<p>It has been about a year since I've dropped in at CC. My oldest child is 15 1/2, and is unschooling. She says she wants to attend a 4-year college and live away from home when she is done with homeschooling high school. We are creating high school from scratch and would like to talk to others who are doing or have done the same.</p>
<p>I think what I am doing can be considered unschooling? I'm still a bit unclear about this concept. I'm also 15 1/2 and want to go to a good four year college away from home, and I'm just pulling a whole bunch of things together to create a "curriculum". Basically I'm taking a whole bunch of AP tests and SATII's that correspond to what I learned, so the colleges I am applying to have something to weigh my courses against. I teach myself, and my parents have nothing to do with what I am learning. I am also deeply involved with abusiness I am starting up and model occasionally. I think you can call that unschooling? :)</p>
<p>My daughter was an unschooler. Her transcript included a mixture of self-study, community courses, community college courses, travel/w/ family and foreign exchange.</p>
<p>Interesting. What is your DD doing now? Some of the unschooling parents of college-aged kids I have spoken to have big regrets about the choices they made when their kids were younger. So far, I am very happy with the way unschooling has been going and intend to create a transcript like the one you describe.</p>
<p>What you're doing sounds a lot like unschooling to me! How did you prepare for AP test-taking? My children have never taken a standardized test.</p>
<p>Our only regret has been that we didn't homeschool sooner. My daughter was in public school through 6th grade.</p>
<p>She finished high school with 30 community college credits. Due to family circumstances, she decided to stay at cc to get her Associates degree before transferring into a four year college to pursue Anthropology, English and Art History degrees. She works 30 hours per week for a state program, taking care of her sister, who has multiple physical and mental disabilities. This job pays well enough to pay for her car and school. Outside of her classes and work, she continues to study piano and music theory, write poetry and reads when she finds the time. This summer, she's working in a homeless shelter in Washington D.C. for a week and has applied to some seminars around the country.</p>
<p>Megasmom: Your daughter's life sounds jam-packed! But she must have a heart of gold to be so involved with the caring professions. Community College for an AA is an excellent option. After all, no one ever asks what colleges you attended, only the college from which you graduated.</p>
<p>Hi, thanks for your kind words. CC has worked for us, although my daughter does get frustrated with some of the other students sometimes. </p>
<p>She's decided that she wants to get her Bachelor's degree with little to no debt, so she'll transfer into a state university next year. She's already looking into grad schools, so student loans will start then.</p>
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What you're doing sounds a lot like unschooling to me! How did you prepare for AP test-taking? My children have never taken a standardized test.
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<p>well, this will be the first year I will be taking the tests, so I don't really know if I did a good job or note yet! I feel prepared, yet at the same time I am nervous. I used textbooks, and lots of helpful websites, debated suff with my parents, and on other forums, and so on. I hope it is enough, so I guess we'll see!</p>
<p>homeskulmom, we can't claim to have unschooled, because my daughter took some classes here and there. She decided she wanted a certain amount of structure to help prepare for college. She knew herself very well, and she knew enough about the world to figure out how she fit into it. </p>
<p>I've seen it work out that way in some unschooling families. Some unschooled children I know wanted to go on to college and have succussfully done so, and some have made other healthy choices. However, in several other cases, I've seen very poor and unhappy results of what some people are calling unschooling.</p>
<p>I have a head of steam up about this today, because there's a fourteen year old unschooler I know very casually, and I just found out she is barely reading. That alone is not the problem. The worst is her that her self esteem is shattered. She is emotionally and academically crippled and can't get the support she needs from her parents. She is even afraid to ask them. She finally taught herself to read, but doesn't know what to do next.</p>
<p>Unschooling theory, as I understand it, says that children will read when they are ready. It's a great idea when pursued with sufficient support to meet academic and emotional needs. Without that, children can get terribly lost. Of course schooled kids can and do get lost too, but this is different.</p>
<p>I've known very bright unschooled teens who don't consider college even a remote possibility. College isn't for everybody, but people should have the opportunity to make that decision for themselves when the time comes. </p>
<p>I don't want to disparage unschooling, because I know it can work and is often the best option, but it takes a lot of extra effort by parents and children if those children are to have a full range of life choices. </p>
<p>If you're unschooling (or any form of homeschooling for that matter) and you want to go to college, don't sit around and wait for the universe to deliver it. You are a living thinking learning active part of the universe, so go for it. Be proactive and you'll find out just how beneficial homeschooling and/or unschooling can be. </p>
<p>Parents need to be willing to learn whatever it takes to help their children make and meet their goals. This web site and others can give you a plenty of help figuring out how to get to college. Be sure to also reach out to people in your community who can help, especially if you are a student and your parents don't understand or share your goals. Be patient with them, but don't hesitate to make plans and move forward. If you are high school age, it's not too soon to start working on it. It's your life - you get to decide.</p>
<p>"Parents need to be willing to learn whatever it takes to help their children make and meet their goals. This web site and others can give you a plenty of help figuring out how to get to college"</p>
<p>Very true. That's what I'm doing here. I have heard of many "unschoolers" like your daughter who begin taking courses during their high school years in order to achieve their college and career goals. As far as I am concerned, that's still unschooling since the students themselves seek out the knowledge to meet their own needs.</p>
<p>My children and I have discussed the many options available (too many, as far as I'm concerned), and have decided that at this time we don't need to add any formal coursework. Probably sometime in the near future that will change.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughtful post. There are always many examples of people for whom a certain educational option do not work, but for our family, unschooling seems to be working well.</p>
<p>homeskulmom, I took my rantings to a new thread, so we can keep this more positive. Just the fact that you are here, getting informed and checking out the options, says a lot. I love hearing about families like yours, because unschooling really is where my heart is. I truly believe it's the best way when it works, and it sure sounds like it's working at your house. </p>
<p>Do you live in an urban or rural area? What sort of interests is your daughter pursuing? My daughter was very involved with community theater in a nearby town. It made for a lot of driving, but was worth it.</p>
<p>My daughter took one AP course at the local high school. She probably could have done it more efficiently at home, but wanted to try sitting in a classroom doing classroom work. It prepared her quite well for the test. She also took courses from The University of Nebraska Independent Study High School. They have an excellent reputation and I'm sure that helped with her college admission. She enjoyed most of those courses.</p>
<p>Nan, yours are not rants! And I am always happy to discuss various aspects to homeschooling and education. No two families do it in the same way :)</p>
<p>It makes me happy to hear about how older unschoolers are doing, in college and careers. </p>
<p>To answer your questions, we live in a suburb near New York City. Our motto is if we can't find it near our home, it doesn't exist. My kids have very diverse interests, including theatre like your DD, music, woodcarving, fencing, fashion design, filmmaking, etc. Between reading books, finding private teachers, going to concerts and theatre, performing on stage, and co-op classes with other homeschoolers, my kids have more options than I ever had as a schooled child. We have no restrictions in terms of time or space. If they want to watch a Chinese film on Saturday at 10:00 pm, and then discuss it, we do it (and it counts as Social Studies AND foreign language.) We also have over THREE TIMES the amount of time schooled kids have, considering that education can happen at any time of the day or night, and even in the summer LOL</p>
<p>I also want to add that much of what we do is VERY INEXPENSIVE. We are members of several clubs which allow us to get off-Broadway and Broadway tickets cheap. Also, we attend free concerts whenever we can. We are wearing holes in our public library cards from overuse. There isn't anything that we need that we can't find either in the library, online, or in the books we already have all over the house.</p>
<p>Nan, your daughter took an AP course at a school. What was her impression of the classroom experience?</p>
<p>My kids homeschooled from ages 5 & 6 until college. We started off w/ a DIY text-based program, then tried a structured program for one year, and then chose to relax. Strict unschoolers (that always sounded like an oxymoron to me) probably would not call our approach unschooling, but it was a far cry from school-in-a-box. My kids worked at their own pace and we didn't worry about grade levels or covering certain topics at a particular age. Some times we used textbooks, but more often we did not. We began reading to our children when they were infants, but never pushed them to read on their own. Dd surprised us at age 5 when we discovered she could read the Little House on the Prairie books. Ds was discouraged when he found Dr. Seuss difficult at 6, so we got him to focus more on motor skill development and experiential learning. It turned out that he needed reading glasses for a brief time, and at 7 was reading chapter books with no problem. We invested a small fortune in edutainment software and other learning games, took the kids to museums and science centers, visited living history sites, did volunteer work, etc. </p>
<p>When they became teens, I showed my kids the admission criteria for several colleges and universities and we discussed their options. Having heard from friends whose own teens gave them a lot of grief, I told mine that they wouild now be fully responsible for their own education. I was more than happy to be their procurement officer, and would help research books, software, workshops, etc., but I was not their teacher or monitor. We discussed long term goals and initially I made some suggestions about setting short term objectives, but eventually that help wasn't needed. Ds did test me for a while, maybe to see if I was serious about turning the reins over to him completely, but I bit my tongue and he eventually returned to more serious concerns than manga. On the plus side, his foray into Japanese comics stimulated an interest in learning the language, which he studied on his own and then continued to study in college with a wonderful professor. </p>
<p>When the time came for college applications, I put together transcripts that were similar to the ones my own private high school had provided. The kids' ACT/SAT scores and CLEP tests supported the grades I assigned, so that was no problem. </p>
<p>My kids are rising seniors in college now. One has a 3.9+ GPA in an engineering program, while the other has a 3.8+ GPA in accounting. Both expected college to be tougher for them than for kids who attended institutional school. While it's true that they have little experience with some of the seemingly mindless rules & regs, a source of major frustration, their classroom experiences have been generally positive. In fact, both kids now think that their transition was easier than their classmates' because they had been so self-directed before. Some of their very bright classmates are outraged that professors don't issue frequent reminders and warnings, or that there's little hand holding provided unless a student seeks out help from multiple sources. Both have been awarded multiple academic scholarships, and the representatives for the endowed scholarships have commented very favorably on their homeschool background. </p>
<p>Dd enjoys college and looks forward to grad school. Ds cannot wait to complete his undergrad. degree next spring. He wants to spend a year in Japan (teaching English) before deciding on his next step.</p>
<p>Robi, your post makes me want to print it and sleep with it under my pillow! The path your unschooled kids have taken is fascinating. Teaching English in Japan sounds like a very exciting opportunity for your son. There was an article in the most recent Home Education Magazine by a homeschooling mom who taught English in China. I think you could learn more in one year in a different culture than in a thousand years in a classroom.</p>
<p>I'm also very encouraged by the fact that your children reported not having a difficult transition from home to college classroom. Although I believe that will be true for my kids, it is nice to know that there are people who have lived it.</p>
<p>homeskulmom, I missed your post earlier when you asked about my daughter's experience in her AP class. It turned out to be a postive experience for her in several ways. </p>
<p>She actually took two courses in the classroom because the school wouldn't allow her to enroll for just the one class. There was only one AP class available with her schedule, and the other class was a frustrating waste of time. However, it made her appreciate all the more that she didn't have to spend four years in school. The AP class was good. The teacher was excellent, and there were three or four other students in the class, who really cared about the material and helped make it worth while. She also made some good friends.</p>
<p>It was a tremendous boost to her confidence to know she could go from her Algebra II distance course right into Calculus, skipping Trig and pre-calc and still be at the top of the class. It made it very clear to her that her education was not lacking in any way, and she'd be entering college even with or ahead of other students.</p>
<p>Getting herself to class on time and sticking to somebody else's study schedule was good practice for her. It was a big change for her, but she handled it easily. I think it helped make her adjustment to college a little smoother, and again, it made her appreciate the freedom she enjoyed homeschooling.</p>
<p>nan, thanks for taking the time to post your DD's experiences in the classroom. I'd have thought she'd have more trouble going from Alg Ii to Calculus, too! (I sure would have.)</p>
<p>homeskulmom, I wouldn't have pulled that off either. The decision to go for the calculus class was made among the math-heads, my daugher, my husband, and the teacher. I had no clue. It worked out just fine, which certainly speaks well for University of Nebraska's Independant Study High School's math. It was their Algebra II course.</p>
<p>I came across this thread accidentally. I have never heard the term "unschooling," and I am curious if one of you can proved a definition that distinguishes it from homeschooling--or from "no schooling" for that matter. When did that term first come into use and how? Thanks.</p>
<p>Unschooling has come to mean different things to different people, but in general the idea is that a child chooses what she or he learns, without a prescribed curriculum. </p>
<p>That might sound absurd to some, because they think a child can't possibly know to learn what that child doesn't know. In fact, it can work beautifully when parents are involved, and don't use unschooling for an excuse to do nothing. </p>
<p>It doesn't mean a child won't have learning goals or won't follow any organized methods. We took an unschooling approach with our daughter, who is now finishing her freshman year in college. Included were discussions about her plans and what she could do to carry them out (as well as a lot of help when she asked for it). In addition to her home based learning, she ended up taking several distance courses and courses outside the home, because they helped her reach her goals. </p>
<p>The key is, she made her own choices. She didn't make them in a vacuum, but they were clearly hers. There were times when she needed to be reminded of why she got into things, and we occasionally prodded her to follow through and finish things she started, but generally, she took responsibility for her educational choices. </p>
<p>The basic belief behind unschooling, as far as I'm concerned, is that kids are smart. If we respect and nurture that intelligence, and give them the space to explore, they will thrive. They live in the same world we do, and they can see what's what. They can see where they are, make healthy choices about where they are going, and can understand what they need to do to get there. The sooner they take ownership of that process the better they'll do with it, and the healthier they will be. The more deeply they come to respect their own curiosity and learning goals, the more they'll learn and the more it will mean to them.</p>