<p>"When it comes to the trend of unschooling, there's no middle ground.</p>
<p>We asked for reader feedback on a story about the unconventional method of homeschooling that allows the child to choose what and when they want to learn. Our inbox was flooded with heated responses. And just about everyone who wrote was clearly for, or against, it.</p>
<p>One reader worried that the informal learning schedule would set a child up for failure later on. "What happens when the child gets a job and 'doesn't feel like' working?"</p>
<p>Another noted that school isn't just for "book learning," but also for gaining important skills in interacting with other students. "Learning to adapt to others and respect for everything around you is a huge part of education," he said.</p>
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<p>Obviously, there are many polarized opinions regarding unschooling. For those who have never heard of it, unschooling is a form of homeschooling that focuses on a child's interests rather than state-mandated standards. So what are your thoughts on the subject? Is it too flexible to work? Is it the future of education?</p>
<p>Whether or not it “works” depends on what outcome you’re hoping for.</p>
<p>I have known a lot of unschooling families, and their kids have ended up taking paths just as divergent as any other group of kids. Some exceled by traditional standards (selective college admission), some have floundered. Most have ended up somewhere between those two things, like nearly everyone else.</p>
<p>In practical reality, though, I think you need to think of unschooling as a method, not a dogma. Every unschooling family I have known personally has engaged with a variety of methods in raising, inspiring, educating, developing their children over the span of their childhood, adolescence and young adulthood.</p>
<p>It’s more controversial and more fun, maybe, to consider it as a radical state of being to the exclusion of all other educational paths… but in practical reality, and especially over time, it’s not really like that. At least that’s been my experience.</p>
<p>My daughter was the lead example in a major city newspaper article about unschooling (front page, even). I doubted whether she was an unschooler exactly, since I had taught her to read at an early age, and people she respected almost constantly suggested books and opportunities they thought she would enjoy. But the reporter checked in with Pat Farenga (heir to John Holt and the now defunct “Growing Without Schooling” magazine) who said she was an unschooler since she controlled her own education.
I mention my doubts because, in my experience, very few homeschoolers are pure unschoolers. The great advantages we have as parents are life experience and love for our children. If I thought there were books that were worthwhile and that she would enjoy, I told her about them. To turn her loose in the library with the idea that to start with books that began with “M” was as good an approach as any would have been a waste of her time. Of course, browsing the shelves and spotting potential nuggets is one of life’s pleasures.
A great advantage of my daughter’s experience was that she took people’s advice based upon how much she respected them as individuals- their character, knowledge of the world, and of her. Of course in school you follow what the teacher says by virtue of his position. The system regards individual teachers as interchangeable based upon formal qualifications. They also have a formal power over you, not open to your acceptance or rejection. Love and character have no role. The primary lesson taught in school is obedience to any stranger by virtue of his position and power over you. To be inflammatory, I don’t think the holocaust could have happened without well developed, mass compulsory schooling. Prussia was the first to establish that. I think I’m borrowing from John Taylor Gatto!
But where the rubber meets the road in everyday homeschooling, the most common pattern I’ve seen is to start out replicating school forms and to trend toward not worrying about such stuff so much over time. Most people in their homes are somewhere between formal school and unschooling.</p>
<p>Well, I homeschooled for two years in middle school. I most definitely did not unschool. From whatever little knowledge I gathered from my time in the homeschooling circle, I’ve come to the conclusion that unschooling is when the student directs the curriculum/subjects and the parent guides the student in the area they want to learn. If I’m right, unschooling works best for students who are motivated to learn everything, but have specific interest(s) that they want to pursue. I guess it can work, but how well it works (or if it even works at all) really depends on the student. I know a girl who (I think) pretty much unschools, and she finished Calculus at like the age of ten. Gosh. I can’t imagine her doing well in a structured school environment (where everyone just has to do what others their age are doing because “that’s what they’re supposed to learn at that age”).</p>
<p>So pretty much, it works for those who want to make it work.</p>
<p>I was unschooled from grade 2-8, though I’m now in a accredited online highschool because I want a diploma.</p>
<p>Unschooling is obviously not perfect or for everyone, but for me it was a very effective way to learn, because:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>I could stay on whatever I didn’t get as long as I needed to.</p></li>
<li><p>I got the level of challenge I needed to stay interested, but not be discouraged.</p></li>
<li><p>I got to pursue my interests broadly and in-depth.</p></li>
<li><p>The curriculum was tailored to the specific way in which I learned.</p></li>
<li><p>I got to learn what I was ready to learn when I was ready to learn it.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Furthermore I’d like to add you can’t force someone to learn, you can give them opportunities and provide a learning friendly environment, but learning is a choice, a responsibility that lies in the individual, no matter how little they are. Forcing children to study doesn’t accomplish near the learning that their natural curiosity will. It only breeds contempt for learning and it is truly tragic that such a wonderful, life-affirming experience such as true learning is cast aside with the drudgery of forced work.</p>
<p>As an outsider that is randomly viewing threads at 5 AM, I’ve got to say this sounds like a bad idea. But, then again, I am probably biased a little myself</p>
<p>I have been in public school from kindergarten until now (HS sophomore), and unschooling sounds like it would work for a student who is extremely motivated and is used to homeschooling, or did not have experience with public school. If you want tonbeco e an Olympic skater, and you decide to spend many hours skating while learning math and science at excelerated rates but taking it easy on the English and history, I think it sounds great. As long as you are recieving knowledge, whether it is book knowledge or life knowledge, that will better your future, I think it would work.</p>