life itself, is more fundamental than this. A person’s freedom of learning is part of his freedom of thought, even more basic than his freedom of speech. If we take from someone his right to decide what he will be curious about, we destroy his freedom of thought. We say, in effect, you must think not about what interests and concerns you, but about what interests and concerns us.
That about sums it up. I want my kids to learn because they love learning (we are biologically driven to learn!) and I want them to learn about the world through play, through exploring their interests, by experiencing life, by interacting with people of all different ages, by doing “real world” tasks … all on a daily basis. For an interesting discussion of child-directed learning, check out Dr. Peter Gray’s article, The Wisdom of Hunter-Gatherers. Here’s an excerpt:
The freedom that hunter-gatherer children enjoy to pursue their own interests comes partly from the adults’ understanding that such pursuits are the surest path to education. It also comes from the general spirit of egalitarianism and personal autonomy that pervades hunter-gatherer cultures and applies as much to children as to adults. Hunter-gatherer adults view children as complete individuals, with rights comparable to those of adults. Their assumption is that children will, of their own accord, begin contributing to the economy of the band when they are developmentally ready to do so. There is no need to make children or anyone else do what they don’t want to do.
I love this concept and it is this view - the view of my children as a social, autonomous individuals - that is what is motivating me to educate outside the mainstream. I want to preserve their autonomy and trust them to learn everything they need to know to survive in our culture without being forced, coerced, or manipulated.
Keep the questions coming, people! Answering your questions helps me to put into words what I’m thinking and feeling - an exercise I find most useful!
