This is a good article
Salon.com Life | Endless summer
It’s about unschooling and I think it does a good job of saying what it is and what it isn’t. The best line is this one: “The real problem most people have,” says Francoise, her face serious, “is that doing this requires too much faith in kids, too much work on the parents’ part — and no guarantees.”
It’s true. It’s a weird balance between neglect and over-involvement. I’ve seen a couple of unschoolers get absolutely burned out because it’s really really really easy to feel like you have to (ironically) micromanage kids’ lives. Like if they say, “Hey, that Mozart guy — I dig his tunes.” And suddenly you’re booking flights to Vienna and pulling out the old wooden recorder and drizzling syrup in the shape of a treble clef. And god forbid they child lose interest after that one statement because the tickets are non-refundable.
It’s so much on you, the parent to tune in to your kid’s interests and also their learning style, their needs. It’s hard. And if you have more than one kid or other things going on (a new baby, what-have-you) AND if you need the reassurance of measured learning, well, it might not be a good fit. I totally understand this. I don’t know if I could do it if my kids were closer in age. Heck, sometimes even now I don’t know if I can do it although lately we’ve been in a really good space about it.
Different kids want different things about of unschooling. Some of them want workbooks (workbooks aren’t anti-unschool; forcing kids to work them is) and some want classes (most are willing to be “schooled” if that’s the best way to get the information that they want) and some just want to run around like maniacs all day.
Now there are some things I do as an unschooler that is controversial in the unschool community. (Not that other unschoolers don’t do this, but it’s the kind of thing that can get discussion heated.) My biggest is that I limit screen time. Noah can binge on computer games one day and that’s ok but not every day. And he watches tv but we limit it. Other unschoolers let their kids make decisions about screen time and others limit it even more than we do but my thing is that I want Noah to have some access (he needs to learn how to manage the addictive qualities of screens) and some help understanding his limits. (So what we do is say, what kind of exercise have you had today? How’s your head feeling? Do you need to move? Do you need to do something quiet? That kind of thing.)
Anyway, I’m blathering and the baby is done with her grapes and is demanding more. (Noah is outside scootering as usual.)
I read this article this morning and thought of you. I thought it was pretty good and wondered what you would think.
I really admire this concept for the people (adults and kids alike) who can work with it. I have found that I do so much better if someone says “do A, B & C” when I am working with my kids. Left to design our own programs we are pretty hopeless. I am sure if we were home “school” could be done in an hour or two a day. That sounds wonderful.
Our school started leaning more towards some unschool ideals- we let the kids vote on the expeditions, let them set up classrooms( we had no desks) . Our theme the first year was “let the children lead the way.” Our teachers were called coordinators of education instead of teachers. Everyone in the building went by their first names.
Our upper grades were a disaster but our lower grades did fine. I think older kids just didn’t adjust because they had been in regular school too long.
However we have tweaked and pinched and made things that fit some adult standards as well as childrens. Our kids still make up rubrics, and do peer review and set their own goals for the year. Kids really do have a say so, but in channeled ways.
This isn’t about the article, but I wanted to say L’shana Tova to you and your family. Did you do anything special? I was in school so I had a scone. Not very jewish but it was good.
I appreciated reading your take on this (and in fact went back and browsed all through your homeschooling archives) because some unschoolers talk about unschooling as if it were The One Enlightened Path. Sandra Dodd was quoted in the Salon article, for instance — I find her stuff interesting but also troubling.
Thinking about unschooling is good for me, and challenges me to stay flexible within my more structured approach. But it is not for me.
This was turning into an ENORMOUS comment but I am deleting lots of it because mostly what I wanted to say was thanks. And hello, from another homeschooling mother of a third-grade boy.
I’ve always felt that way about unschooling, too - that it could be MORE time consuming and more planning for the parents than just “doing school”! Now off to read that article…