<p>I am curious about unschooling and I was wondering if any parents here have tried it. I'd like to know your experience with it and when or if you put your kid back into the school system. If your kid was unschooled even in highschool age, I'd like to know what you did for things like college apps and SATs.</p>
<p>Unschooling has been a very good approach for my children---it has allowed them to take ownership of their education and to learn from our entire community, from a wide variety of people of all ages, from all walks of life, not just schoolteachers. </p>
<p>They had time and schedule flexibility to pursue their interests very deeply, to read voraciously, to write prolificly, and to solve non-routine math problems that were inherently engaging and didn't need to be "assigned". (Yes, unschooling works for math too--recreational math books from Martin Gardner, Raymond Smullyan, and Douglas Hofstadter are a great place to start.)</p>
<p>They were able to get deeply involved in community service projects, using their schedule flexibility to take on key roles in non-profit organizations that primarily operated during school hours. Part-time enrollment in local college and university classes gave access to science labs and professors who could later write letters of recommendation to support applications to fulltime college when the time came.</p>
<p>A local community college professor has said that she's been so impressed with the unschooling students who've taken her courses that she's thinking of unschooling her own young children. (Her unschooled students have gone on to Swarthmore, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvard.)</p>
<p>Unschooling isn't for everybody--our family knows some wonderful students who have thrived in the public schools, but there are some students who naturally learn best when they have the opportunity to take ownership of their education.</p>
<p>The SATs pose no special difficulties for those unschoolers who are motivated to take them. Reading a lot and doing inherently interesting non-routine recreational math problems seems likely to be at least as helpful a background for SAT success as 30-hours-per-week of "seat time" in a conventional high school.</p>
<p>I would actually consider many conventionally school students to be effectively "unschoolers," because a number of terrific public school students really have taken ownership of their learning outside of school hours, learning far more outside of school than they do inside it. </p>
<p>(Indeed, I attended conventional schools for my entire K-12 education, but I consider myself to have had an unschooling education, as I believe I learned far more outside of school in my wide-ranging voracious reading, writing, and argumentation than I did inside of school.)</p>
<p>If you want ideas and inspiration, you might check out mini's webpage (see his profile) or Grace Llewellyn's "Guerilla Learning: How to give your children a real education--with or without school" or her "Teenage Liberation Handbook."</p>
<p>And, for good measure, here's another unschooler's path to college:</p>
<p>What is unschooling?</p>
<p>RaboKarabekian asked:</p>
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What is unschooling?
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</p>
<p>Luz Shosie has written an answer to your question here:</p>
<p>An excerpt from Luz's article:</p>
<p>
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<br>
What is Unschooling?
by Luz Shosie</p>
<p>Unschooling is trusting the learner to be in charge of his or her own learning. It is not a method of instruction we use on our children, but a process we adults go through to unlearn the lessons and undo the effects of our years of schooling.</p>
<p>Schooling taught us that learning only happens in a certain place and time, under the direction and/or force of a teacher. Unschooling ourselves restores our child-like curiosity. It encourages us to trust that we are all learning all the time and that we are the experts when it comes to choosing what, when, how, where, how much and with whom we learn.
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</p>
<p>unschooling is like what adults do. They decide they want to learn about XYZ, for their job or for personal enjoyment or whatever reason. Then they decide how they are going to learn about it. And they stop whenever they feel that they have met their own goals. Let's say you decided to learn something about Renaissance Art and Roman architecture in preparation for a trip to Italy. You might take a course. Or you might simply read books, learn from someone who already knows a lot about it, watch programs on the subject on educational TV, visit museums, search the internet. The end point is whenever you have learned to your own satisfaction, given your interest and purposes. The whole process of young people deciding what they want to learn, how much, and how they will go about it is what "unschooling" is all about. It does not preclude traditional courses, or SAT exams, or other things that traditionally schooled kids do. But those are simply a small part of the available options.</p>
<p>I understand the philosophy behind homeschooling or unschooling but why then send the kid to college at all? That is not unschooling. Just curious about that. Given the philosophy in the excerpt quoted above, why would you need to learn with teachers in college all of a sudden if you did not before that? A person is the expert when it come to choosing what, how, where and with whom to learn. While college allows for more choices than public school, there still is some structure to it and it is not exactly unschooling.</p>
<p>people do not need to go to college to learn, as many famous drop-outs can attest. But college is much more student directed than k-12. You have a lot more leeway in college to decide where you will go to school, what courses you will take, how you will manage your time, what profs to take. There are a lot more options for self-study projects, research, internships etc. Smart kids who are interested in learning can also choose a college filled with people who are also smart and interested in learning. That's much less likely to happen in k-12. Our public schools tend to strictly segragate kids by age, race, and socio-economic status. But they are much less likely than college to segragate kids based on level of intellectual interest. An average high school might have 1-2 kids with the talent and drive to go to MIT or Harvard, say. But MIT and Harvard are, by definition, filled with kids who have that much talent and drive. So if you are yourself like that, you have a lot more reason to want to be at MIT/Harvard than you have to be in the average high school. Good essay on the anti-intellectualism of American schools here:
<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html</a></p>
<p>Mentoring, empowerment, and self-direction (or, as I would say, "Love and Freedom") are the hallmarks of any education truly worthy of the name, and the sooner someone discovers that, the more "educated" one is likely to become, in school or out. Or, to state the opposite, as Edward Gibbon noted, "The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous." (he dropped out of Magdalen College, Oxford)</p>
<p>As for the college applications, with the exception of Pomona, my d. had no problems communicating to top colleges how the round peg would be an asset to their square holes. (I keep encouraging her to take time off, but currently she is like a pig in a poke.)</p>
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I understand the philosophy behind homeschooling or unschooling but why then send the kid to college at all?
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</p>
<p>Unschooling parents don't <em>send</em> their kids to college. Unschooling parents let their children make the decision about the educational paths they find most helpful for the goals they have chosen. </p>
<p>Some children in unschooling families choose to go to school part-time or full-time, to apprentice, to start a business, to write a novel, to bike across the country, or some combination of the above.</p>
<p>As I said in my previous post, I consider that I was an unschooler growing up, even though I attended K-12 schools fulltime, because I feel I had ownership of my learning and education. The very poor schools I attended had little to offer me, but my lifelong autodidact father took me to libraries, museums, mountain climbing, poetry readings, political debates, concerts, public lectures, art galleries, nature centers, etc. School was just a given, a place I was expected to go 30 hours a week but it was not the locus of much of my true education. (In the 60s the concept of not sending one's children to school was not deemed within the realm of the possible by my parents, but they still felt that my true education happened outside it), </p>
<p>
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While college allows for more choices than public school, there still is some structure to it and it is not exactly unschooling.
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</p>
<p>Unschoolers don't necessarily eschew structured learning experiences. </p>
<p>They choose structured learning situations when they meet their particular goals. </p>
<p>A certain amount of structure can be a jumping-off point, a stimulus to less structured discovery and exploration.</p>
<p>Going to fulltime residential college allows a student to spend four years 24/7 immersed in a diverse community of young people engaged in a common goal of discovery and growth. </p>
<p>A vast amount of the learning that goes on in college happens in unstructured settings outside the classroom--in informal study groups, late night discussions, community service projects, campus cultural events, extracurriculars, work-study internships, etc.</p>
<p>Dick Light's book, "Making the Most of College: Students speak their minds" points out that the overwhelming majority of the college students his research team interviewed believed that the most important parts of college learning happened outside the classroom--in informal discussions or in study groups or in research projects initiated by students.</p>
<p>Unschooling is about ownership of learning and making choices about what resources to use in learning. </p>
<p>mini has described in considerable detail the rich and diverse opportunities his daughter has had at Smith---many of those came outside the context of the classroom hours required for a degree, and even those classroom hours were in courses prmarily chosen to meet his daughter's goals for herself.</p>
<p>Some resources come with lots of conditions attached. (E.g., enrolling in a military academy or a ballet school or a medical residency program with highly structured days and little curricular choice.) Other resources come with very few conditions attached (E.g., Hampshire College or Goddard College.) Other resources come with almost no conditions attached (the public library requires only that you return their books, videos, tapes.)</p>
<p>What unschoolers do is to take a broad view of their goals in life and the wide range of resources available to support their pursuit of those goals. An unschooler can choose to go a service academy or a ballet school or medical residency program and still be an unschooler--it is a state of mind, a matter of taking ownership for educational decisions, of being open to choosing the best of all educational paths for one's purposes.</p>
<p>What I see myself diong as an unschooling parent is opening doors for my children and encouraging them to peek into the doorways, wander down hallways, and figure out what paths might best serve their goals.</p>
<p>I wanted to know about highschoolers and SATs because I wondered how difficult it would be. You're even required to take SAT2s if you're homeschooled at some colleges. Also, I don't understand how you record what your child has learned. How to test them to know if they know the things that encompass a geometry class most kids their age are taking.</p>
<p>
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I understand the philosophy behind homeschooling or unschooling but why then send the kid to college at all?
[/quote]
I read that some people actually unschool college.</p>
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why would you need to learn with teachers in college all of a sudden if you did not before that?
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I figured that if you're going to be a doctor, it'd be a good thing to have a professor. Where as if you're going to be a highschool student, you just need to know 123 abc. Also, college has a lot more freedom for the student than our public school system.</p>
<p>I understand the unschooling prior to college years and how it differs from being enrolled in public school. But afterwards, the "state of mind" is not all that different from your child who was unschooled through grade 12 and mine who was in public school because now (after high school) both are making choices in much the same way. You picked up on my wording of "sending" my kid to college but perhaps I chose the wrong word because my kids going to college was no different than yours. They had COMPLETE choice as to if they would go, where they would go, what they wished to pursue. The "send" was just a figure of speech in that I am paying for it. But the educational choices are all theirs, no different than your unschooled child really (talking now just after grade 12). Actually for that matter, one of my kids chose to graduate early, that was all her choice. Anyway, I even have one kid at Brown where the curricular choices are an open curriculum. I have another one entering a professional degree program in Musical Theater. But still the choices are not that different in terms of their state of mind. I have a kid right now at a summer intensive in architecture at Harvard, not because we want her to do it but because she wants to discover if this is the field she would like to pursue further. I'm simply saying that choice is there for all kids really after high school (unless they have overpowering parents that insist on what their child will do). Also, I am suggesting that the structure of teachers and classes that in which your kids did not participate earlier, is one of a sort that they are now in college (albeit with far more choices including the choice of type of students or learning environment or what they will study). </p>
<p>I am totally familiar with all kinds of learning philosophies as education is my field. You referenced Goddard College and I have even taught there myself. </p>
<p>I am not against homeschooling whatsoever and understand the thinking behind it. I was just questioning the concept of how unschoolers are in charge of their learning as to when, where, with who, etc. when in college any more than the next person is. The rejection of earlier classroom learning and then to participate in a college setting where even if lots of learning takes place outside the classroom and research, internships, activities, etc., there still IS classroom learning and in many settings, there are some aspects that are not the same degree of open choice as when homeschooled. A homeschooler or unschooler IS entering a more structured learning environment when choosing to go to college. I realize it is a choice (as it is for many school kids like mine too), but still it is not as UNschooled as in their years prior to college.</p>
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I was just questioning the concept of how unschoolers are in charge of their learning ...in college any more than the next person is.
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They're not. Virtually all college strudents are more in charge of their learning experiences than traditionally schooled K-12 students are. That's why a homeschooled student might reject high school and still want to go to college.</p>
<p>To second what Homeschoolmom said - homeschoolers/unschoolers do not necessarily reject all structured learning. Most simply view structured opportunities as being a subset of the opportunities available to them.</p>
<p>burnsk8er - you are basically asking what sort of documentation homeschoolers give colleges when they apply. Basically they all have some combination of standardized test scores, grades from distance learning or local high school or college courses, and portfolios detailing their work in a descriptive form. They might submit an extra rec or 2 or take a few extra APs or SAT IIs to compensate for having fewer grades.</p>
<p>Anyone can take self-study for any standardized exam. You don't need to take a course. The score on the exam serves the same function as a course grade.</p>
<p>Article from Stanford Magazine on homeschooling and unschooling.</p>
<p>One more question!</p>
<p>It seems to me that unschooling would be a great idea if you were rich. Had money to give your child an unlimited fountain of knowledge. A arsenal of which she can pick and choose what she'll use and ignore. Or a lot of time. To take the kid to the library, museum, baseball park or wherever. </p>
<p>What happens if you're not in the money? What happens if both parents have to work? Do you still think unschooling is a good idea?</p>
<p>S3 unschooled for 3 years (left school after 4th grade, returned to 9th). Actually, we was not even familiar with the term "unschooling" until he finished his second year, if was just what we did naturally... S3 was always advanced, scoring at levels 2 or more years ahead of his actual age, so I did not see any harm in allowing him to do just what he found interesting. Actually, our initial plan was to homeschool for one year, then return to school with a grade skip - and I thought that even if he does not learn anything at all that year, he still will be OK. Well, I knew that he WILL learn, of course... he always made more progress in summer than during school year, what with all the busywork... </p>
<p>His interests lie mainly in the direction of Math and related subjects, so he made the most progress there (audited 5 university courses, participated in competitions). He almost did not pay any specific attention (as in: had lessons or did projects) to other subjects - it's amasing what they can pick up from everyday reading! He would love to continue unschooling through the high school years, but we moved to a district where he had a unique opportunity to take classes at a top university - and it was possible only if he were a high school student. Well, and he probably would not be able to find new friends easily if he didn't go to school (he had plenty where we lived before), and social life becomes more important when you hit 14. But still, when asked if he would prefer homeschooling (with no social life) if he could take the university classes, he said yes. School was the price he agreed to pay for those classes, nothing more.</p>
<p>The return to school was quite painless, probably because he already had good AP and SAT test results. I just brought a home-made transcript, listing "subjects" he did in the prevoius year. The counselor asked if he wants to go to 9th or to 10th grade, and upon hearing "9th" she did not pay any more attention to the transcript (if he wanted to go to 10th and to receive high school credits for his work while unschooling, it would be different). He actually did not want to go to 10th grade mostly because of his fear that he'll be bad at Writing (never learned how to write a "proper" essay, etc). To our surprise, he was actually much better in Writing than most of his classmates, and the only academic drawback I can think of was his luck of any background in US History (his "social science" interests were more into Geography and World History). </p>
<p>And then there's S2 who decided to try unschooling in 11th grade. Well, for him it was more structured learning, but unschooling nevertheless. His studies were a mix of community college classes, university classes (auditing only), online study, and lots of self-study. He made sure that he will be able to list all the required subjects on his transcript (otherwise, I'm sure, he would substitute English 102 by one more Philosophy or Russian Literature class). </p>
<p>His transcript listed all the official grades, and I assigned grades for some of his completed projects at college level (for example, for one of his projects he covered exactly the scope of a graduate school course I took earlier). Mostly, the self-study was not graded (just "pass" in the grades column). There was a "course description" attachment explaining what exactly he did and what was covered in each course (and sources - books, CDs, websites etc.). I know of homeschoolers who submitted transcripts with no grades at all - and were accepted to pretty good colleges. There is a discussion group homeschool2college at Yahoo, and there was a lot of "transcript" discussions there.</p>
<p>As for SAT IIs, his lowest SAT II was Chemistry (taken when he was still at school). He took SAT II Math Level 1 at school - not so good... so he took Level 2 after he finished precalculus self-study (using Thinkwell CD and ALEKS online program). The score was higher by 140 points, and the time he spent on the subject was much less than a year of everyday lessons and homework at school - he did that in 2 or 3 months, on and off. Self-study may occur very, very productive, even for underachievers... :)</p>
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What happens if you're not in the money? What happens if both parents have to work? Do you still think unschooling is a good idea?
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most homeschoolers I know are doing it on a shoestring. Generally one parent does not work (especially if kids are young), so income is limited. You can do a lot with libraries and used materials. And homeschooling families in the community may offer group activities for little cost. You can do a real cadillac job of homeschooling for a fraction of what a private school would cost. </p>
<p>If both parents work and kids are young, the logisitics are obviously more difficult because child care. But this is not strictly a homeschooling issue. families with young kids frequently need summer of after-school child care even if the child goes to school.</p>
<p>homeschoolmom:
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my true education happened outside it
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How true! And in some cases, the education happens despite school... and then, it's time to decide if you want to "let schooling interfere with your education"... (sorry, the quotation is not exact)</p>
<p>soozievt:
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The rejection of earlier classroom learning...
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</p>
<p>There's no rejection. If they want and need structured learning, they get structured learning. It just is not structured by somebody who "knows better", it is structured by the kid himself...</p>
<p>
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What happens if you're not in the money? What happens if both parents have to work? Do you still think unschooling is a good idea?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Many homeschooling families don't have a lot of money--the average homeschooling family income is less than the US median, according to surveys I've heard. And there are quite a few homeschooling families in which both parents work--either with flexible schedules, home-based family businesses, or helpful grandparents/extended family members.</p>
<p>Most homeschooling parents give up some income-earning potential, even if both are gainfully employed. And many drive old cars, expect their children to earn the money to support some of the actrivities that interest them, etc.</p>
<p>There are sometimes creative ways to make it work--I know a single-parent, a widow whose husband died when her kids were young teens and preteens, who managed to run a business (a small factory and retail outlet) with the help of her three young teenage homeschooled kids. They took most of the responsibility for their own learning and also took turns helping out in the retail outlet store. They all went to selective four year colleges. The older two have now graduated from college and one will graduate this year.</p>
<p>I know a husband and wife who are both nurses and they manage to juggle their schedules so they are able to homeschool. Relatives and friends help out by taking care of their son when their schedules overlap too much.</p>
<p>I know another single mother who works as a live-in caretaker for an elderly person who does not require full-time care. That allows her to homeschool her daughter.</p>
<p>A motivated teenager who wants to take ownership of his/her education and who has access to good public transportation and who lives near a vibrant community with good libraries, museums, local colleges with inexpensive cultural events like concerts, public lectures, discussion groups, and thriving nonprofit community service organizations offering volunteer opportunities does not need a full-time stay-at-home parent in order to homeschool.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if I lived where soozie lived, in remote rural VT, it would be pretty lonely and isolating for a young teenager to homeschool without a relative to drive them places.</p>
<p>So, yes, giving up the free educational services offered by the public schools is not a choice that would work well for every family, or even be an option for every family. </p>
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But afterwards, the "state of mind" is not all that different from your child who was unschooled through grade 12 and mine who was in public school because now (after high school) both are making choices in much the same way.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree--in college, all students have a good deal of freedom and flexibility and students do have a real sense of ownership and choice about their education.</p>
<p>But unschooling is an attitude, rather than a path. </p>
<p>Unschoolers do go in and out of K-12 schools. It is a state of mind, a feeling of choice and autonomy and ownership of education, rather than a particular path.</p>
<p>It is a willingness to question everything, to make choices that don't automatically assume that it's automatically best to spend 30 hours a week learning with students close in age from one's own school district, that offers the option of learning in book discussion groups with senior citizens or working collaboratively with kids in inner-city schools (a world of difference from our local suburban schools).</p>
<p>Some states (like mini's) allow students to enroll part-time in public schools, taking selected courses that meet their particular needs. Other states (like mine) have an all-or-nothng attitude for K-12 education. </p>
<p>So unschoolers in our state have a more difficult choice to make--if they want to take advantage of the resources in public schools here, it is a 30-hour package deal--it depends on their goals and the alternative ways they might have to meet them. </p>
<p>(Even in my state, my children have had the opportunity to learn collaboratively with public school students by volunteering as enrichment mentors and teacher's assistants.)</p>
<p>I know unschoolers in our state who chose the 30-hour package deal for high school--they decided that it met their needs, goals, and desires, along with whatever they chose to do outside that time. I'd still consider them unschoolers, because it was a conscious choice on their part.</p>
<p>In my view, EVERYONE is an unschooler, because all of us do so much of our learning outside a formal educational setting. </p>
<p>It's just that not all of us consciously think of ourselves that way!</p>
<p>College is a time when most traditionally educated students suddenly realize they have a huge measure of control over their education, with lots of flexibility and choices. </p>
<p>Students who have thought of themselves as unschoolers during their K-12 years realize they have already had that kind of control and flexibility their whole lives.</p>
<p>My friend is asking me about unschooling. He seems to think that at one point the kid will not care and just sit and be a vegetable. He thinks that someone is going to be dependent off their parents for longer than normal offsprings are. What do you say to that?</p>
<p>I also want to ask if any of you were scared to unschool at first? All I am hearing are good things in the end. Its kind of amazing. Does everyone get such good results with unschooling?</p>