Unschooling

I didn't encounter much mention of it in my first cursory analysis of the forum. What are your thoughts on it?

 

I unschooled my daughter until she was 8 and I'm slowly trying to work back to some of it now. I think it's a fantastic option and has a lot of benefits for kids and the rest of the family.

 

I agree, it has great benefits especially with the younger children. we havent done it, but i now wish we would have tried a more unschool feel for the first 3 years. Now, my dd is 8 and ds almost 7. I think i would call us eclectic. We use some workbooks for a couple subjects, but we also love using living books, delight led learning, hands on, etc. Do you have any specific ?s about unschooling?

 

We tend to mix unschooling and eclectic homeschooling. Typically we will unschool April-July and in December. It is nice to have a break from our routine. There have also been occasions where I just say, "Okay, put away the 'school books' and tell me what you want to learn.". I like working this way.

 

I'd say we unschool for the most part. Or have for the last couple of years. Right now its what works for my son. There are times when he ask for more structure and then I provide that. I am always throwing ideas his way and some work and others don't. We do, do math daily and lots of reading. I have always been big on learning thourgh life. And there is so much out there to learn from! The smallest things in life can be a learning experience!

 

We do unschooling during the summer and we have all really enjoyed the change. For us switching styles back and forth keeps it special and exciting. They have wonderful ideas about what they want to learn and how. I'm looking forward to what they are going to come up with this summer.

 

We did Unschooling through Part of November and December...we also unschool on various days through the year when the chidren are burnt out on curriculum or when I'm not quite feeling up to par because of the pregnancy. We'll also be doing quite a bit of unschooling starting in a few weeks until the baby comes and then we'll start back up with our new Curriculum for first Grade in Mid August.

 

We aren't hardcore unschoolers, but I think we do fit into that category. The only subject that I give them a lot of structure in is math. Unschooling is a wonderful way to learn. I love the freedom it gives us.

 

I know basically what unschooling is, but could so one give me a definition?

 

Do you homeschool or are you looking into possibly unschooling your children?

 

if you want a good idea of what radical unschooling is go to www.sandradodd.com/unschooling

 

When I subbed a good number of years back, I had the opportunity to sub in an "informal" classroom. It had a lot of "unschooling" philosophies behind it. And I quickly learned that, while it was interesting for a day, it was NOT my style of teaching!!! I could see the advantages of it FOR SOME CHILDLREN, and I could see how the teachers did an excellent job making it work. But those ladies had to have ten times more organization than I had. I would never be able to pull it off! But I sure do respect those who CAN!

 

I understand that this may provoke disagreement, but my view is that merely establishing a clone of the classroom in the home (coercive and authoritarian "learning" methods) inhibits the autodidactic tendencies of youth just as much as formal schooling ever would.

 

When all goes according to plan, we school 3 hours aday, and unschool the rest of the time.:wink:

 

Could you please repeat that in English for the rest of us, please? If you're suggesting that "school at home" isn't always the best way to homeschool, you'll meet very little disagreement here. But school at home is at one end of the spectrum, and unschooling tends to be at the other. Most of us are somewhere in between.

Could you please tell us a little about yourself....

 

We have good friends that unschool from an educational aspect but as a Christian family they don't follow some of the more "radical unschooling" views on discipline, etc.(at least that's how she's explained it to me) and often refers folks to the following website.

http://www.joyfullyrejoycing.com/unschooling/unschoolingphilosophy.html

They have always unschooled but do have curriculum in the house if a child requests it.

There oldest attended pub school for his first few years and likes a bit more structure. The younger 2 have only ever unschooled and can't stand structure at all.

We're eclectic ourselves....I admire both ends of the spectrum and fall in the middle with leaning tendencies in each direction depending on the child and the subject....thus, the benefit of homeschooling that we can adapt to the child, etc.

 

Yes, my meaning was something along those lines. But on occasion, I've found even definitions of unschooling to be excessively authoritarian, in my view. Has anyone here read John Holt or Ivan Illich?

 

I've read 3 John Holt books and one (or maybe 2) by Grace Llewellyn. Of course, I'm a homeschool book junkie. I read constantly and read across the homeschool spectrum. I like to glean from all of them (classical, unschooling, etc).

 

Which ones? The only Llewellyn book I read was The Teenage Liberation Handbook back when I was in high school. I've read essentially every John Holt book.

If there's anything you'll want to look at, it's Matt Hern's Everywhere All The Time, a reader published last year by AK Press. Profound amount of knowledge located therein...Tolstoy, Vinoba Bhave, Rabindranath Tagore, Illich, Holt, etc.

 

So that's what I'm doing- inhibiting the autodidactic tendencies of my 8 yr old on a daily basis? Lol. Okay.