Are there any other whole-life unschoolers here?

[Chicken Lil]

First, let me state that there is a huge difference between home schooling and unschooling, and that I am not saying any one form of education is right or wrong. This however has been my experience with "unschooling".

I grew up in Brooklyn NY, and went to the Woodward School from first through seventh grade. This was a very progressive private school that practiced "unschooling". Each grade consisted of about 20 students and we broke into groups, as we we wanted, and when we wanted, to study different topics. There was a minimum of time we had to spend working on certain basic topics, but we were not required to do much that we did not like.

I loved to read, and spent most of my time in English class, reading and writing book reports. I also loved science and spent hours on end with the science teacher working on experiments and science projects. That was great!

However, I found math very difficult, and because of it I did as little of it as possible. By the time I was in seventh grade I could only add and subtract. Did not know the multiplication table or how to divide, let alone anything more complex. This was really bad!

When my parents found out how woefully I was doing they sent me to a private college prepatory school. 80% of the graduating class went to Ivy League Colleges. It was a very structured environment with mandatory half hour of homework per class. I was totally overwhelmed. I struggled, had tutoring, and frequently went into shut down mode. I even attemped suicide at 14 because I believed I was just too stupid to live.

I did finally manage to get half way through 11th grade, and as soon as I turned sixteen, I left and moved out to California with my dad and went to public school. Because I was fine in English, science and history, I managed to graduate high school, but by this time I hated anything to do with education.

It wasn't until I was 20 that I realised I had to get a college degree. At that point I was willing to do everything I could to learn mathmatics, and eventually ended up with a degree in Production Management & Industrial Engineering.

It was a really rough road, and I honestly believe that if I had had a conventional structure of standard topics, and been made to learn math at a young age, I would not have suffered so much with schooling for years.

As for home schooling that is a horse of another color.

My DD is very dyslexic, and when we lived in NYC I found that the parochial school could not deal with her disabilty, and the public schools were a joke. So I homeschooled her for over a year. However, she had a standard set of topics, and a certain amount of required daily work in each of them. I made her take tests that she had to pass in order to move forward in the material. Quite honestly I thought it worked well and would have continued it, but had to go back to work due to my divorce. So we moved to Illinois, away from big city's and both of my girls have been in small town public school since. Let me add that these schools have been fine for basics, but I have added a lot of additional learning experiences, as no school can teach everything a child needs.

Bottom line, and to each thier own, but I would be very careful with "unschooling", as many children will avoid things they find difficult, and may not learn some very essential things.


To all a good day!

 

[PotterWatch]

I understand what you are saying Chicken Lil, but as an unschooling parent, it is my job to make sure that I expose my kids to the things they need to learn. I have one son who is naturally great at math and another that would probably struggle if left to his own devices. It is my responsibility to find ways for him to learn and use math even if he doesn't realize he is doing it. It doesn't sound as if the school you went to had the capability of doing that like a parent does. Unschooling isn't about letting a child only do what they want to do, but finding ways that encourage the child to learn all different topics and subjects while allowing them to explore those things that excite them the most. Often the things they really enjoy can be used as a tool to learn a great myriad of things.

 

[TubbyChicken]

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This is a great response! I'm so glad you added your thoughts PotterWatch.

(...and the dog in your avatar reminds me so much of my "Dixie". I love that picture!)

 

[Chicken Lil]

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I understand what you are saying, and respect your decision.

The school I went to had a lot of capability and did try to get me interested in math. In english and science I was three years ahead of my grade level. However, I am really good at avoiding things I don't like.

Please don't take my comment as criticsm, ever situation is different. It was just a warning of what could happen. I don't know if all parents would be as vigilent as you in making sure all the necessary fundamentals are covered.

 

[Chirpy]

Any type of schooling, I believe, requires parents to be completely involved in their childs' education. So many public schools are failing because the teachers are often spending so much time trying to maintain order in their classrooms that they cannot teach properly. Because children learn at such different rates - when a teacher has 20 or 30 children to teach she/he cannot possibly give the attention needed to each student. And, the teacher is teaching from one learning style. What happens to the student who is a visual learner but is being taught through an auditory style? So, students fall between the cracks - the exceptionally smart students get bored and will often start to cause problems or decide they hate school. The children that learn at a slower rate feel they can't keep up and are stupid and so they often cause problems or decide they hate school. If the parents of those public school students are involved in their child's education they will see the problem arising before the student falls through the cracks. When I was talking with the VP of our local HS last year he mentioned that they can usually tell which students will do well in school by how active their parents are at the school or working with their child at home. There are obviously exceptions to everything.

Home Schooling and Unschooling need the parent(s) total involvement. I know parents who have schooled in all four settings (public, private, home and unschooled) whose kids have failed and those whose kids have done fantastic. The more the parents were involved the better the kids did. The biggest potential drawback of Unschooling is that parents just let the kids totally do their thing with very little direction and involvement from the parent. I was talking to a mother who Unschooled her four children (18, 22, 24, 28) and she now says she completely failed them. She is active in our Home School group and encourages parents to be more involved in their childrens education -- especially if they Unschool. She is a wealth of information and has the experience to really help other parents. Back to her children - they couldn't get into a college without taking a ton of remedial classes because Mom didn't want to force her kids to learn anything they weren't interested in growing up. (Her son didn't want to learn to read until he was almost 11.) So, none of them have gone to college but two of them wanted to and are very disappointed that they weren't prepared at home to get there. I know other parents who have Unschooled their children and they are attending excellent colleges and doing great. Their parents were more hands on in their Unschooling approach and made sure they did cover the basics - they just let their kids decide what their interests were but then made lessons out of those interests to include reading, writing and math.

We have Home Schooled our children for the last 13 years. Ok - now I'm going to blow my kids horn here... our 19 yr. old son applied to a well known University along with 26,000 other people trying to get in as Freshmen this year. Of those, the school admitted about 5600, of those only 113 were admitted to the Aerospace Engineering Dept. My son is one of those 113! He got in because his SAT/ACT scores were very good. Our second oldest, 18 yrs., applied to the same school for this coming fall in their Engineering and Applied Sciences School and was accepted to go into Computer Science! Again, there were 20 some thousand applicants for a few openings. Again, he earned his way to attend there next year.

Because these two boys have known for years what they wanted to do we made sure their education prepared them for those areas and that they would be prepared to attend a difficult university. That's kinda Unschooling - but we directed their unschooling to get them ready for those careers/college.

Our next oldest, 16 yrs. old, has no clue what he wants to do in life so we are trying to cover many bases and find what really interests him. If he doesn't want to attend college that is his choice and we will be here to help him figure out what he does want to do with his life.

We have three special needs children who would be completely lost in public or private school. They would also be completely lost in Unschooling. They need our complete attention and direction, every day, to help them learn in their own style and pace. That is one of the most wonderful things about every parent helping to teach their child (no matter where they attend school) - you know your child better than anyone and you know how they learn best.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Our family cannot afford the great luxury of one parent staying home, so it's not something we can do. But if we could afford it? You bet I'd go for it.

I will add, though, that many of us whose children attend public schools also spend every moment of time we have with our kids "unschooling" (just borrowing the term, because it does fit to describe the interaction that my daughter and I have pretty much all the time).

My daughter spends her time at home reading, writing, building, crafting, creating, and constantly asking questions. I pick her up from school at 3:30, and I'm usually mentally exhausted by the time my husband gets home from work, just from explaining whatever it is she's gotten her mental teeth into that day. She reads voraciously, she journals, she has a blog (she's 6), she draws and paints, and most interesting to me, she independently STUDIES the things which interest her, to the point of spending hours with a reference book or online. She loves learning, loves to understand things.

I would feel like I was really letting her down if I allowed that momentum to die when she came home from school. I have learned that when she declares a desire to learn something, it's best to act quickly and follow up on that desire while it's still burning hot. When she was 4, from the day she said "I wish I knew how to read!" until the day she was reading whole books all by herself, was a matter of TEN DAYS. It was just a matter of her being ready for that particular challenge. I've learned to both wait on her to come along at her own pace AND to be ready to act when that time arrives, so that we don't miss a good opportunity.

Right now, she's wanting to learn French. So I am scraping and saving and selling everything I can to be able to buy the Rosetta Stone French language program before that particular flame flickers!

 

[Chicken Lil]

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Great post, all of your points are valid!

Perhaps my school experience would have been better if my parents had been hands on. They thought having plenty of money and sending me to expensive schools was all they needed to do. The rest of the time I was left to take care of myself.

 

[Felicia]

I am homeschooled, and am getting near the end of my high school years. I have a so many subjects I do a day, and I have a flexible schedule with it. But the only down side, is I am scared to death to go to college, since I have never been in a class situation! But I am going to go, no matter how scared I am.

I personally, and glad that I have subjects and such, because if I just learned from cooking and such - I would never know how to do all the stuff in college. I guess everyone is different, but personally I am glad my mom has always made me do certain subjects. If I didn't have the books, I would never do anything...and also the nice thing is that for most of my subjects, my mom lets me pick what I want to do. So I am still choosing my fun subjects, but still learning my algebra, English/writing, history, etc. History is so important, even though I don't like it. If you don't know the history, the same mistakes will be made again....

And aren't there certain subjects you must do before graduating? Or does that depend on the state.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Felicia, don't discount the wonderful education you've given yourself with your involvement in dog sports! People don't realize the amount of discipline and self-motivation that is required for something like that. Even details like estimating ring times and formatting your grooming and warmup routines are giving you invaluable skills for life.

You are a super-sharp young woman, and I have no doubt you'll be at the top of your classes in college.

 

[granmahen]

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My daughter had trouble reading too. It seemed that after a short time her brain just got tired of decifering words and the meaning of the passages, she'd even forget what the story was about. We tried a few things...picked books on subjects she enjoyed, took turns reading paragraphs, or just sentences. Stopped to talk about what the author meant by the sentence (why the author put it the way he,she did), looked back to where we started from, used books with pictures to help keep the story in mind and even used red cellophane over the sentences to help keep her mind at attention. All helped at one time or another. She still isn't a keen reader, magazines and newspaper more than books. But she reads. Our DD has a data processing disability (everything goes in but not everything is retrievable) and through the years she has learned how to deal with it, i.e. notes or learning something over and over until it moved from short term to long term memory. She's 31 now and is a gymnastics coach for youngsters.
Keep up the good work, you are right for going at your son's pace. Teachers called our DD stupid and lazy. So we pulled her finally in high school and taught her ourselves (should have pulled her sooner but CA wasn't so keen on homeschooling back then and DD had just enough caring teachers up until h.s. DGD is homeschooled with some structure and some free flow.