I know I'm naïve to expect the mainstream media to cover a subject like "radical unschooling" as anything other than a freak show, but the recent hatchet job that George Stephanopoulos and Good Morning America did on the topic was so hopelessly biased that it'd make Rupert Murdoch blush.
Unschooling is a type of homeschooling that promotes organic, self-directed learning without the structure of traditional education. My family has unschooled our kids for over a decade. I'm working on a film about the subject called Unschooling: The Movie that explores the subject and includes interviews with people like unschooling advocate Sandra Dodd.
One of the reasons I'm making the film is that it's not a topic that a lot of people understand or have experience with. Unfortunately, Good Morning America provided a very poor introduction that used hyperbole and video editing in place of facts.
Many people seem to have theories about how unschooled kids will turn out. The GMA story is certainly full of them -- we're told that unschooled kids are being damaged by being brought up far outside the mainstream and will be unprepared for life. We are warned that parents who unschool their kids are limiting their options.
Here's reality -- any parenting choice that you make for your kids means that there are other parenting choices that you didn't make. If you send your kids to public school, that's what they know and they don't know how life would've been if they'd been homeschooled or sent to private school or a military school or to a madrasah or to Catholic school or to be tutored at a castle high in the Alps. Making choices means you're precluding other choices.
My experience is that raising kids outside of the educational structure actually gives them more options than the kids I see shivering outside at the bus stop at 6:30 in morning and waiting for a school bus to deliver them to an institution full of strangers.
The GMA segment raise the specter that children raised outside of the education system will be unable to cope with going to college, if they so choose. And of course, Good Morning America didn't have much trouble finding "educators" to back them up.
You can keep your theories; I have my son.
My oldest son Shane is about to turn 18 this summer, and he was unschooled nearly his entire life. He briefly attended first-grade until he broke his arm on the playground and we pulled him out of school. We briefly tried traditional homeschooling, which is the structure of "school at home" and we all really hated it. So for the next six years or so, Shane was unschooled. He learned what he was interested in learning, traveled with me extensively and was able to move freely between the homes of my first wife and her husband in California and my new family's homes in Texas and Florida.
Then after years of working freelance, I got a job at NBC on the TV show Access Hollywood in Burbank California. Shane had decided that he was interested in seeing what traditional schools was like and given my new job, it seemed like a good time to try the experiment of public school and we enrolled Shane in seventh grade.
Now, at this point, many people would make the assumption that my unschooled son would be hopelessly behind all the other kids and unable to catch up academically. After all, he had had almost no formal training in subjects like math or science and he'd never even learned quaint skills like writing in cursive. My unschooled son had never learned long division and hadn't spent hour after hour for years trudging away at math worksheets like his classmates had. According to the hysterical speculation of the GMA piece, Shane should have been a basket case.
Instead, he was able to catch up with the other kids in a couple of weeks. It turns out the learning things like long division isn't really that tricky, especially when you aren't trying to force feed it to a child. He spent two years in middle school and did very well; he was an honor roll student. (The middle school he attended in Burbank recently made the news when it was revealed a female teacher had been having sex with one of the students -- Shane wasn't part of that fine example of socialization, though.)
My son went on to high school for a little bit. After a few weeks, he realized that high school sucks so we withdrew him. He'd tried the school experiment. At age 16 , he took a number of classes at Pasadena Community College, where he got a 4.0 GPA.
Hysterical theory aside, my unschooled son has had no problems either adjusting to academia or to learning on his own. He wasn't limited, hampered or ruined.
I love Shane, of course. But I also really like him and I'm proud of the independent, intellectually curious young adult he's become. He's been really helpful in raising our younger kids, he's helped me many times with my work and I've had the pleasure of being able to stay up late and discuss the ideas of Noam Chomsky or Alan Watts with him based on reading he's done on his own.
Shane is heading off to Canada in a few months, to work on organic farms and write. He's going to be doing what adults do -- making his own life, choosing his own adventures. And I have no doubt that unschooling prepared him well.
Follow Lee Stranahan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Stranahan
Ok, so public school kids are overweight too. But my point is hands off parenting has consequences and sounds like unschooling is based on hands off.
What am I supposed to do during the day when everyone else is at school? Play sword fight with my mom in our front yard? I would understand if the mom was playing with a child, but a teen? That just made me laugh.
Anyway, I don't think I'm any better than an unschooled child, but I think it all comes down to if the parents are educated and how much the child can or can't handle things.
I wonder what those kids would do to support themselves if their parents suddenly passed.
I hope that doesn't happen to them, but I'm sure I wouldn't know how to without a 'school education.'
Oh and, if children are our future, would they need to be educated? I can imagine a corrupt gov't.
*sigh*
I think what you are referring to is dropping out of high school not unschooling.
What you are supposed to do all day when everyone else is in school is learn! on your own, or with your parents/mentors/teachers help. You're bored on your summer breaks because you have gotten used to to waiting to be fed tasks and knowledge instead of going out and finding them on your own like unschoolers are taught and expected to do.
http://www.squidoo.com/homeschooling_disadvantages
I almost spit out my coffee laughing!
You do realize that people have been mating, dating, marrying, raising families since before schools existed right? People all over the world work and mate and learn. It's a human imperative!
That is certainly an argument that I've never heard before now! My own daughter has been in a serious relationship for over a year now and she didn't learn that from school!
People have been dating since the beginning, but things were much different back then. The social structure we have now is very different (ex. we don't live in small close-nit villages of 100 people, we don't value "courting" like people did 200 years ago).
Is this right? Who knows. But it is REALITY.
There is nothing wrong with college; it provides you with a wealth of knowledge that may be hard to get otherwise. It gives you access to hundreds of professors that have spent much of their lives devoted to the subjects they are passionate about. it is a rich experience and you come away from it with knowledge in your field, ready to gain experience by doing.
There are also many paths to success (a subjective term anyway) that do not require a degree. Trades people earn good livings and often own their own businesses, as do many sales people and of course entrepreneurs
Most billionaire's went to Harvard. However the second largest group of billionaires are those with no degree. http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/107531/billionaire-university.html
Some of the most successful people I know personally did not go to college, some didn't even "finish" school, but they are financially, emotionally, and spiritually fit members of society! And, most people absolutely love them and think they are the most intelligent people they have met...not knowing they have no "degrees".
oh, and there are way TOO many unemployed college graduates out there...a JOB is not guaranteed because you went to college.
As far as dating...in our town right now (and I am sure everyone on here has heard the stories), a young teen killed herself and several teens are up on criminal charges...and it ALL began because of dating!! We want our children to know how to respect other human beings, not OWN them...which was a couple of the teens reason for their actions!
Life is a great teacher...there is an old saying, "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear".
But my patience stops there.
As I would suggest with my own unschooling kids when confronted with a bewildering issue/question, I want you to dig a little deeper within your own self and ask yourself why is the idea of unschooling getting you upset?
Because, as with every other topic/concern/idea in this world, opinions need to be formed based on intelligent investigation, rather than a reactionary response.
Lets follow then for this occasion, the approach any unschooler child would take. Are you ready? Let me take your hand....
The first lesson, O New Comer, that the unschooling child would demonstrate to you is to approach a new thing with an open mind.
The beginner unschooler would then google the topic (or if he is too young, ask for your help doing this). He would take out books from the library; he would speak to the experts-other unschooling families.
This is known as research.
Find out all you can about the philosophy: this is the act of learning.
We think of it as immersion into the subject matter.
As unschoolers, we are unafraid of spending months, even years on...
http://radiofreeschool.blogspot.com/
Thanks for letting me piggy back on your post, love.
Courtney Williams
Also, gratuitous research could divert one from learning those facts that must be mastered in order to pass the standardized test. As everyone knows, failing the standardized test hampers one's chance of attaining the standardized job.
Somethings a schooled child will have that an unschooled one will not: Practice taking instruction. Practice listening to a professor. Practice participating in a classroom. Practice taking turns in a lecture/discussion. Practice having to read 5 or 6 chapters a night. Practice with grades, averages, due dates, and deadlines. Practice with assignments and actual work. All of these things are necessary in college, were that future architect will have to go if they want to actually become one. You don't get used to classrooms over night, school prepares you for the rigors of college. Your child will be behind in knowing how to navigate a school system, years behind and it will hurt them.
There is no "unschool" alternative to university.
I don't know where you're getting your information about the military, but in Texas at least, a homeschool diploma counts the same as a public school diploma and the military is glad to accept it.
Matthew's in Computer Intelligence, based on the high test scores he got on the Naval entrance exam, using skills he'd taught himself while being homeschooled.
As far as I know, homeschoolers can get into college, get accepted into the military and do everything that "schooled" children can do -- just without having to jump through the same hoops.
http://www.goarmy.com/homeschool/index.jsp
Homeschoolers are often considered Tier II recruits, same as GED holders, however 15 college credit hours can move one up to Tier I and homeschoolers can apply to the academies
TOTALLY UNTRUE. I submit myself as proof.