Slashdot Mirror
Schooling, Homeschooling, and Now, "Unschooling"
ciaohound writes "The Baltimore Sun has a story about 'unschooling,' which is like homeschooling except, well, without the schooling. '...unschooling incorporates every facet of a child's life into the education process, allowing a child to follow his passions and learn at his own pace, year-round. And it assumes that an outing at the park — or even hours spent playing a video game — can be just as valuable a teaching resource as Hooked on Phonics.' If you have ever been forced to sit in a classroom where no learning was taking place, you may understand the appeal. A driving force behind the movement is parents' dissatisfaction with regular schools, and presumably with homeschooling as well. Yet few researchers are even aware of unschooling and little research exists on its effectiveness. Any Slashdotters who have experience with 'unschooling?'"
There are some famous examples of this working. But only because the parents had time, money, and high standards.
One of the Rockefellers, the son of John D., wrote that when he was a kid, his father gave him an allowance. He was required to keep a proper set of double-entry books on how he spent it, and the books were audited by an accountant. He didn't get the next allowance payment until the books balanced.
Henry Ford II was promised a car for some birthday. On the appointed day, he was taken out to a garage, and there was the car - totally dissembled with all the component parts laid out. A full set of tools was supplied. Eventually, he did get the car assembled and running.
If you have the resources, it can work.
Parents who can and will take the time to teach their children about the world around them and how to act and interact within it will, more than likely, end up with children who are well-adjusted, relatively well-educated and prepared children. Parents who believe that it's someone else's job to do all of those things will more likely end up with entitlement babies who will be leeches on society.
Some kids will be well-educated because of our public schools, and some will end up well-educated in spite of them. The same can be true of any other learning environment, if poorly and carelessly administered. My 15 year old, who none of us think is a genius, scored as post-high school in almost every subject. My son, who is very smart, started college at 16, because we had nothing left to teach him. Both would have been bored in public school, as I was.
The point is that parents should have the ability to choose that which works best for their children, so long as that choice produces acceptable results.
Hmm, odd. I don't remember it being like that at all. If anything, I had a lot more time to learn things than I do now at college.
As a kid, my mom read all sorts of great books to me, and when I was older she could literally just leave library books on the kitchen table. I had learned that books are interesting, so of course I read them. Besides fiction, I loved books about science and history. I even tried to read some Platonic dialogues in 4th grade. I was really into spy stuff for a while, so we also did a lot of codes and ciphers, which quickly translated into the fun parts of math. I knew I wanted to go to college, so we did some formal curriculum for a couple hours every morning in middle school. It was mostly lame, but it was helpful with math at least. I also joined the "Homeschool Film Club". I learned Adobe After Effects and did a lot of camera work for the local public access channel.
In ninth grade I decided to try a fairly rigorous Christian private school in the area. It was fine, I got straight As, but it was boring. The kids had no motivation to learn, and I could progress in most subjects on my own faster than at the school. (Math was again the exception, I had a fantastic math teacher.) So I went back to unschooling in tenth grade. I was really into popular science books at this point, and I read a lot about theoretical physics and evolutionary biology. I was also reconsidering a lot of the religious ideas I had, so I was reading a lot of hardcore theology.
I discovered UC Berkeley's online lectures around this time, and listened to a bunch of college-level psychology. Eventually I became interested in the philosophical side of psychology, and started investigating philosophy. Fortuitously, UC Berkeley has a philosophy professor who likes podcasting, so I listened to a few of his series of lectures. I went through the first half of Heidegger's "Being and Time" this way. It's a hideously difficult book, even for philosophy, but I had a lot of free time!
During this same period I was working with a professional theatre in a neighboring town, as well as a couple local community theatres. Since I didn't have set hours for school, I was able to be there whenever they needed me. I acted in several shows, and worked on lighting and general tech work.
Oh, almost forgot. I also took a couple community college classes, in physics and writing. They were both absurdly easy and I didn't learn anything, but it looked good on my transcript to have some formal classes at the college level.
I decided I wanted to go to the University of Chicago, if I could. It's ranked 8th in the country, but in my opinion it's academically better than the Ivies and other colleges ranked above it. (MIT and Caltech are the exceptions, but they are also more narrowly focused.) I applied, got in, and am currently attending. It's awesome being around other academically engaged people, but I kinda miss the chance to learn on my own. Luckily, I have the summer to do that!
I admit I'm a bit of an outlier, and I probably would have done fine in the public schools. Not everyone who is unschooled will have a natural passion for academics. However, if anything, unschooling is even better for people who don't want to become academics. My younger sister has some minor learning disabilities, and is far more into the arts than the sciences. She spent her high school years learning about theatre and music, and has become a fantastic actress. She spent the summer working with the professional theatre company I mentioned, but in a much more intensive way than I ever did. However, while it's not her focus, she still loves learning intellectual things as well. She's currently doing some pretty substantial research into psychology and counseling. She's trying to decide between theatre and counseling as possible careers. Either way, I'm convinced she's in a better position than she would be at the public schools, where she'd likely be forced into special LD classes and not allowed to explore the things that actually interest her.
It's entirely possible to do unschooling badly, but that doesn't mean it's inherently a bad idea.
Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil.