unschooling

[tink_lover]

Did you see the segment on GMA this week? I just found out that one of my SIL - who tells all of us she is homeschooling - is in fact, unschooling.

 

[goodeats]

I saw a brief snippet of it. It seemed to me the kids just played video games all day and had no real plan for the future. I couldn't figure out why the parents thought this was a good idea.

 

[nmmom95]

My aunt did this. My cousin is now 23 and obviously uneducated. What a waste!

 

[Handbag Lady]

Things like this are really bad for the good parents who homeschool for good reason and turn out brilliant children. It just gives them a bad name, and that's not fair.

Maybe there needs to be a "something" in place so that the good parents can teach and the bad parents have to send their kids back to school. And I don't mean a test like the stuff the kids have in school now.

 

[punkin]

I did not see the show, but I know about it.

I do think it is appropriate FOR A VERY SHORT TIME when a child has had a bad experience in traditional school. However, long term, it almost never works unless you have an incredibly motivated and self driven child.

Overall, I am against it.

 

[Deb in IA]

I have mixed feelings on homeschooling to begin with, which I will not get into here.

Unschooling, however, is just plain stupid.

 

[Sparx]

I think its ridiculous and should be illegal.

 

[Wishing on a star]

OMG!!!!

Many of you know that trials and problems that I have with our educational system. And, that I am homeschooling my son.

But, UNschooling...

 

[Tinkermommy]

Didn't see the clip. What is unschooling?

 

[bookgirl]

I'm not a homeschooling or unschooling fan, but just like anything, both can be done well or totally screwed up.

I've seen it from both backgrounds. The only times I've seen it really work is when kids had more traditional schooling or homeschooling early and had a strong foundations in basic skills and knowledge and then switched to unschooling or track learning as teens.

 

[princessmom29]

I think it is ubsurd. It is a rare child thati s self driven enough to give this any shot at all at worknig long term. I am not a fan of homeschool in general, but there are parents out there who do a great job with it. It takes massive amount of work, dedication, and at least some outsourcing to sucessfully homeschool K-12. This is NOT what a great homeschool program looks like, or even what a passable one looks like.

 

[binny]

I did not see the show, but I know about it.

I do think it is appropriate FOR A VERY SHORT TIME when a child has had a bad experience in traditional school. However, long term, it almost never works unless you have an incredibly motivated and self driven child.

Overall, I am against it.

Well thats just "decompression" those who homeschool for that reason need a bit of time IMHO. This is why we homeschooled this year (now that we moved theyre in a better school) The decompression time just lets everyone kind of get out of the school habit and makes it easier to transition into homeschool.

Generally kids that had a bad time in school (our issue was severe bullying) dont want to trust any type of school and so taking a *small* break from it for awhile is helpful.


The whole unschooling thing drives me crazy! I am a firm believer in homeschooling (isnt our best option right now but I would go back to it if I had to) but homeschooling with structure. Kids need to have structure whether they think they do or not. Its our job as parents to provide them with a good basis for life. Who is going to hire someone who cant add? Or are lacking the most basic of skills?

Menial labour is what they are condemning these children to! If you CHOOSE to do labour as an adult that is one thing, that is your choice. BUT raising children without basic skills is showing them they cant do anything else.
I addition to that, how is that teaching them the basic concepts of work? How are they going to suppport themselves if they get out in to the real world and their boss says "sorry you have to do this" and they wonder why their parents never taught them structure?

 

[Sparx]

Well thats just "decompression" those who homeschool for that reason need a bit of time IMHO. This is why we homeschooled this year (now that we moved theyre in a better school) The decompression time just lets everyone kind of get out of the school habit and makes it easier to transition into homeschool.

Generally kids that had a bad time in school (our issue was severe bullying) dont want to trust any type of school and so taking a *small* break from it for awhile is helpful.


The whole unschooling thing drives me crazy! I am a firm believer in homeschooling (isnt our best option right now but I would go back to it if I had to) but homeschooling with structure. Kids need to have structure whether they think they do or not. Its our job as parents to provide them with a good basis for life. Who is going to hire someone who cant add? Or are lacking the most basic of skills?

Menial labour is what they are condemning these children to! If you CHOOSE to do labour as an adult that is one thing, that is your choice. BUT raising children without basic skills is showing them they cant do anything else.
I addition to that, how is that teaching them the basic concepts of work? How are they going to suppport themselves if they get out in to the real world and their boss says "sorry you have to do this" and they wonder why their parents never taught them structure?

I don't see these kids even making it in factory or manual labor work. Thats physically demanding, long hours, and no one cares if you are happy doing it or not. These kids are catered to at their every whim, and aren't forced to do anything. I don't think they could do factory work at all.

 

[grumpeeduck]

Well thats just "decompression" those who homeschool for that reason need a bit of time IMHO. This is why we homeschooled this year (now that we moved theyre in a better school) The decompression time just lets everyone kind of get out of the school habit and makes it easier to transition into homeschool.

Generally kids that had a bad time in school (our issue was severe bullying) dont want to trust any type of school and so taking a *small* break from it for awhile is helpful.


The whole unschooling thing drives me crazy! I am a firm believer in homeschooling (isnt our best option right now but I would go back to it if I had to) but homeschooling with structure. Kids need to have structure whether they think they do or not. Its our job as parents to provide them with a good basis for life. Who is going to hire someone who cant add? Or are lacking the most basic of skills?

Menial labour is what they are condemning these children to! If you CHOOSE to do labour as an adult that is one thing, that is your choice. BUT raising children without basic skills is showing them they cant do anything else.
I addition to that, how is that teaching them the basic concepts of work? How are they going to suppport themselves if they get out in to the real world and their boss says "sorry you have to do this" and they wonder why their parents never taught them structure?

Did the school not do anything about the bullying? As a parent of a middle school dd-this is a SCARY subject. I would hope that the bully kid would get kicked out and the good kid could stay in school since he/she did nothing wrong. There just seems to be more and more of this bullying stuff. So sorry to hear it happened to your child.

 

[ChristaDeVil]

Things like this are really bad for the good parents who homeschool for good reason and turn out brilliant children. It just gives them a bad name, and that's not fair.

.

 

[SaraJayne]

Didn't see the clip. What is unschooling?

Essentially, it's parents who can't be bothered to educate their children.

Homeschooling can sometimes be a good thing for all involved, but unschooling is letting the child do whatever they want, whenever they want, for days and weeks on end.

So if the little darling wants to play video games or watch TV or play on the computer for days on end ~ well, he can.

 

[MiniGirl]

OP, given the responses here you can see why your SIL doesn't tell people she is unschooling.

I first heard of unschooling about 6 years ago when we moved and discovered that the family next door was unschooling their children.

Like a PP mentioned though, there are those that unschool well and those who don't. Unfortunately, those that don't do it well are usually the focus of these types of stories. Our neighbors took their children's education very seriously and they were thriving. The youngest did have some problems, but it was due to a disability and not the education he was getting at home. If done correctly, it is actually quite a bit of work for the parents. For example, their dd was very intetrested in the African Savannah. It is easy to see how you can fit in science and geography. It is also fairly easy to get some history in there as well. They read a lot of great historical and non-historical novels. Their art projects centered on different animals in the region, etc. The parents, however, had to make up their own math problems, etc. Some of it involved calculating area, distance, etc. Others were more involved.... How many areas equal to the state of Florida could you fit in the African Savannah? Driving 60 mph, how long would it take to drive across the Savanah? Things like that. Now these were sometimes done during a family game time or something, so they were often playing games, but they were definitely learning -- and learning a lot.

We are a homeschooling family. We prefer a more structured method of schooling, but also incorporate some unschooling ideas during slower parts of the year. Even then though, we don't stop our math. For example, the girls will pick and animal or a country or a time in history, and we will study it for as long as it holds their interest.

 

[SaraJayne]

Unschooling refers to a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including child directed play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities led by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child.

From wiki...

 

[binny]

Did the school not do anything about the bullying? As a parent of a middle school dd-this is a SCARY subject. I would hope that the bully kid would get kicked out and the good kid could stay in school since he/she did nothing wrong. There just seems to be more and more of this bullying stuff. So sorry to hear it happened to your child.

Its a very long and drawn out story that had me at the school several times a week. It wasnt until I took in the manual highlighted the part the principal was supposed to do and what he was NOT doing, then threatened to go the media if my concerns were not addressed within 24 hours, that anything happened. Oh I should mention that my timing was impecable and it just happened to be during Rachels challenge week which was very much promoted there.

Im sure you can find some of my older posts about it, last year was our worst year in school for all 3 of my kids. I couldnt WAIT to get out of that system!

Suffice it say, I yanked all 3 of my kids out and "virtual schooled" them for the first half of the year while waiting to move here. They went through the www.k12.com program, which I felt was a great curriculum. Believe me, there was NO unschooling going on there LOL.


On a brighter note they are all thriving here in Denver. My youngest was bullied the other day, a teasing, they were imitating her. The teacher wound up stepping right in and dealing with it. I havent heard of anything since.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

I'm all for homeschooling, but this unschooling thing seems way too lax.