Printable View
DP and I were talking about school holidays and DD1 overheard us so we were explaining the concept to her, she said "homeschool is the best school, we can just rest when we're tired and do stuff when we are not tired and go places whenever" pretty much. But it made me wonder how parents of schooled children would feel about their child being exposed to that sort of opinion and how we should handle this.
l don't think requires handling at all, just like l wouldn't stop a schooled child telling an unschooled child how great they think their school is and what the things they think are good about it, an unschooled child should express their opinions also, is fine for people to have different views. If my child then asked more about why they have to go to school, l would then explain the reasons and the benefits, and that unschooling is just another option with different benefits. Really kids are far more accepting of people doing things differently, than adults. To me is really no different to DD's cousin telling DD that England is the best place to live, that is her opinion, I wouldn't tell DD her cousin is wrong just that for us we don't think it is.:
I assume that for the reverse situation you wouldn't think we should be handling children to not express to your children how great they feel about their form of education e.g school?
You're right that wouldn't bother me at all. Just freaking myself out about a potential awkward situation lol.
There is going to be a part IV in the series - I posted a comment on the site
and the answer was:
A question I would find interesting to know more about - is for those who were unschooled and who intend to unschool their children, does their chosen career fit well with being able to unschool their children, and if not how do they feel about needing to leave the career behind for a time to be able to unschool their children. Or for those who are not considering unschooling was that decision made in part for financial and career reasons - e.g. impossible to unschool financially, or due to career impact. Or was the path they have chosen in career terms influenced by the fact they knew would want to have children and unschool them so went for something that would fit well, with being home to allow unschooling.
Some of the other comments on the posts are quite interesting - although some are predictable.:
Good question, wysiwyg. I'll say more about this in my fourth and final post on the study. But, in short, at least some who were already unschooling their own children were taking a period of time away from career, or had switched to a career they could do at home. Those (the majority) who did not yet have children of school age seemed to believe that they would work this problem out, between themselves and spouse. But several said that they might opt for a democratic school, in part because that would allow them to keep out-of-home careers
That is an interesting question. I do think schools will always be a necessity, not exactly for children but for some parents.
The fourth installment is here.
It is interesting that the negative experiences don't actually sound like unschooling at all as I understand it.
I agree that they don't sound like unschooling, but they are experiences of people whose parents believed they were unschooling them so I suppose that is why have been included. I think these are also an example of cases where school is necessary for the children, because of the parents - schools do have functions in society which are greater than just education.
I'm glad they were included because it's really helpful to see what things to be particularly mindful of but it's also reassuring to see how the experiences are so detached from what my family is living.
.....
A Thousand Rivers
I love this also. It is something I've read a few times.
and this part...:
...collecting data on human learning based on children’s behavior in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behavior at Sea World.
It is really hard for people to understand how a child learns outside of school because it is rare and so far removed from all the assumptions and influences school brings into the equation.:
“I just know that there is a certain cognitive window for a child to learn to read and if you miss that window you are going to have problems later on! And for Isabel that window occurred when she was about four years old!”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Granny,” I said, finally. “If you go to school and you can’t read when you’re seven you are going to be stigmatized and humiliated and made incredibly anxious in a way that is going to interfere with your ability to learn in the future. That’s not going to happen to Isabel.”
Absolutely!
:
We have radically altered our own evolved species behavior by segregating children artificially in same-age peer groups instead of mixed-age communities, by compelling them to be indoors and sedentary for most of the day, by asking them to learn from text-based artificial materials instead of contextualized real-world activities, by dictating arbitrary timetables for learning rather than following the unfolding of a child’s developmental readiness.
Common sense should tell us that all of this will have complex and unpredictable results. In fact, it does. While some children seem able to function in this completely artificial environment, really significant numbers of them cannot. Around the world, every day, millions and millions and millions of normal bright healthy children are labelled as failures in ways that damage them for life.
I haven't been here in ages, thought some might be interested in an update but I wrote a long post and then lost it so instead I'll just say we are still unschooling and enjoying it, if you have any questions then I'm happy to answer :)
^^ ditto. It's rather awesome and all the concerns of past discussions seem so insignificant when you're living it.:
I am interested. I don't have the time to read back to the original post, I am however, very interested to read how it all works
We are looking at this being our schooling option next year. Already started trying to get a "handle" on documenting. Have Evernote and take photos and notes of activities and what we "cover" in the activity.