Tell me about "Unschooling"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

This is a great group!

[Shrek]

1. I don't know much about it

So I'll be interested to read the responses on your thread.

And I agree that this is a great group.

[Luminous Animal]

2. For me...

It was letting my daughter's interests lead her education. Of course, I was able to squeeze a lot more subjects around her interests.

For instance: She was mad about mummies so starting from there, we studied the history of ancient civilizations, astronomy, math, geography, physiology, world religions, stories and myths, music, etc. We went to the library and museums and I mined the internet for materials. The key was giving her access to information in the manner in which she liked to absorb it and let her take the lead. If she became bored with an interest, we moved on, many times taking it up later.

Sometimes, it is better to hold off with some materials. For instance, my daughter really enjoys history but I held off teaching her U.S. history until she was old enough to read "The People's History of the United States". She would read a chapter a week and we would discuss it on Friday; this was a really good way to explore the past 500 years of global history and tie it to current events.

My partner and I were never 100% unschooling types. We have insisted on regular math study and when she chose guitar as her instrument and Spanish as the language she wanted to study, we expected her to make a commitment to practice both on a daily basis.

My goal of unschooling my daughter was to allow her to love learning, to teach her how to become a lifelong learner.

[Native]

3. I've only read about unschooling the gifted.

Although I haven't tried it YET, it does seem like the perfect fit for self-motivated learners. Here's an interesting essay on this by Lisa Rivero http://www.unschooling.com/library/essays/giftedchild.shtml

[Luminous Animal]

4. It is for every child!

Because San Francisco has a strong network of secular homeschoolers of every ilk, I've never looked for unschooling resources online but I just googled it and came up with some good sites.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=unschooling&btnG=Google+Search

[Native]

5. I really dislike the term unschooling

I wish they'd label it with something that is less esoteric. Why not "interest-led learning" or even "independent learning"? I once listened to a special report (over a 1 week period) on NPR about interest-led learning that was incredible. It seemed so implicitly simple & perfect that I almost laughed out loud. Talk about an Ah Ha moment! Needless to say, it was a phenomenal success in the schools where it was tested.

[msgadget]

6. Yes, I agree!

Unschooling sounds like they're not doing anything!

[RayOfHope]

7. Yes, this is a confusing term

I currently have an almost 4 yo that I am strongly considering homeschooling. My background is in early childhood ed and I am not too keen on sending her into the public schools. My DH has his masters degree in elementary administration, so I'm not sure how it will 'look' if the child of the school principal is being homeschooled, LOL! We're working through this now.

Anyway--back to the term 'unschooling'--there is a term for interest-led learning in a traditional classroom, it's called 'emergent curriculum'.

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I agree. I dislike the term homeschooling too.

"school" has nothing to do with anything we do and the "home" part of that compound word is almost as misleading.

[mopinko]

9. don't home school any more, but

mostly considered ourselves unschoolers. we did 8 years, 4 kids. for me it was about growing their brains. i was not about to get in the way of the amazing program that evolution had equiped them with. they set out from before they were born to understand the world. they knew what they wanted to do . if you feed what they want to learn, they will learn what they need to know. they will strengthen their strengths.
i have a kinda long story, but i will say that i had a pretty hard time with a kid who turned out to be bi-polar. she is steady now. although it seemed for a while like she hadn't learned a thing, she is now using all the skills she taught herself, and is breezing through high school.

[genius]

10. It only works with motivated kids. Some kids need structure.

Some kids will create their own curriculum. Others will slide and panic the parents if they don't have some guidance.