Alternative education choice

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Tweelis
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Alternative education choice

Post by Tweelis »

So when I tell some people we're unschoolers they either give us the deer in the headlights look (don't understand it at all) or the horrified look (ie, all we do is watch loony toons all day). Sometimes even after trying to explain things to these people they still give us the OMG YOU HORRIBLE PERSON YOU!!! Well, somebody with better writing skills than I wrote an article relating to our homeschool philosophy:

http://www.parentmap.com/content/view/1380/275/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Unschool me! The growing trend of child-led learning
Written by Lora Shinn
Nov 01, 2009


Seven-year-old Mary Dahl is fascinated by the lives of U.S. presidents — so much so that she spends her entire first-grade year studying them. While other kids her age are memorizing spelling words and practicing arithmetic and reading skills, Mary is learning all about the presidents, their wives, their families, geography — and when the first toilet was installed in the White House. Her teacher knows just how to keep her interest; Mary is her own teacher! Rather than receiving direct instruction, Mary initiates her own studies — with only a little help from her mom.
Welcome to the world of unschooling, homeschooling’s upstart younger sibling. Unschooling parents hope to preserve a child’s natural, internal urge to learn by letting them call the educational shots. It’s called “child-led learning,” and it’s one giant step removed from the usual curriculum-based learning at home that is homeschooling.

In unschooling, children select their own learning topics, which evolve and change throughout the year. Mary — now 8 — turned an early interest in presidents to a study of their lives, U.S. geography and politics, and even a few quirky facts (like that presidential potty!) along the way.

Unschooling is defined as a practice that welcomes exploration and experimentation, involves adults who act as models and facilitators, and is anchored in a deep trust that the child will learn, says Mary Griffith, author of The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom.

“Look at any healthy toddler,” Griffith says. “They live to learn, and it’s practically impossible to stop them from learning.”

Educator John Holt kicked off the unschooling revolution in the early 1980s with the books Teach Your Own and Learning All the Time. Today, Puget Sound−area families can choose from dozens

of books on the subject and online groups that support their interests. There’s even a summer camp for unschoolers, the Not Back to School Camp, which offers sessions for teens in Oregon and Vermont.

No firm statistics on unschooling exist; unschoolers are usually lumped in with homeschoolers, whose estimated numbers range from 1.28 million to more than 2 million. But Seattle’s local unschooling email list has quickly grown to more than 100 families; some unschooling advocates estimate that as many as 20 percent of homeschoolers are unschoolers.

Unschooling for learning styles
Unschoolers know what you’re thinking: What if these kids never learn to read? What about friends? Isn’t this just educational neglect? How will they learn to do those tedious tasks to reach an end goal? Will knowing about the presidential toilet get you into college?

Seattle mom Melanie Kling says her family and friends were skeptical at first. Would her son Avery ever learn to read? To do math? Now 8 years old, he can do both easily, and Melanie’s fears are in retreat. Avery taught himself to read with a Leapster and some help from mom and dad; he now delves into mystery books. Avery takes an interest in multiplication and fractions, and creates arithmetic problems for himself.

For many families, unschooling simply fits their child’s learning style. Kling has positive memories of her own schooling, but found that the classroom wasn’t such a good fit for her introverted son, who passionately devoured topics for weeks at a time. Not everyone enjoys the quick topic-to-topic transitions often found in school. Avery listens to books on tape for hours, watches science videos, assembles puzzles and lists favorite words for spelling practice; he visits museums with his mom and other homeschoolers.

Unschooling parents are generally well educated and expose their children to a wide variety of resources and activities, from museums to international travel. It’s not education by neglect. Unschooling parents strew books on a diverse array of topics around the house, never knowing what an inquisitive mind might latch onto. Volcanoes? Immigration? Greek myths? Multiplication games?

And parents help kids take the information to the next level with “real world” exploration, such as visiting Mount St. Helens, mapping Greek legends onto the night sky or estimating how many glasses of lemonade the kids will need to sell to recoup their lemonade stand’s investment.

Parental encouragement is balanced with an appreciation of the child’s intrinsic desire to learn, so that pushing and pressure don’t result. “Too far over the line, and you completely kill the interest,” Griffith says, because the child is no longer learning for himself.

But that doesn’t mean unschooled kids call all the shots. For example, Kling and her son take turns choosing daily activities. Many unschooled kids participate in classes, taking up everything from archery to zoo camps. Some kids work one on one with a mentor, expert or tutor to explore personal interests, or take classes from a homeschooling parent — if it suits the child’s interests.

“Unschooling shifts the responsibility of learning to the child,” Griffith says. “Learning is not done to someone. Learning is what one does. It’s an active process, as essential to life as breathing.”

Unschooling for the hesitant
But just like all parents, unschooling parents worry. Are their kids learning enough? Will this fascination with maps or money or monkeys broaden and evolve?

“Literally everything can be learning,” Griffith says. Rather than assuming the negative — kids aren’t learning — unschoolers have faith that their child is gaining in some way from every experience.

And unschooling parents track the learning; the children take yearly assessments, as required by Washington state law for homeschoolers older than age 8. Kling keeps a scrapbook of her son’s activities, while Dahl is trying the free Columbia Virtual Academy, an online educational resource that helps record learning activities and provides free educational materials she or her daughters can reference, should they wish to do so.

“I promised the grandparents that the girls would stay at least a year ahead of grade level, in case they want to return to school,” Dahl says.

But what about social skills? How will these kids gain the skills needed to interact in society? Unschoolers and homeschoolers often make the point that traditional schools hardly prepare kids socially for the “real world”; instead, schoolchildren develop cliquish, fashion-obsessed, stereotyping behaviors that must later be unlearned.

Kling’s son plays with kids his own age, chats with an elderly neighbor and visits a vendor they see weekly at the farmers market — they’ve even been out to visit his dairy. Seattle Homeschool Group’s email list offers daily outings for mixed-age groups, from homeschool swim classes to interpretive visits to the Washington Park Arboretum.

But unschooling doesn’t fit every family or learning style. Sara Cole of Seattle says that she tried unschooling her son Theo until he was 7, when she realized that they both needed more structure. “He thrives on rhythm and routine,” she says. “When he was in the free-floating model, he was bored.”

Today, Cole homeschools using a more established model, but she still tries to tie in Theo’s learning to fun topics he clicks with during their studies — like ninjas.

Long-term success?
For those who worry that children can’t know what’s best for them — and what’s best to learn — unschoolers advise patience. “We can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future,” Griffith says. “A subject learned late is often learned more easily and quickly than if pushed earlier, before the learner is interested.”

For example, Kling’s son wants to learn woodworking. He’s got the workbench, but also needs to learn how to estimate, measure and add — and he needs to learn patience. “If he wants to get somewhere, he also needs to learn what he needs to do to get there,” says Kling. “He wants the product, but he’s also learning the process.”

According to the unschooling philosophy, when kids want to achieve a goal — entry into an exclusive high school, admittance into Running Start or completing their application to an Ivy League college — they’ll learn what’s necessary, even if it’s a few years after everyone else.

Both of Griffith’s daughters went to college: One graduated from American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, while the other is studying kinesiology at Temple University in Philadelphia.

“It’s fun,” Griffith says of unschooling. “Of course, it’s a lot of work. The best learning is always a lot of work, but always feels like fun, because it’s what we want to be doing.”

Lora Shinn writes for a diverse mix of local and national publications, including ParentMap and Pregnancy. She’s not sure she could unschool her own kids — but she respects those who do.

Resources:

The Unschooling Handbook: How to Use the Whole World as Your Child’s Classroom , by Mary Griffith

The Unschooling Unmanual by Nanda Van Gestel

Learning all the Time by John Holt


unschooling.com

Family Unschooler's Network

Growing Without Schooling

Jon's Unschooling Page

Life Learning magazine


Summer camp for unschooled children: Not Back to School Camp

Seattle Homeschool Group
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Sirulus Delon
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Re: Alternative education choice

Post by Sirulus Delon »

Sounds interesting and 'neat' (for lack of a better word). Are there any statistics about the placement levels of an unschooled child vs a home schooled or traditionally taught child (in a classroom setting be it public or private school)? And at what grade/age do you stop the unschooling? I am curious about those numbers because the whole concept does sound about right. Now that does not mean I'd use it but it also does not mean I wouldn't use it. When I have kids it will be all about what gets the the most out of their education.



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Dadani
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Re: Alternative education choice

Post by Dadani »

When we finish our house remodel (week 9 atm ugh), we are going to look at adoption or surrogacy and raise another child.

We have discussed the home school approach and with both of us degreed, we are not worried about being able to teach as I taught courses at San Diego State for 4 years and my wife has this amazing gift with kids.
Our concern was lack of social interactions. We discussed doing the multitude of activities outside a school environment (karate, YMCA swim classes, T-ball, soccer, etc) and there is probably a lot more ways then we have written down to increase social interactions.

Another concern was exposure to viruses and getting a cold or flu. As much as it sucks, it is important to the development of their immune system. I wonder if that would have an impact later in life on their health (getting sick all the time, we all know those people that get sick like 5+ times a year) This girl I worked with was sick at least 15 times in the last year I worked with her. I haven't had a cold, sore throat or flu in probably 10+ years. (knock on wood) Although I did have chicken pox in 2006 at age 42 but it wasn't really wasn't as bad as people kept telling me it would be. Now as a kid, crap, I was sick all the firggin time it seemed like. I wonder if that being sick a lot as a kid effected me to the point where I rarely get sick now. Even when my wife is sick for a week, I don't catch anything. Sometimes a scratchy throat for a day then its gone.

I have tried to find information on social interactions, sickness and health. Not much out there that I could find that was substantial enough.
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najiwench
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Re: Alternative education choice

Post by najiwench »

That's a very interesting observation, Dadani...

My son, having 3 older sisters all in public school, keeps a runny nose. Not sick, per se, but you can tell his little immune system is just fighting for all its worth to keep from getting sick. My neighbors, who have one or two children, comment on it and suggest doctors and so on..but I know that it isn't anything, it's just that he is constantly bombarded with germs that his sisters bring home...and all that exposure will build up his immune system so by the time he is in school, he shouldn't get sick hardly at all...hopefully.

I'm not anti-homeschooling, but I have had so many negative experiences with families who use homeschooling to shield their children from bad social situations, and then the children end up with no ability to handle any kind of social situations that might not be positive. Sheltering them may protect them in the now, but it gives them no training for the future..and all kids, no matter who or what they are, will have to face situations where there is teasing, bullying, unfairnes, and so on...shielding them doesn't help them in the long run. I have the hardest time with parents whose sole reason for home schooling is because little billy got teased...

Personally, while I'm not entirely happy with the way public schools are done, I know that I am not capable of homeschooling my children. I know that I just don't have the patience to do it.

As for this unschooling, it's one of those that time will tell how well it works for kids, and it's going to be one of those things that works for some children, but won't for others. And it depends on HOW the families incorporate it.

But, shoot, somebody's got to scrub the floors and take out the trash, right? :mrgreen:
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Tweelis
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Re: Alternative education choice

Post by Tweelis »

Sirulus

Something concerning statistics and me; I don't put a whole lot of stock in them due to the possibility of statistical manipulation, especially when it comes to a hotbed of debate such as childhood education. I and a lot of our homeschool friends have probably heard everything you can think of regarding positive and negative statistics between homeschooled/unschooled/privateschooled/publicschooled. I'm sure all of them are accurate from one stataticians point of view and all of them are innaccurate from a different stataticians point of view.

When do you stop unschooling? When you don't feel like doing it any longer or when it stops working. Many families start unschooling as soon as their child can stand up; some wait until after several years in a institution and a lot of others never homeschool/unschool. The opposite also holds true. My daughter's girl scout troop leader has been an unschooler for 8 years now but life happened and necessity dictated that they started sending all their kids to full time public school. Some people unschool all their lives and yet others go back and forth between traditional schooling and unschooling.
When I have kids it will be all about what gets the the most out of their education.
And you just hit the magic nail with the golden hammer. We're using unschooling because we feel our children are getting the best education that we can possibly afford.
Our concern was lack of social interactions. We discussed doing the multitude of activities outside a school environment (karate, YMCA swim classes, T-ball, soccer, etc) and there is probably a lot more ways then we have written down to increase social interactions.
This was the main reason I was totally oppossed to homeschooling/unschooling to begin with. When I was starting 9th grade my parents moved my family and I to Coeur d'Alene. Our next door neighbors homeschooled and boy oh boy were those little girls "different" from anybody we had ever met. Fast forward to 4 years ago and my wife mentioned homeschool to me one day and BY GOD THAT WOULD NEVER FLY WITH ME!!!

FWIW a lot of people have the same concerns but then again I think most good parents have concerns regarding their children at one time or another over something. Our daughter is a very social butterfly; out son not soo much. Although there are more opportunities at a public school for in school programs there's still a lot of programs available for homeschoolers. For instance, my daughter is in a homeschoolers Aikido class and is part of a homeschoolers Girl Scout troop. She use to be in a homeschoolers gymnastics class but decided to quit that in favor of swimming and Aikido. I also know four other parents with boys that are my son's age and we're all planning on getting a cubscout troop together when our boys are old enough. This is just what my kids have been or are currently involved in. I'll admit we're lucky to have such a HUGE homeschooling/unschooling community around us but if you do some searching around I'll bet you have a pretty big one in SD; heck you should considering SD hosted the national Good Vibrations unschooling conference last September (which had to cut off registration at 2500 attendies).

Another thing to check into is if your public school allows homeschoolers to participate in afterschool activities or even take a class in school for an hour a day. Heck, you're supporting the public schools through paying taxes so they should let you use the services you're paying for.

The viruses/sickness/cold thing makes sense. My daughter has only really been sick once but she's had several sniffly noses and very mild fevers but nothing like some other kids I know though.

Here's a question regarding the lady you work with. Do you see her eat healthy food when you're around her or is she mostly a potato chip and ramen noodle girl? IMO a poor diet can do more damage to an immune system than being around sick people all the time will do; just my opinion though.

I'm not anti-homeschooling, but I have had so many negative experiences with families who use homeschooling to shield their children from bad social situations, and then the children end up with no ability to handle any kind of social situations that might not be positive. Sheltering them may protect them in the now, but it gives them no training for the future..and all kids, no matter who or what they are, will have to face situations where there is teasing, bullying, unfairnes, and so on...shielding them doesn't help them in the long run. I have the hardest time with parents whose sole reason for home schooling is because little billy got teased...
See my comments above about the next door neighbor girls in Coeur d'Alene. Although we don't like watching our kids go through unnecessary emotional trauma (our daughter's dealing with a lot of that now) we also want them to have a decent amount of emotional and mental fortitude to deal with the crap that life will inevitably throw their way. For example, awhile back this little smurf of a kid started making fun of my daughter by saying stuff like "you were an orphan!" with the tone of voice that a snotty brat would usually use when trying to sound "better" than somebody else. A lot of kids that knew exactly what that meant would cower and walk away crying. Since my daughter hasn't been taught to be a doormat she responded by saying "well my parents chose me, you're were stuck with you!" The really cool thing is my daughter knows 100% what an orphan is while I doubt the snotty brat knows much about it.
Personally, while I'm not entirely happy with the way public schools are done, I know that I am not capable of homeschooling my children. I know that I just don't have the patience to do it.
You sell yourself short Naji. I'd bet a box of our apples to a box of your oranges that you'd be a great homeschooler. Hell, you haven't driven up here and beaten me with a baseball bat yet and I'm just some random stranger off the net. When it comes to parent/child relationships you're probably one of the most patient people I know.
As for this unschooling, it's one of those that time will tell how well it works for kids, and it's going to be one of those things that works for some children, but won't for others. And it depends on HOW the families incorporate it.
It's been around for a very long time; just not publicized a lot until recently. There's a boy in my daughter's Aikido class with 5 older siblings. His oldest brother is in Harvard pre-med and his oldest sister is at M.I.T. working on her masters. Although these are extreme cases of a well rounded unschooling family it's pretty safe to say that the right family doing the right things can accomplish whatever they set their sites on. You are right though that our method/philosophy will work for some but not others. It's working very well for us now but we may have to change things up in a year, five years, ten years or never.

To be fair though I do know an unschooling family that their oldest son didn't feel like learning how to read until he as 15 and does only what he has to do to get by. I'm willing to bet he'll be taking out the trash and scrubbing toilets simply because that's the minimum he'll have to do in order to sustain his minimum needs in life.
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najiwench
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Re: Alternative education choice

Post by najiwench »

Awww..Tweelis, you gave me the warm fuzzies!
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