As the homeschooling movement progresses and more people shift towards more natural styles of learning, the world asks "What is Unschooling?"Most people do not understand what it really is, and all that the recent reporting can do for the general populace is create uncertainty and derision for both unschooling and homeschooling in general. I will never say that unschooling is a bad thing, only the incomprehensible way (to the public) that media "reports" it is.
Big media has done this with homeschooling, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, unschooling, and many other things in the last few years. They stack the reports and make things look bad, or at least somewhat questionable, so that the "average joe" will rise up against the "horrible neglect" or "abuses" that are happening to "those poor helpless kids". It's just a sad little media game.
The most insidious part of their game is that in presenting these "news" items the way they do, they even pit us against each other. In a time when all homeschoolers, no matter their methods,
all people for that matter, need to stand together in solidarity against what the media and the government are trying to do to us all, we are standing divided, arguing over semantics and the precise definitions of words.
I am a radical unschooler. My kids teach themselves whatever they want, when they want to know it. My 5yo is teaching herself how to read, addition, and subtraction. My 12yo has no interest in her multiplication tables right now, but is studying to be an interfaith minister, business management, and knows more about her civil rights and the way the government really works than most adults.
My children may look like they are "doing school" when they get out their workbooks and text books, but they are really playing with things they enjoy. When they want to, because they want to.
I know a few unschooled adults. College degrees and all, they chose to continue learning, because their subjects were their passions. I have never met an unschooled "failure".
Real life, real learning, is interest based, is fun, is what you want to do, not some forced, rigored, strained thing. How much have you learned since you left school just because you wanted to know?
Every action, every reaction, teaches something, if only one is willing to listen to what the world is teaching. I taught my children the love of learning. I teach them how to find their own answers. I teach them to never give up, and I help them find the resources that they cannot find for themselves.
I'm a homeschooler, but I don't teach my kids in the "normal" meaning of the word. I'm more than just a teacher, more than just a parent.
Big media has done this with homeschooling, breastfeeding, attachment parenting, unschooling, and many other things in the last few years. They stack the reports and make things look bad, or at least somewhat questionable, so that the "average joe" will rise up against the "horrible neglect" or "abuses" that are happening to "those poor helpless kids". It's just a sad little media game.
The most insidious part of their game is that in presenting these "news" items the way they do, they even pit us against each other. In a time when all homeschoolers, no matter their methods,
all people for that matter, need to stand together in solidarity against what the media and the government are trying to do to us all, we are standing divided, arguing over semantics and the precise definitions of words.
I am a radical unschooler. My kids teach themselves whatever they want, when they want to know it. My 5yo is teaching herself how to read, addition, and subtraction. My 12yo has no interest in her multiplication tables right now, but is studying to be an interfaith minister, business management, and knows more about her civil rights and the way the government really works than most adults.
My children may look like they are "doing school" when they get out their workbooks and text books, but they are really playing with things they enjoy. When they want to, because they want to.
I know a few unschooled adults. College degrees and all, they chose to continue learning, because their subjects were their passions. I have never met an unschooled "failure".
Real life, real learning, is interest based, is fun, is what you want to do, not some forced, rigored, strained thing. How much have you learned since you left school just because you wanted to know?
Every action, every reaction, teaches something, if only one is willing to listen to what the world is teaching. I taught my children the love of learning. I teach them how to find their own answers. I teach them to never give up, and I help them find the resources that they cannot find for themselves.
I'm a homeschooler, but I don't teach my kids in the "normal" meaning of the word. I'm more than just a teacher, more than just a parent.
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Comments: 24
They did get along with others at the school, they were just sick of it. The Mother, who had a very hard time in school herself, as to learning, didn't help any. She decided to homeschool. She went to the school, after filling out the correct forms and such as required and submitted her curriculum. It was OK'd. The children and there were two, never did a thing. Didn't read. Didn't study anything and nobody learned a thing. Her son ended up getting arrested and her daughter, pregnant. Neither can read or write that well, or operate a computer. Or add, subtract, multiply, divide, know history, politics and such.
There are also "those" types of un- or home-schoolers out there, the ones who couldn't care less. You obviously aren't one of them, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there....
or
www.noplacelikehere.gather.com
with thanks to you, and I'm sure that there are other homeschoolers out there that can set me straight, feel free if you'd like to as well. I'm taking one experience and that's not fair to all the GOOD that's being done out there!
Marilyn
And keep in mind that there is a growing percentage of kids going through traditional public school that come out not knowing how to read and write. Sad but true.
Oh, and thank you for the compliment of featuring my article on your group. *smile* I am honored.
Yes, because contrary to seemingly popular belief, most homeschooled kids *do* have social lives in group settings via homeschool groups, sports, dance, instruments, etc.
When they are being told to sit down, shut up, and not think for themselves, are taught that memorizing things in order to forget them right after a test is "learning", and that true education is something there is no time for. When these same children are never taught how to teach themselves, how to learn, or how to enjoy the process of gathering information. The kids who are forced into mindless obedience just to get by each day and never let into any situation where they can truly engage in conversation with other people no matter what their age differences so that they could learn the all-important multi-generational communication skills necessary for survival in the world away from instutional schooling.
The questions really are; "How can those poor kids I described manage to survive in the day-to-day "real world" of work and play where communication and the ability to absorb true knowlege and wisdom is paramount to success? How can these poor, instutionally stilted, unsocialized, public school children get along lacking the vital skills they never learned because those lessons don't get high test scores or more government funding?
A good many of them end up in factory and service jobs, spending their lives serving others for low pay and nonexsistent benifits. Good little worker drones, just like the system ordered.
I read in a book once about the comparison of homeschooled children to instutionally "educated" ones. The analogy was of a race field. If half of the field was loaded with landmines (instutional schooling), and the other half was not (homeschool), sure, some of the children from the mined side would reach the finish line (lifelong learning and success), while most if not all on the non-mined side would, but isn't it more sensible (and humane) to let the kids not have to fear and possibly be damaged by the mines?
Public or private schooled children socialize outside of their percieved educational boundaries. Extra-curricular activities and neighborhood play with other children are the only chances they have. Unschooled and homeschooled kids are not only constantly learning, but they have numerous chances to interact with a whole variety of different people on a daily basis, not including their own extra activities, thus enabling them to have communication skills on par with the average 20yo by the time they reach 9 years of age.
How many hurdles do you want to put in the path to your child's success?
Ok, you changed my mind for most. Most meaning not the parents that I knew, and also not probably us. I wouldn't have minded home-schooling, but since we're in such a small town here, and our son was what we'd call a "joiner", meaning he joined everything and anything that the school had to offer - he once joined three activitys on the same after-school day and didn't want to hear it when we told him he had to pick one!
He's 29 years old now, college grad., has a good job as a webmaster, and is still very social, though from what you're saying he'd have gotten the social skills from the way you teach as well. What he couldn't have gotten and some of the homeschooling groups are probably as big as his graduating class from high school, which was all of 69 kids(!!!!), was the other activitys that he loved so much, the Math Club, taking Japanese for two years, French for five, being a member of Model Congress and going to debates with children from all over the country, every year, dates (ok, that was scary back then! lol), going to school early each morning as he was also on the closed caption (in-school) cable TV, where he and the others broadcasted to all the classrooms of the news and weather and said the Pledge.
I can't even come up with all the things he was in, but he loved it all.
Being that the school was and still is so small, everyone pretty much got along. I think our town is the exception, in that I didn't know anyone who homeschooled - the kids liked the school they were going to and also tried and could read and write. If he'd been in a larger school, possibly the city-schools, I would probaby have had a totally different viewpoint, than in a teeny place where we all knew each other and still do! Great article, Kryistina and thanks for taking the time to answer everyones questions!
Sounds like you are doing a great job :)
Oh, and keep writing, please!
Marilyn
Sounds like your son had the perfect educational experience for him! *smile*
What most people (no matter what "side" of the homeschooling "debate" they're on) forget to realize is that every situation, every family, every child is different. Some kids do better in public school, some prefer homeschool and on and on into infinity for the many reasons families have for choosing any particular educational path.
The best we can do as parents is provide what works best and is most comfortable, both for our children, and our families as a whole. The only ones who can judge how we "school" is ourselves.
I have friends who have one unschooler, one public schooler, and a one (previously an unschooler) in college to be a teacher. Those are the choices their children made about their own education, and it works for their family.
There are even homeschoolers out there who take advantage of the public school's (some schools anyway) offer to allow the kids to participate in classes, clubs, sports, and after-school activities even if they are not enrolled.
There are a LOT more options now than there were when I was a kid. Now you can homeschool for free using stuff printed from the internet. When I was little homeschool wasn't even a word you heard once every 5 years. Nobody even knew it existed except for a very select (and oft-reclusive) few.
Education is always the family's decision.
As for my daughter, she is traditionally schooled. My wife, who passed away last year, was the CEO of education in our household. I was a stakeholder and participant, but Cyndi was in charge. We started in public education. Both Cyndi and I stayed active. Cyndi sold SCRIP and raised 30,000 for the school. I was President of home and school club and helped distribute that money plis others we made. You get what you give. We gave a lot to the school and in return got a lot back. About 3rd grade we began to deviate from the norm in terms of our daughters needs and wishes and the skills of the teachers and administrators. So we went to Mulberry, a private parent co-op school that focused on problem resolution. There was no focus on winning or losing, just resolving and growing together. I took a year off from work to share with the students what I had discovered about art hanging out in Europe the previos year. What a great growth experience for me and the kids. Sadly, Mulberry ended at 5th grade. Jackie, our daughter, gave a killer speech at graduation. She had invited her kindergarten teacher from the original public school and dedicated her speech to the great teachers she'd had. It was a proud moment for me. I saw her up there, making eye contact with the audience. I saw her bring tears to teachers eyes for being recognized for doing what they love. I have to admit from the day Jackie was born I have been one proud daddy, and that was a miraculous day.
After Mulberry, we moed to something completely different. It was a school that was much stricter in their rules. It had a touch of religious background, although that was not shoved in your face. The school was a different experience, but yet another excellent choice. After Mulberry, I had to move to Oregon to become CTO of a troubled company that my mentor/sponsor, a venture capitalist who had taken me under hs wing. After taking a year off from work and making the big move I had less money then before. So we decided to try the Oregom public school system in the town of Beaverton. The first year was a little rough, but we met a teacher who took an interest Jackie and highly recommended she go to the Arts and COmmunications Magnet Academy. Wow. This was the spark that fueled the fire. She became so wrapped up in school and emersed herself in theater and arts. It helped that I spend every "spare" moment producing and writing music. I taught myself hw to play, build a recording stuio and produce records. This was something I did for me. There was no financial ambition. There was no desire to sing at clubs to "pick up chicks." No, I loved music and found it fit my software development lifestlye. You see in software development, you have a blank source code file and a computing device doing nothing. When you are finished you fiilled in thousand of pages of code and now you are the master of the machine. It is your slave. It does what you tell it too. What a satisfying experience. Music is the same. You start with silemce, or a blank music score, or instruments at rest. Little by little you create something. It might be your on cover of oemone else'a song, or you may have writen something original, or maybe something in between. I love it. Music and software development are my art forms. Jackie acquired that fire, but she applies it to theater and choral work. Good for her. Another school and another success story.
Cyndi left her mark here too. She had a childhood dream to raise a guide dog for the blind. Cyndi was dying and had only a year or two to make a difference in our lives, and to the world. She fulfilled her childhood dream and joined a group called Sightmasters in Beavertin Oregon that raised guide dog puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind. I cannot explain in words what this experience was like for us. Due to Cyndi's illness, and the demand sof school, I became the primary raiser. I took the puppies in training to work, to raise money from venture capitalists, on buoness trips. All three of us were changed forever. Cyndi lived long enough to see our firs puppy graduate. She was too ill to take the stage with Jadke and I, but handing a stranger with a disability a well-trained puppy to be his new life partner is a tear-jerker! In June 2005, Cyndi lost her battle with disease. A couple months after our second puppy graduated and paired with a mother of three just about the same age as Cyndi and I. I wish she culd hae been there. It was so moving. We talked about Cyndi on stage and told Diana, the blind woman who received Clarabelle, all about the special woman who had a dream of raising guide dogs and shared it with her family. Cyndi lives on through the work of tjose puppies. The third puppy, Amiga, who Cyndi had known for 6 months (Amiga was at our side when Cyndi passed away) did not graduate due to severe skin allergies. She is here with me, we adopted her. My personal growth continues each day I watch this puppy interact with society and I realize the awsome work they do after we raise the puppies through thteir first year of life. I returned Amiga to Guide Dogs and got her back a year later as a fully trained guide. Wow. What a profound experience that has been.
Back to school. I fell in love with my high school sweetheart. She and I had split around first year of college. We had things in our lives we had to do on our own. I moved to the left coast and built my career. Sue stayed near where we grew up, married a man I had met briefly before leavng for Silicon Valley. We stayed in touch with updates on family and stuff, but nothing personal and nothing inappropriate. We purposely decided NOT to see each other in person, since deep inside we knew where that would lead and we were not finished wiht out lives as they evolved. But as Cyndi grew sick, and too proud to tell those around us about it, I confided in my old girlfrien. Sue confided in me that her perfect homelife was not going well. We offered daily email support. Stupidly, we didn't realzie the implications. Shortly after Cyndi's service, Sue's divorce was final after a year-plus separation. We decided to meet. I almost fell over. There are pics in my images of her and I as teenagers and her and I as moderns. Anyway, she had 3 teens who lived with dad and couldn't/wouldn't relocate. I had the one who was always up for an adenture. Especially an adventure that brought her to within 2 hours of Broadway. So after a whirlwind romance and lots of jet planes, Sue and I and Jackie moved in togther approximately halfway ebtween Boston and Hartford. I needed to be near Boston, her job and kids were in Hartford. The extended family all met. Gary, her ex, remembered me from our one time we met and there was a sense of mutual respect. The extended family was born into a world of friendship and best wishes for all the kids.
My relationship with Cyndi was fantastic. My relationship with Sue is very different, but likewise it is fastastic. How lucky can one man be to have three amazing woman in his life? My wife who I lived with for many years and married in 1989. In 1990, the second amazing woman-to-be entereded my life. Cyndi was wheeled off to ICU and I was told she wouldn;t live, so I spent real quality time with that baby girl. She will be 17 next month! Then Sue, my first love, re-entered my life. I almost passed out when I saw here. The sound of her voice makes me weak inthe knees I don't know how I could have let her go the first time, but we are both happy with the way things evolved. Our kids are everything to us and without spliting up when we did, these kids wouldn;t exist. In our mid-40s now I think the idea of kids together is out of the quesion, at least in her mind (hint, hint).
So this all brings us to rural Massachusetts where we have to decide what to do with Jackie. Prolonged medical expenses and poor job choces left me in a big of a financial jam. My 7 figure days were down to zero in income. So public school it is. She is learning to work the ropes there, and this is only the first hald of the first year. I would consider home/unschooling, except I need to focus my time on my income producing activities (OK, I'll admit I play guitar and work with my guide dog puppy alot too. I have some contract work with old friends that merges my love of music, They are Seattle based and I am Massachusetts based. Otherwise we would already have formally joined forces. But we are looking into creative soltions. In the meantime others from the past have reurfaced and floated numerous great business ideas. The catch in all of them but one is that we would have to be self financed, and I am in no financial shape to do that.
But I think about Jackie watching me go through these decisions and realitities of the world beyond school. She listens just as intently to me when she asks how my days was as I do to her. I have a feeling this young woman will end up being a business partner soon and helping us to merge our love of theater, music, guide dogs, and other things into fulfilling, profitable business.
So I hope you see that I personally have taken the road less travelled, and offered my daughter many opportunities to deine her own path. She, like me, is an extrovert and likes the school. But who knows what the future holds. We are all masters of our own destiny. I should mention that Sue is the driving force in our love affair. When I was 16 she made the first move passing me a note on a chorus field trip. She reached out and intiaited contact with me through the years, and she suggested we go on a "date" to her company xmas party now that I was a windower and she divorced. I agreed but couldn't wait three months, so I booked a flight for 3 week later.
So Krystina, I know a little about the path less traveled. I know a little about throwing conventional "wisdpm" out the window. I think I am doing a darn good job as a single parent of a teenage girl. It is a heck of a responsibility and I get angry at Cyndi for leaving me here, but then I recall the prework she did to set this all up for us.
So here's to unschooling, unconventional, uncareers, unusal love stories. The only thing I sm not is unhapy. Thank you for a thought provoking article. Hope yuo don't mind the small book as a comment!
First and foremost, I never mind reading a comment-book. *smile*
Most people do unschool themselves for their entire lives, even sometimes during the times they are enrolled in a "school", via outside interests and the like. *agree*
Thank you for the chuckles, the tears, and the message of hope your comment brought to the conversation. Have you ever thoguht of writing a book? I bet it'd be a big hit. Yours is a beautiful and moving tale. May you move foreward past your current financial adversity and enjoy many more grand sucesses.
Sadly the majority of homeschooling parents, even a little as 5 years ago, were people who decided to take their kids out of a secular system in order to "protect" them from "evils" like sex education, birth control, pop culture, and peer pressure. Many of those same parents only allowed socialization within the child's church group if there was one. Back in the day, the question of "How do they get along in the real world after being secluded all their lives?" was a very real one. For isolationists, it still is.
Luckily for us, and for the name of home education in general, the movement is growing with such rapidity that secular curricilum suppliers are having trouble keeping up. Now is a time of extreme change in the homeschooling world. As a whole, the community is expanding to include not only isolationists, but also those of us more social. More people of all faiths and lifestyles are choosing to educate at home, and for many more varied reasons than religion. The result is that a more realistic and broad-spectrum of child rearing styles are being reperesented, thus we see less of the commonly-assumed secusion-style of parenting when homeshooling is mentioned.
For the average home or unschooler, socialization is simply a non-issue, and most of us are tired of hearing the question, especially since it is most often asked by adults who have just had an insightful conversation with the children, and then watched them run off to play with other kids. It really boggles the mind how some people do not understand what social skills are to such a degree that they cannot recognise them in action.
First, my daughter did something really ugly. I corrected her and soon the incident was forgotten. She was loved in spite of it. When I was in school, every mistake I made was amplified by my peers for what seemed like years. I was grateful my daughter didn't have to go through the rejection that I did at the age of 6.
Then, I went to a protest over in Iowa. At the time people were being put in jail for homeschooling over there so we went to support these homeschoolers. i was standing beside a certified teacher who had quit teaching to homeschool her daughter. A reporter asked her about the socialization issue. Her reply was, "In study after study, it has been shown that children will imitate those they are around most. Do you agree with that?" "Oh yes," he replied, "Everyone knows that!" She then asked him, "If that is true, then if we want our children to grow up to be adults, who should they be around most? ... children or adults?"
I quit worrying after that.
My kids are all grown by the way and they are some of the best socialized adults around.
You are incorrect. It is manditory that children are educated, not "schooled". Whether my children educate themselves or I do it, as long as it is happening, it counts as education.
I don't recall myself or my family being held to your ideals of what a good parent is, what a good education is, or what you consider "good enough" to go to college. I also don't recall you knowing my family in any way shape or form that would give you any right whatsoever to judge how we live our lives.
IF my children decide that they want to pay some stranger thousands of dollars to waste years of their lives in order to get a piece of paper to prove to someone that they have learned what they can teach themselves in a matter of a few short months of interest, then they have made that choice.
My mate went to college to be a computer programmer and technician. I taught myself. He spent thousands for a peice of paper. Who did he call for technical support when on the job before he started teaching himself what he really needed to know? Me. Why? He called me because that "valuable" peice of paper had no real value at all. He learned what he knows about computers on his own time, not at college. The school taught him next to nothing.
We don't feel the need to prove anything to anyone.
Go judge someone who appreciates your assumptiveness.
Rock ON. I didn't go the "get the paper" route to become the successful developer/entrepreneur I am today. It didn't stop me from getting US Patents, getting great jobs at leading software companies, or gaining funding from venture community for new ventures.
One note on this: I recently moved from the west coast where I built my 22 year career back to New England where I grew up. The east is much more hung up on paper then the west coast. The west coast seems to have an accomplishment-based point of view, whereas the east is a little self impressed with their colleges and universities. I admit that the college system here in Massachusetts is very impressive, but I don't think attending one of those or comparable schools is the only path to excellence.
I agree that some things do require paper, hence my statement "IF my children decide that they want to". If they want to be doctors, then THEY decide it, and they do all of the prerequesite work to qualify for that collegate program. As their life education facilitator, I help them find the resources they need to follow their interests and fulfill their desires.
As far as practicing medicine, we all do it all the time. Think about it really; Have you ever suggested that someone check into a new drug on the market, suggested an herb, vitamin, or suppliment? How often have you talked about how well something that could be considered medical worked for you? Ever given someone an aspirin? Of course, I always preface my advice with "go check with your doctor for drug interactions and such before you try this because I don't know your health as well as they do, but..." just to keep me safe, but doesn't simply giving medical advice or handing someone an over-the-counter drug fall under the category of "practicing medicine" at it's most minute definition?
I have to agree with what you said about the piece of paper and your mate and learning computer programming. My dh has a degree from KU in computer programming but what he was taught were theories and the math basis for computer programming, not how to do it. The computer languages he has taught himself over the years as new ones are developed over and over are what he uses every day as a programmer/analyst, not what he was taught in school. It does help get the job to have the piece of paper sometimes though.
I like how you've related unschooling with the life long learning we all do to keep growing as individuals.
You've made me think again!
My concern about either homeschooling or unschooling is that I think there are some parents out there who want to homeschool their kids, but the parents don't know as much as they think they do, so might make poor teachers.
While some children do feel the need for a "deschooling" period (a time of relaxation after leaving a confined and rigored setting like a classroom) before they can feel comfortable learning on their own, you are correct, and a creative parent can turn nearly anything into a learning experience. *agree*
Even if a "deschooling" period is required by the student, they always branch out their interests and start learning new things with time.
Homeschooling parents do (depending on many factors including child age and teaching style) sometimes have to teach instead of simply facilitate.
When I was homeschooling my eldest, I actually learned quite a bit myself that I had not been taught, or had not retained from my time in public school. It is said that treaching something is the best way to truly learn it, and I have seen the truth of that in many areas of my own life.
Unschooling parents on the other hand, need not be "book smart" as much as creative, resourceful, available at all times, a good researcher, and able to keep up with community events and clubs to possibly involve their children in. The learning, comes naturally to both child and parent.
Since as a teacher, I was also teaching myself, I don't really see a lot of basis in the argument that some people just aren't "smart enough" to homeschool.
There ARE however, those that are too lazy, not determined enough, or are, as said previously in the comments, just using the title of "homeschooler" so that they won't have to get up early in the mornings to get the kids ready for the bus.
The problem with some parents is that they just don't care enough, no matter how the child is "schooled". Poor parents ALWAYS make poor teachers... Well, I shouldn't say that really. Poor parents are great teachers too. They teach bad habits, they teach that there is no need for life skills, they teach all sorts of things that will damage their child's ability to function productively in the adult world. Not that they are TRYING to teach these things, mind you, but children are naturally great learners.
Adult literacy classes are proof that no matter how "unintelligent" a person is, with enough determination, they can educate themselves and others quite effectively.
Every parent is a teacher, no matter where their kids go to "learn". *smile*
I am late to this article, but wanted to address this statement. It is false. I quit High School at 15. Many years later I decided I wanted to take a class or two at the college. I had NO problem getting admitted with a GED, which any child can take, and went on to Grad School.
Also, I pulled my own out of school in Jr High after a bout with an idiot of a teacher, and an even more obtuse principle. She was in second year college texts by age 16... of her own doing.