Unschooling

There was a segment on Good Morning America about unschooling.

I do NOT recommend watching it....HIGHLY biased. They announce before they even start with the segment they're biased against it!

They say, "There are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world.".....um, excuse me?

They're in the *real world*.

No textbooks? We have books on top of books in our library, and, yes, some of them *are* textbooks. (I would insert a picture of my wonderful library here, but the shelves haven't been built yet, and the books are still in boxes.) ; )

No tests? When we need to figure out the square footage of a room, *that* is the test of if we can figure square footage. When they are writing a story *that* is the test of how well they understand the English language. When they hear about a news story or watch a movie and look at a globe to find out where it happened *that* is the test of their knowledge of geography.

No formal education? Well....only if they don't *choose* formal education. Both my girls have chosen to take classes they were interested in. Not for a grade, not for a certificate, not for prestige...simply because they were interested. Radical concept, no?

Quoting from the article again..."When asked how their children learn things like math, she said, "If they need formal algebra understanding, then they will, they'll find that information." " (*She* in this quote is the unschooling mother.)

Actually, what the interviewer said was, "They'll never get X+Y=Z." I'll not mention my opinion about how stupid that sounds and go on to the facts. X+Y=Z *only* means something if there are values given to X and Y. If my kids go to the store and want a snack and a drink, X becomes the price of the snack, Y becomes the price of the drink and they find out, wonder of wonders, what Z really is!

Again, a quote, "Most children will always choose television over reading every time..." Yes, and *most* children are schooled. Right now my children are reading. Sitting right beside the tv. The tv is off. No one has told them to turn it off, they have as much freedom to have it on as to have it off. It's a choice they've made on their own. This is an AWESOME blog post I read today about unschooling reading. I LOVED it!

One thing they mention, and I've seen somewhere else recently, is the argument that kids should go to school for "exposure" to different things so they'll know what they're interested in. I suppose, if a kid spends all his time doing one thing, say playing the same game over and over they might need help with exposure...(unless, of course, the game is chess in which case people seem to think it's a good thing.)

Well, I don't know about *all* public schools, obviously, and have no idea what they might offer, but I do know about *required courses* and by the time you get through with their required courses how much time do you have left to explore the others? From our own school experience when we did the little unhappy teaching/schooling experiment at the beginning of '09-'10 school year, Emma was signed up for the required Biology 1. All the kids take Bio. 1, then Bio.2, then Chemistry. They *might* take Physics if they're particularly gifted. On the other hand, when Emma and I were discussing things she might be interested in learning about, paleontology, geology, archaeology and astronomy were the fields of science mentioned. If she had spent the past 10 years in school would she have even known there were other sciences she could delve deeper into?

I Loved this quote from the father in the story: "they will do what they need to do, whether or not they enjoy it, because they see the purpose in it." Amen!

Here's a statistic for you...."As many as 29 percent of state university students and 43 percent of community college students require some amount of remedial education upon enrolling in college" http://blog.scholarships.com/news/many-college-freshmen-need-remedial-courses/

That's 72%. 72% of the kids who actually attempt to go to college need remedial courses, and there are lots of kids who don't even attempt college. I guarantee my kids can do at least as well as that! LOL

How many 14 year-olds count Shakespeare as one of their favourite authors? My kid does. How many 12 year-olds can rattle off scientific facts like a wizened old scientist? My kid does.

One example of unschooled learning comes to mind. Emma is currently interested in anime and manga . When she decided to make some of her own manga the second thing she did (the first thing was to read a book on how to draw manga) was to go to the library and check out books on Japanese history and culture, and asked for a book on learning to speak Japanese. (I found her one at a used book store.)

I wish she'd let me scan some of her pictures! She's doing GREAT with the drawings. I haven't been privledged to read any of the stories yet, but I'll bet they're good, too.

She is choosing to draw, read, learn and study because she wants to! She already knows more Japanese than I learned of Spanish during a *required* course in high school.

Once again, my kids are the best! ; )