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November 28, 2006, 7:30 am PST
Also it's the style
Quote From: sssmommyunschooling does not mean letting kids grow up 'stupid' as you say. they have the ability to learn ANYTHING that they CHOOSE to learn. unschoolers might not be at grade level with their so-called peers...but whatever they are lacking in can easily be learned........when real life requires it. unschoolers have not had the DESIRE TO LEARN squashed out of them.
as far as fighting for a job in the workplace....they simply won't be. most unschoolers have no desire to join the typical workforce...they are more likely to start their own businesses. they are innovative and the confines of what most people call 'work' are not what they are looking for in life. they will not be so easily convinced that being a paid slave is the way to a happy life. best suited for many gifted kids. I attended the national convention for the Gifted and Talented a couple of years ago and sat through a couple of seminars, and what was being recommended was essentially unschooling, but within the school walls. Just fill up a room with resources and let them go, because they are so driven to learn that they WILL learn. The teacher is to be more of a mentor.
That's what most unschooling looks like in this country, and from the many unschoolers I have met (some of whom now have children doing well in college), this is what it looks like for them. I haven't met any so far, in 6 years of homeschooling, whose kids are "failing".
I put that last in quotes because how can just casual contact affirm that your cousins (as in the case of the poster whose aunt unschools) are failing? I know that in my DH's family, they are very anti-homeschooling. CONSTANTLY my kids are given little verbal pop quizzes, and not necessarily over something they've studied. Sometimes they'll ask my kids a question at a family celebration where the kids were just playing hard with their cousins, or it's already late and they're tired; either way they weren't necessarily thinking academically at the moment. On my daughter's fifth birthday, when she was reading on a first-grade level already and had been only four the day before, my husband's grandma handed her a card written in cursive and told her to read it. She couldn't read cursive, just having turned five that day! But Grandma persisted for the next TWO YEARS insisting that she couldn't read, and telling me EVERY SINGLE TIME we talked that I needed to put her in public school. Well, on her sixth birthday she was reading on a third-grade level--but still had trouble with cursive. On her seven birthday she read on a fifth grade level. And could read cursive, so now Grandma says she can read but is now convinced she's behind on everything "because she didn't learn to read for so long!" Never mind that she's actually way AHEAD in every way, and we've studied things they don't cover in public school.
Many homeschoolers study a slightly different program than the public schools cover, like starting with ancient history, perhaps including New World history (Incans, etc.); teaching formal logic to Jr. High age kids; more foreign languages. We did this. When my oldest was second grade age, we'd covered ancient history (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome) and by Thanksgiving were dealing with the fall of Rome, the rise of the Vikings and Germanic tribes, etc. We had read a little bit about American history but not much. DH's family was just so upset he didn't know much about the Pilgrims. Were they quizzing his same-age cousins on what they knew about Plato or Caesar? Nope. But somehow his education was lacking because he hadn't done those things on their time table. Even though he was reading on an eighth grade level and was currently interested in robotics and DNA.
My point, with illustrations, is that just casual contact doesn't give you a feel for what a child knows. My kids learned loads while following an interest: not just about that area, but many areas that touched on it. But providing resources and opportunities is what makes this style of learning work. We started out unschooling, because it works particularly well for young gifted children. We now are a little more structured.
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