Who Needs School? Interview with A 17-Year-Old "UnSchooler" (VIDEO)
In a society that often considers the act of parents teaching their children at home to be something bizarre, the idea of unschooling is about as radical a parenting strategy as one can imagine. It's homeschooling without the artificial structure of formal education.
Sanda Dodd is an renowned advocate of unschooling who lives in New Mexico. Her website SandraDodd.com is a treasure trove of information and ideas about the parenting philosophy she's used to raise her three children Kirby, Marty and Holly. Sandra believes...
People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering "What the heck is this!?"
So how does it actually work in the real world? Here's an interview with Sandra's youngest, 17-year-old Holly, followed by two longer interview segments with Sandra herself.
Sandra Dodd will be one of the speakers at The Unconvention I'm hosting later this year, a conference about working without a job, education without school and unassisted childbirth.
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The concept of unschooling is hard for many to understand, even those in the "traditional" homeschool world such as myself. In my house we use textbooks and other curricula for most subjects. Despite this, the best results still come from activities that would be considered unschooling. A conversation about a television show can teach more than a week i a classroom.
My daughter reads extensively and writes her own stories as well. She studies animals and fashion design. She budgets and plans out how to spend allowance, birthday money, odd job money, etc. She does all this on her own separately from her school curriculum. It has become clear to me that she has learned more from her own activities than she has ever learned from a schoolbook. Come to think of it, the same was true for myself when I was in public school.
A lot of people ask "what about college" and lament the terrible job prospects. Remember that the quest for money is not the only driving force in the world. Unschoolers are some of the most liberal people I have met. They tend to follow their own paths and define success in other terms.
In my home I don't know that we could be quite so daring as to eliminate textbooks, but I do see the benefit.
Individuals should be encouraged to pursue their passions. Realistically a "job" is needed to pay bills, but the dream and desire should always exist and we, as citizens of the world, do not have the right to extinguish those desires. I did in fact finally receive my BA after a decade-ish =), but it is because I wanted this for myself. And I would in fact desire to return someday for a MA or teaching credential because the reality is I must earn these in an "institution" for the employer to consider me qualified to potentially teach. We each must follow our own path and the classroom in an institution is not for many.
Change is good folks. It is. If change had not occurred in our society I would be using a separate bathroom labeled "colored." I would not have the right to vote as a woman. I would not be dating my boyfriend openly (he is white). My friends would be unhappy in relationships as it would be "uncouth" to date anyone of the same gender. People would be living a life of lies just to conform to the current "values" so they would not be jailed or physically attacked. We need change in our society. We need different modes of thought. We need to change what does not work.
And to those who commented on the lack of interest in learning..
And regarding lessons in schools... Even that information must be taken with a grain of salt. I was basically taught in school that the Native Americans just simply acquiesced their land to the Europeans. Oh what, that's not how it occurred? In my opinion, there is very little "truth" in textbooks. It is up to the district and the teacher to attempt to broaden the horizons of the students and provide other vantage points of history. This does not occur often if at all. And where is the economics? Yes, yes, I took an "economics" class in high school and in college, but what did that teach me? Not a damn thing. I wish I had been taught in a manner that was interesting and "informal" how our economy works. How to invest and how not to get yourself into debt. How to be smart with your funds and how to make money work for yourself. Where is that taught? When is that taught? I am only 30 and I know I still have time to make changes financially, though I know it would have been better to recognize my errors at 25. Oh well. Such is life, eh?
I did not enjoy high school. In fact, I did not really enjoy "school" in general. Far too institutionalized for my taste. It was more of a social commentary of the world and how we tend to treat people than an atmosphere of enjoyable learning. As Sandra Dodd stated, individuals in school are bullied and ridiculed and you can't get away. Many of us survive, but is that the type of environment any of us would want children raised? Cause let's be real--many kids today spend more time at school than they do at home. There are many "challenging" experiences in the real world that will be encountered when adults, why would you subject children to so much negativity while they are developing?
First and foremost, "often" has multiple pronunciations. Yes, it really does. Oh, the joy of resources. Look it up folks. In fact, there are multiple words in the English language that can be pronounced multiple ways correctly. Huh. Go figure.
And I must ask why people are choosing to be so critical of a young lady. Might I remind people she is only 17 years of age? 17?! How articulate are teenagers. Are many of you so far removed from your own teenage years you have neglected to remind yourself that you in fact were not the best orator during that period of your life? I'm impressed she is quite confident, just as "pianoteacher" stated. How many females (teenagers and women alike) are so insecure they may practice unhealthy habits such as not eating or regurgitating which can lead to eating disorders (anorexia or bulimia). Or just the practice of self-loathing. I commend her and her parents for allowing her to develop a positive sense of self. Hurray!!
Referencing my comment regarding speech, how many adults insert "like" or "um" during pauses when speaking. When I am nervous I often catch myself inserting "um" instead of just pausing and collecting myself. Maybe it is just in California and every other state in the United States of America has well-educated, articulate individuals. Is this the case? Please, by all means, prove me wrong.
I say often (with the t sound) and I'm a product of public school. I graduated from the high school in Holly's neighborhood, thirty years ago. Maybe that pronunciation is part of a regional dialect. I've never really thought about it, although I know the T is supposed to be silent. Not every public school educated person in the US speaks in exactly the same manner. We once had a president who said "I like ta died...." (we lived in Oklahoma when I was young, so I vividly remember thinking "did Bill Clinton just say that, in public?!") For those who don't speak Okie, that means "I almost died when....". Maybe he pronounced often with a t, too, I don't really remember. I'm sure he spent some time in public school.
My experience is that most of us only notice the grammar oddities that most bother our own ears. Most grammar geeks (I'm one myself) have a list of misuses that make our teeth grind. We could list them all, and spend our time mocking each other. We could also just bite our tongues (or sit on our hands) and play nicely. Then again, playing nicely isn't a lesson often learned in public school.
To the commenter who asked what Holly does or how she'd get food to eat, you could visit her family's blog to find out.
A formal educational system doesn't work for all kids.
Home schooling doesn't work for all kids.
There is no one size fits all.
Some students need the discipline a formal school curriculum and setting offers.
Some students thrive at home with just a direction and the freedom to explore.
However, not all parents are qualified to educate their children. You can't expect a parents with a high school diploma to be able to adequately prepare their child to attend a four year college. And the facts of life are that if you don't have a formal college degree, your professional prosepects and your paycheck are going to be severely limited.
Exactly, I have asperger's syndrome and I work (voluntarily) to help parents out whenever they are having problems with their aspie kid. Time and time again I see parents finally just saying, "Thanks but no thanks", after their child comes home in tears once again, or comes home after not learning anything once again, or refuses to go to school once again.
For many said parents homeschooling started really working when they removed the school-like structure from it. In reality this isn't all that much different then what Montessori schools preach, the main differences are the facts that it is at home and it goes to more grades (which more and more Montessori schools are starting to do, as if you keep the kid interested in education they can direct themselves for years on end.)
I even agree with your last statement but I feel the need to add to it to say that this is why we need to keep virtual charters open and not to cap them to make it a luck of the draw thing that the kid gets in (like too many liberal teachers unions on trying to do.) Not every parent is going to be able to come up with a curriculum and know how to teach it. But not every kid can get along alright at school. So we need that third option, and in many cases that is it.
I agree, it's difficult to teach a subject if you are unfamiliar with it. Cheryl Mikela
Holly, the "T" in the word "often" isn't supposed to be pronounced. At least not by those kids who, like, go to school to learn stuff, like, um, reading.
What WAS shared by Holly in an otherwise empty and repetitive 2 minute diatribe was she did not know how to read at the age of six. Enough said. I am afraid to ask what reading level she is at now.
I don't know, Holly seems like a pretty like-able kid to me. She doesn't come across as self-absorbed, and seems comfortable in her own skin. Besides, a lot of adults I know mispronounce "often" (it bugs me, too) and many other words for that matter (some in my own household). You can find tons of grammatical and spelling errors here on HuffPo, and we're "grown-ups," who presumable were "schooled.
There are .... learning theories? ... maybe 'approaches' is a better word... that advocate no formal reading education until the age of 7 (e.g. Waldorf Education). This is an over-simplification on my part, but when kids are a bit older, they can be more motivated to read, and don't get bored with it. Most very young readers don't stay ahead of their peers past the age of 8, or around 2nd grade -- it all balances out by then.
Officially, the "T" in "often" can be either silent or spoken. This is the consensus from several sources. If you think differently, then you are thinking in the past. So um, like, you might want to get your facts straight before criticizing.
A great many people do pronounce it, especially when it is used at the beginning of a sentence. The dropping of the T was really just a result of laziness long ago. I actually find its return to be a much more proper pronunciation.
Although my homeschooled house uses some more traditional methods, I know several unschoolers personally. All of them are more prepared for life and konw more than most any public shooled kid I have ever met.
Holly's dad pronounces the "t". Both of his parents, too. They're from Boston and Detroit (and across in Canada. I didn't ask them why they did, but they did, and their parents did. When it's been pronounced that way in a family for a long time (his parents are in their 90's'; his mom died a few days ago), and when the word was oft pronounced with a "t" when it was a newer word, the American school system *can* say it's wrong, but that doesn't make it true. My family didn't pronounce the "t" and I don't, but Holly chose to say it the way her dad says it. She says "route" and "envelope" the way Keith does. It's not a big deal.
I taught Jr. High English for years, and have a serious interest in the history of English. There are dictionaries and texts that lean toward being prescriptive (telling people what is the one right way and rejecting all others, as the commenter above did for Holly), and then there are other "keepers of English" who are descriptive rather than prescriptive. They study the language as a living entity, reporting and following the ways it is being used, and accepting that there are indeed different dialects and accents and levels of formality.
soooooo, uh, is there , like, uh anything Holly might be , you know, interested in doing? we know she doesn't want to go to college, cuz, that's like , school, and she doesn't go to school. Oh well, but, um, besides liking her parents, say they're gone, has she got any ideas about how to get food to eat? I'm sure there was a lot missing from the video.
Holly worked two part time jobs until recently. She's working at a flower shop (they have two shops, and gave her the keys to both, even though she's not 18 yet, because she's very responsible and trustworthy). Last weekend she housesat for two different families, watering a large garden and feeding animals. How many teenagers would be handed the keys to other people's houses?
Sometime in June, she's going to Silver City to help friends who are buying a gallery. She's worked retail and is artistic. She's going to help them set up, take photos, and maintain their website. That she can do from anywhere, which is good, because in August she's going to stay with another unschooling family to learn more about photography and photoshop from the dad, who has a large photography studio. Then she's going to visit her brother in Austin. He's there working for Blizzard Entertainment. After an unschooling conference in September, she's going to stay with another family in Oregon for a while, and then to Montreal to live with an unschooling family with small children. Some of that travel she's paying for herself. Some her dad and I will pay for, because it's the way she's expanding and honing her interests.
A video that lasts less than three minutes can't be expected to explain everything about unschooling or a person's life. http://san
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Sorry about that URL typo above.
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Um, so, ok (to quote the young woman in the first video), what exactly is the point of this article? The children have never received any type of formal education. I only watched the first video of the daughter, and I guess I was expecting that despite never having been "schooled" in anything, the amazing thing would be how well-rounded the kids are, that she would be exceptionally well-spoken, bright, interestin
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