I was fortunate in my education, having the opportunity to go to university with people whose last names were shared with grocery store products, beer brands or our political betters. As often as not, they got tagged poor little rich kids and with good reason. Well, apparently, this opportunity to be adrift in the world is now available to all:
The family practices unschooling, which encourages kids to explore the world and learn to find their places in it outside the confines of school. Proponents say it raises self-aware, inquisitive and worldly young adults who care about learning and have pursued passions they wouldn’t have otherwise found on the scheduled treadmill that is school. A new “unschooling school” is slated to open in Toronto this fall, a private learning centre where five-year-old students will mix with 18-year-old students and learn whatever they want to learn.
Having hated and thrived and having kids who have been battered and boosted at school, the running away approach has no appeal for me. A pal once old me that no one is worthless, they can always serve as a bad example and schooling has confirmed the value of that. Learning to be able to tell a good idea from a bad one, a thoughtful adult from a dull one and a project worth attention from one deserving disdain are all lessons learned through school. Filtering the meanings of these things imposed upon the kids is what happens for us at home. Letting a kids learn whatever they want to learn is like letting them eat whatever they want to eat.
[Original comments…]
Lola – June 1, 2011 11:26 PM
That’s it? Your argument against unschooling lacks a bit of luster. And content. Unschoolers are not “adrift” in the world – the unschooling parents I know (and I know hundreds) are very involved in their kids’ lives. Living and learning go together – unschoolers do not separate the learning out into bland, mind-numbing lessons as school does. And, unschoolers are not “running away” – they’re making an informed choice to do it differently from school; to encounter information in its natural habitat. There is absolutely nothing natural about school.
“Learning to be able to tell a good idea from a bad one, a thoughtful adult from a dull one and a project worth attention from one deserving disdain are all lessons learned through school.” This only happens at school? Really?!
Lola – June 1, 2011 11:38 PM
I just read two amazing articles – one about Intrinsic Motivation and one about Deliberate Practice – which basically describes what unschoolers do when they pursue something they’re passionate about. This might offer you some insight into what is actually happening with older unschoolers in particular, but unschoolers of all ages.
http://www.ztcollege.com/blog/understanding-intrinsic-motivation/
http://www.ztcollege.com/blog/what-is-deliberate-practice/
Reading these two articles might help you see why school, with its carrot-and-stick methods, is far from the best way to educate.
Alan – June 2, 2011 8:16 AM
LOL!!!
Consultant?
Lola – June 2, 2011 11:46 PM
You want one? 🙂
Alan – June 3, 2011 8:01 AM
Certainly not. Web trolling lobbyists, activists and consultants are the bane of one’s existence.
Melissa Allstay – June 3, 2011 10:49 AM
I don’t think you have ever met an unschooler.
Alan – June 3, 2011 11:16 AM
I bet I have. Hey! Neither of us can confirm that non-issue of yours. Neato.
Antonio Buehler – June 3, 2011 3:08 PM
How dare we allow kids to lead their own education? Don’t these parents realize that kids are nothing but slaves, they are slaves as kids to the school system, then they are slaves to the companies they work for, and the government they pay taxes to? Children are stupid little creatures that need to be coerced to learn, because if they aren’t, then how will the public school teachers get paid?
Alan – June 3, 2011 7:51 PM
Nooooooooooo!!! Activists are invading the commentsssssssssssssss!!!!
Chipolte Maxiumus – June 3, 2011 10:21 PM
Someone I know was home unschooling his kids, but then he found he could send them to TDSB for way less of an investment of time.
Lola – June 7, 2011 12:33 PM
Chuckling at Chipolte’s comment…. who brings up a very good point. Unschooling does require the parents to be a very integral part of their children’s lives – it just doesn’t require them to spoon-feed information to the kids. Parents who don’t want to “invest time” in their kids should send them to school – agreed.
Humans are learning all the time – even at rest, during play, while “doing nothing.” (No one can *do nothing.*) Unschoolers don’t see learning as a separate activity and therefore it doesn’t become something to dread, as it does in school. I know lots of adults who still say they hate to read – thank you, school. I know kids who burst out of the school doors in the spring and say “I’m not going to learn anything all summer!” What they mean is they’re not going to read boring old textbooks or write 5-point essays. And I don’t blame them there. There are dozens of ways to learn about history, a textbook is only one of them – who in his right mind would choose that way?
If school purports to prepare kids for living in the real world (and I’d challenge even that assumption), unschoolers are LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD right now. All day, every day; interacting with people of all ages, all occupations. Talk about an advantage.
Unschooling parents are facilitators, chauffeurs, administrative assistants… we’re the people who “make things happen” as we assist our kids in learning in and about the world around them. We just don’t dictate things like, “You have to memorize the biomes because you’re nine and in 4th grade.” (I had to teach biomes as a 4th grade teacher. Ya, there’s knowledge you can’t live without. *eye roll*)
I’ve never really considered myself an unschooling activist. I kinda like that!
Alan – June 7, 2011 1:34 PM
I had no idea that humans learn all the time or that only unschooling parents drive their children. Having 4 kids and being a foster parent clearly has not qualified me for much.
Good luck to you…
Lola – June 8, 2011 3:32 PM
No one said you don’t. You wrote a post criticizing unschooling; I am offering information about it. That is all. Best wishes to you too – really!
Bob Collier – June 13, 2011 11:52 PM
http://www.parental-intelligence.com
Having a grown up daughter who excelled through 13 years of schooling and 5 years at university and a teenage son who was removed from school after two years because we’d discovered the internet and it made schooling seem like watching paint dry and who has since been learning at the speed of thought through following his personal interests with excellent results, I couldn’t help thinking on reading your prejudicial ideas like “adrift in the world” and “running away approach” (an interesting mix of metaphors), “Hmmm … I’ve been watching over my son growing up without school every day for more than eight years and you’ve never even tried it, so I wonder who actually knows whether or not “unschooling” is a good idea? You or me?”.
Here’s a clue: It’s not you.
And, by the way, I do let my kids eat whatever they want to eat. Always have done. The feedback, so to speak, over the past 26 years has been most revelatory. In a good way.
And there again. I’ve done it, you haven’t. You can fantasise all you like but it’s no substitute for the actual experience.
Fantasy has in fact been a feature of much of the extraordinary “anti-unschooling” rhetoric I’ve encountered online since I became interested in this topic several years ago. It’s amazing how frightened people are of the idea. Perhaps it’s because it has serious implications. Parents deciding that their children’s happiness is more important than anything else? God Almighty! Where would our society be if every parent took that attitude?
Alan – June 14, 2011 11:30 AM
I am at a loss as to how to respond given the passive aggressive tone to all this despite all the “happiness” talk – of course implying that others (including my kids) are not.
I had no idea this hostility was out there but, now that I think of it, those who shrink from public participation must have a motive. Anyway, enjoy the lobbying against a brick wall I as neither care nor could do anything about it if I did.
Lola – June 16, 2011 12:57 AM
Actually, it’s irritating that you take such a flippant, derogatory attitude toward something you know nothing about. Unschoolers don’t “shrink from public participation” – they participate in goings-on in their community every day, with people of all ages and walks of life.
The hostility came from YOU – in your original post. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Sheesh.
Alan – June 17, 2011 8:55 AM
How boring. How about this. You are right. How you like your coffee is right. That dress does not make you fat. Your children will not be angry at your decision.
Damian – June 17, 2011 11:14 AM
Too funny, Alan. I think you might want to repost Nick Packwood’s old “free ice cream” post from Ghost of a Flea…
As to the content of the post, like most things in life, I suspect the answer is moderation: too much structure and too little structure in one’s learning environment will be limiting.