I hear about all these unschoolers on so many boards and I am curious about it. How do you know your child is doing enough? I mean when you unschool or whatever you call it, do you use any textbooks? from what I am reading I think they don't. So, what about math, grammar and all of that? Do you just go along with the mood of the child and if the child wants to learn? What happens when the child doesn't want to? Or doesn't show interest for very long periods of time? I am just very confused on this whole way of schooling, well I guess that is what you call it. I understand with younger ones doing it this way, but what about when they get older? Is there a point that you can no longer do this? Thank you for any helping me understand this.
I have 2 friends that unschool. Friend 1 - no text books - totally kid driven. HOWEVER, her son (age 12) was here for a little bit last year while she was in the hospital and though he was a verbal expert on dinosaurs - he could barely read or write. Her dd age 7 was DYING to write and sat through every class I did with my kids to absorb everything and was so proud when she wrote her name within the lines. So friend 1 made me worry about those kids and their ability later. And since she was exempt at the time from testing (hs'ing for religious reasons) if she had stayed in VA I'm not sure what would have happened. She moved to TN and I'm not sure what's going on as we've lost touch - but last I heard someone was 'in school'. Friend 2 - takes kids ideas and tries to direct the learning. She brought her kids here (younger age - 5 & 6 I think) and did math with collecting eggs. Worked for me the older one could do some basic multiplication. She has millions of books ready to look at on all sorts of things and the kids look at picture books etc all the time. She doesn't know how far she'll go with unschooling or homeschooling at this point but she said she'll go with their interests as long as she feels she can.
I have a friend who would be the definition of unschooling (but not the un-parenting version of unschoolers - they give all kinds of homeschooling a bad name). She does the official "teaching to read" when the time comes. She DOES do Math from textbooks. She feels that Math is necessary, regardless, so she does use text books and it is a "have to" subject. Penmenship is dealt with as well, although I think they do reports and copywork. Her kids are amazingly smart, and in PA they have to test in 3rd, 5th and 8th grade. They always score way above where they need to. I love her approach, but I could never ever be that relaxed!!! LOL. She's seemed to really help her kids develop a natural curiosity for everything. She has 4. 3 of her kids are dyslexic, so she's had her fair share of struggles.
We're "relaxed" homeschoolers. We do required language arts and math, but everything else is much looser. I feel if my kids can read, put some ideas together on paper, and calculate, they can pretty succeed in whatever they want to do! We read together, we take lots of field trips, we belong to museums, we do lots of hands on stuff. But I don't use science or social studies curriculums. I like the flexibility to learn what we want to learn in those areas.
I consider my younger kids unschoolers, and we will keep it the way we are for at least a few more years. I would be an unschooler with Garrett too, but he has no drive or interest in learning anything that doesnt' pertain to video games, so I can't just let him go. We learn by playing and through real life. We don't do much in the lines of organized learning unless they ask for it... which they do, often enough that it shocks me! They each have some workbooks that they ask to do.. so I will get them out, let them pick a page, I will explain what to do and if they do it right.. great, if not no big deal. I don't plan on starting organized anything with the younger ones until they are at a 1st grade level at the earliest. I think sending Garrett off to public school for K after we had learned this same way for pre-k was the biggest mistake I could have made. I'm sure that the whole organized school thing is what made him hate learning anything.
I am not a full fledged unschooler, but I do the bare minimum. Mostly, I have just done the bare minimum for the last couple of years. I have done math and either vocab or spelling. I did Easy Grammar last year and the year before, BJU English. No grammar or English this year. My children take the ITBS each year. The reason I am sold on this more relaxed homeschooling is because the first year things were like this, the 2005-2006 year (by spring, we were doing nothing really, I was pregnant and sick and then the baby was born still), during the first year, the ITBS scores went up by 20 percentile points for my daughter. Her weakest area was reading. Now, she had all day to read anythong of her choice. I stopped assigning. I stopped making her answer questions on every little thing. It was her reading skills that improved so drastically. I do not allow non-educational TV or computer games before 6pm on school days. I limit it on the weekends too. If my child were the sort to sit around whining and not reading or anything, I never would have tolerated this. I have seen unschoolers who let their children play video games all day. I just don't get it. Maybe someone else here can help. Oh, despite not doing a formal science or social studies curriculum in years, my daughters science and social studies ITBS scores were 94th percentile and 97th. 97th was the science one. My children enjoy watching documentaries on TV. They watch things that I would find too boring to keep an attention span on, but they enjoy those. Next year, my 5 and 8 yr old (they are 4 and 7 now) will have a more formal curriculum. This is because currently, they fight all day long when together and want to play computer. I think they need the structure and such of the scheduled school day. When they get past this, I will relax more. Regardless, I insist on doing handwriting with young children. I won't use a reading curriculum. I will use phonics for the younger one and spelling for the older. The older one will have an English curriculum too. I have science and history stuff, so I will wing it there with lots of hands on activities and such. I am planning to put in a relaxed, fun version of a foreign language and send them to art classes.
I did unschooling for 3 yrs. I have 1 good friend who unschools. Unschool, in a very general definition, is trusting the basic nature of children that they want to emulate adults and learn what adults know and if that natural curiosity is not tampered with (by forced learning and workbooks) the child will, by adulthood, be a competent adult. Many people have a very hard time with unschooling because of your basic questions. The biggest is "learning enough" and "time frame". Basically, just because the schools thinks reading should begin at age 6 doesn't mean that all (or even most) kids are ready or able to learn to read at age 6. Or age 8, or age 10 (boys mostly). A traditional method would start working with a child at age 6, and just keep plugging away at it until the kids "got it" at whatever age. An unschooler would watch the child for an interest to learn to read. If that interest was at age 6 great. If not until 10, then that would be fine too. The same with math. Many kids have an innate interest in adding blocks and cars, etc at about 4-7y. An unschooler would just gently guide the child's interest and suggest times, division, etc. No workbooks, but games, cooking, sewing, map reading, calculating mileage and fuel use of the car, etc. So, the learning of such a child would not match a traditional schooled child. But just because the 10y was not reading doesn't mean that he will NEVER read. When he does read he will catch up in a very short time. Studies prove that is true. While I was unschooling my kids were 2 yrs behind in reading, but 5-6 yrs ahead in history, science, biology, etc. because that is where their interest was. Why did I stop? Due to one of your other questions. My boys had NO interest in learning anything school-like. They never seemed to develop that natural curiosity that I spoke about earlier. Basically I ran out of patience waiting for them to become interested. Now a true unschooler would tell me (and did several times) that I was pushing them too much and they would do it all when they were ready. Yes, I believe they would. But they were getting so far behind that if something happened and they had to go into school it would have been really hard for them. About 2 yrs behind in core subjects, and I couldn't deal with that any more. I have a gf who has moved MORE toward unschooling as her kids have gotten older. Referring to your ? about giving it up as they get older. Her oldest is now H.S. age. That girl knows what her peers are learning in that grade, and the mom has provided materials that cover the subjects. It is the girl's responsibility to do the work or not. And mostly she does it. The kids are all very responsible because the mom has mostly let them guide themselves and had responsibility early on. She says it is going well and they are all happy. Another basic philosophy of unschooling is that kids are responsible for their own learning. Once they hit HS age or so, it is the kid job to learn what they think they should learn. So if they want to go to college it is their job to learn what they need to get in. And if a subject was missed in childhood there is nothing stopping the kid (now young adult) from learning it themselves. Radical unschoolers were referred to in the 2nd post I believe. I have met some of them. They believe that child-led means let the child fulfill every whim and don't discipline for consequences of that whim. Very hard to be with those kids. Little brats with very little thought for others. I pity those parents when the kids are teens. Long I know, but did I cover all your questions? I still truly believe unschooling is a very valid method for "some" families, not all. My dd was thriving with unschooling, the boys were not. Like everything else, it all depends on the family and is all individual choice. And a final note. The last time I went to an unschooling conference they were very proud to announce that the "first" totally unschooled child had graduated medical school. So it can work. My last edit: We have A beka and Singapore for math, I make the boys read to me for 15 min. (dd knows how to read really well), we have Spelling Power, Timez Attack, Spanish, Story of the World History and a fun science curric. I am still way more relaxed and laid-back in schooling than almost all the other homeschoolers I know. I call it eclectic homeschooling.
Here's a blog post I wrote a year ago about unschooling: Someone asked me about unschooling lately. My basic description is usually that it's a parent-facilitated and encouraged, yet child-led education with no parental academic agendas, expectations,or demands for their kids. The child's environment should be full and rich, with access to the resources they need which allow the development of knowledge, experience, and responsibility. The child is free to choose their own educational path, and this may includes choosing to start your day with a schedule, subjects, and workbooks, to spend your day playing video and board games, or even to go (back) to school. Freedom of choice is the key. Kids need to own what they do. But in order for unschooling to be effective, there has to be a real honest Trust that your kids will, in fact, learn everything they need to learn, when they need to learn it. This is where many parents have a hard time. Unschooling isn't something done sometimes, or with some subjects. It's a whole mindset revolving around this trust. Kids are hard-wired to be curious, creative, and diligent. Look at a preschooler. They have boundless energy and ask tons of questions and are so enthusiastic about life. Homeschoolers (and especially unschoolers) don't lose that as they grow older. School kids, on the other hand, do lose a lot of it, usually by around 8 years old - having your energy squelched, questions unanswered, a constant pressure to perform, and lack of adequate sleep, will do that to a kid. Unschoolers learn because they truly want to learn. They go to college. They become productive adults. They love their lives. They are raised having choices. Their interests are respected and encouraged. The concept of unschooling is a hard one to understand for many people. It is not un-parenting, it is not educational neglect, and it is certainly not a by-product of lazy parents. It is being in-tune enough with your kids to really know what they love, how they learn, what they want, and how to get it. It's filling your child's life with wonderful experiences, opportunities, and resources and letting them have the freedom to choose what they'd like to pursue further. It's your children being a part of the real outside world all the time.
I had always wondered how unschoolers managed. I figured they had to be so on top of it to unschool. I try my hand at unschooling....or should I say I sprinkle a bit of unschooling into my recipe for education. Yet, one could argue that to be impossible if unschooling is a mindset and cannot be limited or contained. I don't think I or my family have the personality for unschooling. Yet, isn't that how all kids learned before school existed? My kids do learn quite a bit just through living and having my dh and I involve them in our activities. My dd learned a ton just by helping me out with Ebay. That was just as good as a class in business, economics and even applied math. I wouldn't have the courage or confidence to unschool. I am a true CM/Classical kinda gal.
I don't have the confidence to unschool either, but I am more relaxed than many people. I've recently made a new friend who leans towards unschooling, and her kids are very smart. Her motto is "better late than early". She starts very little formal school before age 10, but reads tremendous amounts of good literature to her kids from a young age.
This information is from two sisters who lived in town that were unschooled. She told me they flew below the radar of any rules or regs and she said basically, they did nothing all day. I asked her if she was serious and she said, "Yes, they did nothing all day". They would go to the court house on court day and watch court and look at books at the library. She said they did not have any type of instruction or curriculum, they did what they wanted to do all day. They turned out to be two very well rounded and polite young women. As far as academics, I really don't know what they learned.
My neighbor's kids only do co-op once a week. That's their school. I think it borders neglect, because the mom works and the kids do nothing all day. But, I don't think that's unschooling. True unschoolers give their children opportunites to learn through life. Learning is their lifestlye.
I would love to unschool, but we (all of us) are not quite ready for that. Definitly the trust thing. could I unschool if I got rid of the tv? Then I wouldn't have to limit it. My boys are interested in lot's of things...but that intrest is waning...you have to step on it quick. there are also things that I love and want them to love and they don't and I get frustrated. I like the term relaxed or eclectic homeschooling...we do use some spines...and then wander off on tangents that are interesting. Friday ds asked what the largest bug was...so we spent all morning looking at the biggest, deadliest, smallest, wierdest looking...in God's creation. Online videos... I don't think I could hs without the internet!!! I love it. We also watched a video about Hannibal's elephants...but today he couldn't remember what was important about Hannibal. sigh. so we chanted. "Hannibal - Carthage - Alps- Elephants." now I KNOW that that isn't unschooling. Both the boys have asked to "do dinosaurs" and I have responded. (in my best non-unschooling voice) You have been "doing dinosaurs" since you were born...I am sick of dinosaurs...I don't care if I never see another dinosaur!!! I am starting to agree with the flat earther's on the whole dinosaur thing and I won't do dinosaurs and you can't make me." (and then, mature woman that I am, I stomp my foot.) So, I am pretty sure that refusing to participate in a child led idea is NOT unschooling. and I bought workbooks, and the boys like them. so is that unschooling or not? See...it is so complicated. We do Our Family Schooling. there that is easier, now no matter what we do, it is "following the program." Ha.
I would find reading lots of books and observing court would be very educational. That sounds like Law school!
This is such an important point. Like any other method, what works for one child will not always work for another. I think sometimes parents use a certain method because they believe in it but it doesn't mean the child does. LOL Glad you shared this crazymama!
Absolutely! I read an article last year about an unschooled student who made it into Stanford. Clearly she must have learned something to be accepted.
I believe that if we can read, we can learn. My grandpa was a perfect example. He stopped going to school after K but since he learned to read, he was able to teach himself math, sciences, and was possibly one of the most intelligent men I ever met. I am going to a meeting next weekend to see if we can start a group in our city that puts on mock trials and other real life situations. Basically, much of the learning is hands on and application. I believe both of these are very important.
We tried unschooling for a while. It didn't work for us. My oldest just wanted to sit around and watch Spongbob all day. The youngest is the one that isn't lazy, but seeing his brother act like this just made him want to do the same thing. I found that we needed some sort of structure or nothing got done. I guess I would consider us eclectic HS's.
