Replies to '11/24 Great School Debate'

It makes me a bit sad when people have so little faith in their children's intrinsic abilities and desire to learn. Why would children not be interested in the world about them? Why would they not want to read good stories, or think philosophically, or not be interested in the historical events that went before them? I can't imagine my kids not engaging in these things.

U.S. History is simply the events that shaped our nation. My kids are definitely interested in that. They are also interested in current events, which leads to a lot of world history as well. They've traveled to different countries, and visited historical sites in those countries and read about them (and many others). They also know people from different parts of the world, and have learned lots of history and current culture from talking with them. Geometry and Algebra are all around us in the world, and not everyone wants or needs to know Trig and Calculus. But if my kids were interested in a field where advanced mathematics were a necessity, I'm sure they'd learn them. Unschooled kids aren't averse to even cracking a textbook or a workbook if it's something that interests them. Both of my kids thought that the standardized test booklets I bought for practice (they're required by law to test every other year) were a hoot, and kept begging to do more "bubble tests", which kind of made me laugh, because I can't imagine asking to do more tests when I was a schoolkid.

Becoming a doctor or becoming a lawyer are both professions that unschoolers can and have achieved. Unschooling simply means autodidactic, or self-taught learning. If a kid wants to get into law school, they just find out what they need to know for law school and go to town learning it.

From Wikipedia:

"Some universities consider unschoolers to be an asset because they tend to love learning, be self-motivated, and know what they want to get out of their college experience. According to Johnathan Reider, an admissions officer at Stanford university, "The distinguishing factor is intellectual vitality. These kids have it, and everything they do is responding to it."

As for the SATs, plenty of unschoolers who wanted to take them to get into a 4 year university have done just fine on them. They're not all that horrifying. Myself, I left highschool in my junior year and took the SATs early. I hadn't had a lot of the material in classes because I didn't take those last terms of high school, so I simply bought a SAT prep book and did just fine. I'm sure my kids can do the same if and when they want to.

Mostly, I have faith in my kids that they can and will learn everything they need to know, when they need or want to know it. That is the essence of unschooling for me.