Quote From: violetmay"So, for all of you who believe that children should not be allowed to follow their own path, or that the adults in their lives are irresponsible or abusive for choosing to unschool, what would you say to my two happy, healthy, successful unschooled teens? "
I would say "I hope you aren't planning on being lawyers...or doctors. I hope you don't expect to get jobs as engineers or accountants or stock brokers. I hope you are prodigies in something creative, like piano, so you don't have to spend your lives working at jobs that do not require some kind of proof of education before you can be considered for employment. I hope a life as a blue-collar worker in an economy in which those kinds of jobs are rapidly dwindling, is in your life plan.
"Most of all, however, I hope you don't come to resent your mother when you finally realize that she did an utterly non-existent job of preparing you to be able to compete and succeed in the world you will be adults in, that instead of helping you get the credentials that will open the doors to your future, she sacrificed that future for the short term gain of giving you an irresponsible and "free" childhood."
And to you, Mother, I would say that with freedom comes responsibility and you have egregiously shirked yours. Your children cannot be considered "successful" because they have not yet flown the nest and succeeded in the unsheltered world that requires certain criteria...like a certain level of education...before even an interview will be granted. They have not yet taken their unschooled selves into the real world and found jobs that will independently support them...and eventually the families they will someday have.
Check back in 20 years and let's see just how successful a couple of kids become when they have no education and lack the credentials that employers require before they can be seriously considered for a job. And if you're going to try to tell me that there is more to life than jobs and money, don't bother...you well know they can't eat esoterics. They will need jobs to survive in the real world and the people who control those jobs want proof of the very education you have denied them.
I've been talking about this a bit with my kids, and decided to add to my previous response. I apologize in advance for the formatting - these message boards and my browser seem to be conspiring to remove the separation between my paragraphs.
First, there is nothing irresponsible about being free, or protecting our children's freedom. In fact, that is one of our primary responsibilities as parents and citizens. Second, I disagree that someone must have "flown the coop" or be of a certain age in order to be considered successful. Third, as I have said before, my children are most certainly not uneducated, just unschooled. Fourth, both of my children have already found gainful employment that they enjoy, that is neither minimum wage, nor a dead end career-wise.
My son says it's okay for me to tell you a little more about him, since his experience disproves these many dire predictions.
He's fifteen years old, and in many ways a typical teen. He loves music, and hanging out with his friends, and as with most kids his age, eating and sleeping are high on his list of favorite pastimes.
But he's also very busy and active. He is a drummer, has played with several rock bands and works and plays hard at improving his skills. He's been in more than a dozen plays, primarily Shakespearean, but also others, and he was recently accepted into an acting troupe at a local theater.
He does a lot of volunteer work, and serves on the Board of Directors of our region's Camp Fire USA council. Through Camp Fire, he also goes hiking and backpacking, and does many other activities, including community outreach, which involves public speaking. He's working on completing his WOHELO award, Camp Fire's equivalent of the Eagle Scout and Girl Scout Gold awards. Part of his work toward this has to do with advocating for drama education for kids, and he's volunteered several hundred hours as a drama camp counselor toward that end. Another interest area he's working on has to do with nonviolent communication and teen issues like dating violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and police-teen relations.
He has been working lately for pay doing audio and video editing, at which he is pretty skilled. He enjoys doing it but doesn't think that's what he wants to make a career of. His first love is programming, which he has been doing since he was not quite 8 years old. He thinks something in the video gaming industry to do with programming would be right up his alley.
In working toward that goal, he decided he wanted to go to college. He spent a minimal amount of time (a month or so) preparing himself, then took admissions and assessment tests, applied, and entered the college of his choice. He tested into college level courses, and is taking just two classes a semester for now, since he's still very young and wants time for all his other interests and to "just be a kid" too.
And then there's his interest in singing, and filmmaking with his friends, and sleepovers, and video games, and composing music, and almost any other kind of game, and swimming, and cooking, politics, the state of the world, environmentalism - the list goes on and on.
I couldn't stop him from learning if I wanted to. These are the things he's chosen of his own free will to do. He's worked hard at them. He's developed a great deal of discipline (no - we didn't discipline him either!) and a lot of skill. He's well-liked, has proven several times over that he's a great employee, and has jumped the college admissions hurdle.
I suspect that, even though I'm a bit biased as his parent, I'm not the only one who would say he's successful already.
Parents want the best for their children, but what’s the best way to educate them? Dr. Phil’s guests face off in a debate about whether to school, homeschool or unschool. Dana and her husband, Joe, call themselves radical unschoolers. They say education happens as a side effect of life, and they don’t believe in tests, curriculums or grades. Are their three kids learning what they need to know? Then, RaeAnn says public schools are death traps and wants to homeschool her children. Her husband, Steve, says their kids are safer at school than they are at home. Can this couple reach a compromise? Plus, Nicole feels like an outcast at 26. She says she hated being homeschooled, and couldn’t relate to other kids. Share your thoughts here.
