Homeschool Pass, Unschool Fail

[Austin]

I am a proponent for educating you child in a way that works for them, so I am pro-all sorts of schooling and un. However I suspect you meet sucessful homeschooling families because you do things with your kids that helps make it successful.

I dont know enough, not even thru supposition to guess the percentage but I do think you are going to meet more successful kids!

I would consider myself primarily a proponent of public education, but also support families doing what works for them in general. In any educational setting (public school, private school, homeschool, whatever), parental involvement is key. Kids with involved parents (not to be confused with the helicopter-my-kid-would-never-do-anything-wrong parents) tend to be more successful in general, no matter how they "do" school based on my own observations and experience.

[Rosa]

Yeah, I mostly seem to meet people who decide to homeschool basically because of a whim, or because it's so popular right now, or peer pressure, and then it's hard so they just stop doing it and call it "unschooling". I am seeing a LOT of their kids fail now as teens (or suddenly at 17 get the same kinds of evaluation/intervention that my kid is getting at 6 through the public schools.) And I meet more out and about doing fun after school things with my kid and overhear them talking to each other about how what they're doing is "school" when I would basically call it "parenting." Like lego playtime at the library.

Thankfully, most of the easygoing ineffective hippie types, if they're not really up to homeschooling, they eventually give up and send the kids back to school. They don't have the same ideological baggage as the fundies.

Sometimes an unschooled 12 year old isn't reading because he's just about to flower into a great reader at 14. Sometimes, it's because he's dyslexic and really ought to be gettingsome specific educational help. Sometimes, your precocious 14 year old isn't doing math, or complete sentences, or reading maps, because YOU have modeled for her that it's too hard and not important, not because she's inherently averse to it. Those are both teens in my social circle who were really hampered by "let them loose and see what they do" homeschooling. (So, obviously, unless one of you is my ex's idiot ex-wife - who generally doesn't have internet because she can't be bothered to pay her bills - that "you" is nobody here.)

But a person wouldn't have met either of these folks at one of the educational things Clibbyjo organizes, or even the public library, because their parents think children raise themselves and don't need adult "interference" like providing phone service or rides to the library.

[Kitty]

I would consider myself primarily a proponent of public education, but also support families doing what works for them in general. In any educational setting (public school, private school, homeschool, whatever), parental involvement is key. Kids with involved parents (not to be confused with the helicopter-my-kid-would-never-do-anything-wrong parents) tend to be more successful in general, no matter how they "do" school based on my own observations and experience.

I'm a proponent of all kinds of education. Requiring every kid to be homeschooled and banning homeschooling altogether like some countries do both require a lot of arrogance. Public and private education are NOT for everyone, and neither are homeschooling or unschooling. I personally think that students who don't do well in public and private schools should be referred either to other schools, or tutoring centers, or homeschooled. And students who clearly aren't learning anything in homeschool (whether or not they're unschooled) should be put into public or private schools.

[clibbyjo]

Just out of curiosity -- do you think your kids would be doing any of this if they were in public school? Just drawing from the experiences of myself and my husband, who are both certified nerds, your kids' unschooling sounds a lot like what we did in our spare time. (Or in my husband's case, sometimes to the determent of traditional classes that he found intolerably boring. And I was known to skip school to go flying...)

I highly doubt it in my school district. For one, all they care about it sports. My kids only get comments on their sports when I turn in my portfolios.They don't have a fencing club and my daughter would not be on their hockey team because she played with all those boys last year and doesn't want to again.The school district spent 4 million dollars putting in an astroturf football field and new track when their team hasn't won in 30 years. Why not add a new computer or chemistry labs with that money?

This school district has been under construction for 10 years straight. They did 1 school building at a time.If my kids went to those schools, my older 2 would only know what it is like to be doing school with the noise of construction and drywall dust. They finally finished the schools last year and decided to tear up the parking lot 1 week before school started this year.(when it was empty all summer)So once again, the kids are listening to construction vehicles all day.

I also get a call every year asking if my kids want to take the PSSA's with the school because the school average is 77% and my kids average is high 90's. I am not interested. I do not believe MY school district can provide a better education for my kids than I can. I cannot speak for other districts.

I have 2 friends who attended my school district themselves and one also taught there.One is homeschooling BECAUSE of this school district. She was told to "quit reading so much" when she was in high school. The same teachers are still there.

If there was a Sudbury school in my area, my kids would be enrolled if they wanted to be. Our co-op is kind of like a school since we do have classes ,fieldtrips,sports and playgroup with these people several times a week. I like the fact that my kid can spend all day working on computer programming instead of 40 minutes, 3 times a week or whatever the school class would be. My district never even had "duel enrollment"(allowed to take college classes during highschool),so my son would not be doing his MIT classes either.(BTW, the MIT classes are open course and anyone can do them for free)

My kids just finished their "school" for today. The are walking the dogs now and will then get to play video games for a while. Tonight,my daughter has piano and tae kwon do until 9pm. I do not think if she had a full day at school and she got home at 4pm,did homework, eat, go to piano/TKD and get home at 9:30 would be fun for her. She also has hockey 3-4 times a week.She would have no down time at all. I am not saying millions of kids who have that kind of schedule don't love it and do fabulous with a schedule like that. I am saying MY KIDS like the schedule we have that offers more flexibility. We are busy 7 days a week and it is hard for ME because I plan all the stuff and do all the driving,but the kids love it.

MY kids also know if they wanted to go to school they could. They have no desire because they don't feel they are missing out on anything. The stupidest question I get asked is "What about the Prom?" Like that matters somehow. What about it?They can go to the prom with a school friend if they want. We already have several balls a year with themes and dancing and all that. We are planning the Halloween Ball right now.

[Koala]

I highly doubt it in my school district. For one, all they care about it sports. My kids only get comments on their sports when I turn in my portfolios.They don't have a fencing club and my daughter would not be on their hockey team because she played with all those boys last year and doesn't want to again.The school district spent 4 million dollars putting in an astroturf football field and new track when their team hasn't won in 30 years. Why not add a new computer or chemistry labs with that money?

This school district has been under construction for 10 years straight. They did 1 school building at a time.If my kids went to those schools, my older 2 would only know what it is like to be doing school with the noise of construction and drywall dust. They finally finished the schools last year and decided to tear up the parking lot 1 week before school started this year.(when it was empty all summer)So once again, the kids are listening to construction vehicles all day.

I also get a call every year asking if my kids want to take the PSSA's with the school because the school average is 77% and my kids average is high 90's. I am not interested. I do not believe MY school district can provide a better education for my kids than I can. I cannot speak for other districts.

I have 2 friends who attended my school district themselves and one also taught there.One is homeschooling BECAUSE of this school district. She was told to "quit reading so much" when she was in high school. The same teachers are still there.

If there was a Sudbury school in my area, my kids would be enrolled if they wanted to be. Our co-op is kind of like a school since we do have classes ,fieldtrips,sports and playgroup with these people several times a week. I like the fact that my kid can spend all day working on computer programming instead of 40 minutes, 3 times a week or whatever the school class would be. My district never even had "duel enrollment"(allowed to take college classes during highschool),so my son would not be doing his MIT classes either.(BTW, the MIT classes are open course and anyone can do them for free)

My kids just finished their "school" for today. The are walking the dogs now and will then get to play video games for a while. Tonight,my daughter has piano and tae kwon do until 9pm. I do not think if she had a full day at school and she got home at 4pm,did homework, eat, go to piano/TKD and get home at 9:30 would be fun for her. She also has hockey 3-4 times a week.She would have no down time at all. I am not saying millions of kids who have that kind of schedule don't love it and do fabulous with a schedule like that. I am saying MY KIDS like the schedule we have that offers more flexibility. We are busy 7 days a week and it is hard for ME because I plan all the stuff and do all the driving,but the kids love it.

MY kids also know if they wanted to go to school they could. They have no desire because they don't feel they are missing out on anything. The stupidest question I get asked is "What about the Prom?" Like that matters somehow. What about it?They can go to the prom with a school friend if they want. We already have several balls a year with themes and dancing and all that. We are planning the Halloween Ball right now.

It is awesome that you have a group like that! A Halloween Ball sounds like so much fun!

[FlorenceHamilton]

Perhaps one of the problems in discussing the topic is in the definition of terms. Is unschooling simply child directed education or is it simply letting the child learn only if they feel like it and only what they want to do?

It seems to be that there is a huge difference. In the first instance, we allow the natural curiosity of the child direct the starting point, but provide venues and guidance to expand on the topic(s) until learnng becomes global. In the second instance, we have a good excuse for folks to do bible study once or twice a week and let the kids be available to stay out of the way or slave for their parents.

[Sydney Fox]

Okay, I'll weigh in here. I'm a secular Canadian Homeschooler. I'm not surprised by the findings in this article, but the sample size is very small. I am a very structured homeschooler, but I believe that kids should have time to do what interests them as well, so I only require about 5 hours of schoolwork a day with no homework. My 12 year old daughter is gifted and works several years ahead of her age mates. Last year she won the local science fair and placed well at the regionals. This year she is old enough to try for the Canada-wide Science Fair and has set her sights on that. And, science isn't even her best subject. I require that my daughter work hard at her schoolwork, but then she has time to follow her own interests. She writes stories and poems, does crafts and reads constantly. The library loves us because we keep their circulation numbers up.

I think that unschooling works if you put lots of work into it. Clibbyjo is proof of that. That said, most of the unschoolers I know have tried structured homeschooling, and either found it too time-consuming, or lacked the discipline required to get the work done. Many resort to unschooling because they are too lazy to get the job done. One woman I know, who homeschools her son and daughter, decided to unschool because the structured schooling interfered with her shopping habit. Now she takes the kids shopping with her and calls it "unschooling". She keeps changing math programs because her daughter "doesn't get math". Well, if her daughter would do math more than once every three weeks, she might get it. Duh.

My daughter does well because she is expected to excel, and because I put HUGE amounts of energy and time into her education - planning and teaching. My kids' educations are my life (I also have a 4 year old and a 14 month old) - this is my calling. I also mentor two friends who are homeschooling their younger kids. My daughter is proof to them that homeschooling can provide a great education, and develop wonderful human beings.

Homeschooling is not for everyone. I see it as only one option for parents who want their children educated. Choice is good, and one size does not fit all. My daughter excels because we homeschool and it is a good fit for her, but my niece also excels in public school because it is what she needs.

Alright, I'll step off my soapbox now and go back to semi-lurk mode. :D

[prairiemuffin]

I think that unschooling works if you put lots of work into it.

That's the rub. To truly unschool, it is a LOT of work. Like, all day every day work. I have a close friend who unschools, as well as several others who follow a more traditional structured homeschool model, and they consistently remark on how they don't know how she does it. She views her job as being a compass to her kids, and the conduit to ensure that they are gaining knowledge in al the areas they need in a way that is the most stimulating for them. I certainly wouldn't know how to do it "right". For example, how do you find way to get a math-hating kid building math skills in a non-traditional math learning way?

[clibbyjo]

Okay, I'll weigh in here. I'm a secular Canadian Homeschooler. I'm not surprised by the findings in this article, but the sample size is very small. I am a very structured homeschooler, but I believe that kids should have time to do what interests them as well, so I only require about 5 hours of schoolwork a day with no homework. My 12 year old daughter is gifted and works several years ahead of her age mates. Last year she won the local science fair and placed well at the regionals. This year she is old enough to try for the Canada-wide Science Fair and has set her sights on that. And, science isn't even her best subject. I require that my daughter work hard at her schoolwork, but then she has time to follow her own interests. She writes stories and poems, does crafts and reads constantly. The library loves us because we keep their circulation numbers up.

I think that unschooling works if you put lots of work into it. Clibbyjo is proof of that. That said, most of the unschoolers I know have tried structured homeschooling, and either found it too time-consuming, or lacked the discipline required to get the work done. Many resort to unschooling because they are too lazy to get the job done. One woman I know, who homeschools her son and daughter, decided to unschool because the structured schooling interfered with her shopping habit. Now she takes the kids shopping with her and calls it "unschooling". She keeps changing math programs because her daughter "doesn't get math". Well, if her daughter would do math more than once every three weeks, she might get it. Duh.

My daughter does well because she is expected to excel, and because I put HUGE amounts of energy and time into her education - planning and teaching. My kids' educations are my life (I also have a 4 year old and a 14 month old) - this is my calling. I also mentor two friends who are homeschooling their younger kids. My daughter is proof to them that homeschooling can provide a great education, and develop wonderful human beings.

Homeschooling is not for everyone. I see it as only one option for parents who want their children educated. Choice is good, and one size does not fit all. My daughter excels because we homeschool and it is a good fit for her, but my niece also excels in public school because it is what she needs.

Alright, I'll step off my soapbox now and go back to semi-lurk mode. :D

I agree with you. To homeschool properly it has to become YOUR job. It is my life as well. I still have another 9 years to go until my youngest is 18 so I'm in the trenches. My partner and I are constantly making calls, setting up classes,sending e-mails and making plans.So are other members in our group. This morning I e-mailed the person in charge of the Faraday Science Extravaganza for tickets for the group in November and and trying to decide if I can squeeze in Riverquest( enviromental classes held on the river in a big boat) in oct. Its never ending. I am constantly on the lookout for new ideas, new classes etc.

As for unschooling definition, ask 100 unschoolers and you will get 100 answers. :) For me, its building off your children's interests. Like Steven Hawking for example since its the latest. My son read his bio first,then another ,more indepth bio. Now he is reading SH's book on Astrophysics and also the companion book that goes along with it. Next he is taking an astrophysics course from MIT. He has watched(actually all my kids have) educational documentaries on astrophysics which has lead to an interest in string theory,which leads to books and movies about that etc... It just goes on and on.

[Sydney Fox]

I agree with you. To homeschool properly it has to become YOUR job. It is my life as well. I still have another 9 years to go until my youngest is 18 so I'm in the trenches. My partner and I are constantly making calls, setting up classes,sending e-mails and making plans.So are other members in our group. This morning I e-mailed the person in charge of the Faraday Science Extravaganza for tickets for the group in November and and trying to decide if I can squeeze in Riverquest( enviromental classes held on the river in a big boat) in oct. Its never ending. I am constantly on the lookout for new ideas, new classes etc.

As for unschooling definition, ask 100 unschoolers and you will get 100 answers. For me, its building off your children's interests. Like Steven Hawking for example since its the latest. My son read his bio first,then another ,more indepth bio. Now he is reading SH's book on Astrophysics and also the companion book that goes along with it. Next he is taking an astrophysics course from MIT. He has watched(actually all my kids have) educational documentaries on astrophysics which has lead to an interest in string theory,which leads to books and movies about that etc... It just goes on and on.

I've got 17 more years to go until my little guy is done. :D I like to consider what we do as classical unschooling. I provide very rigorous school materials and when my daughter has finished with that, she has lots of time to follow her interests. I provide materials to help her with whatever her latest interest is, whether it's Edgar Allen Poe, The Faerie Queen, penguin rescue or Tudor England.

When I was going to school I couldn't wait until summer holidays or Christmas to read what I wanted and learn all the things I didn't get to in school. School seemed to take up all of my life. I see homeschooling as a way to find a balance between the things my kids have to learn and the things they really want to learn. Child-led learning is an incredible way to delve deep into a subject, and the retention of knowledge is unparalleled.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

I highly doubt it in my school district. For one, all they care about it sports. My kids only get comments on their sports when I turn in my portfolios.They don't have a fencing club and my daughter would not be on their hockey team because she played with all those boys last year and doesn't want to again.The school district spent 4 million dollars putting in an astroturf football field and new track when their team hasn't won in 30 years. Why not add a new computer or chemistry labs with that money?

This school district has been under construction for 10 years straight. They did 1 school building at a time.If my kids went to those schools, my older 2 would only know what it is like to be doing school with the noise of construction and drywall dust. They finally finished the schools last year and decided to tear up the parking lot 1 week before school started this year.(when it was empty all summer)So once again, the kids are listening to construction vehicles all day.

I also get a call every year asking if my kids want to take the PSSA's with the school because the school average is 77% and my kids average is high 90's. I am not interested. I do not believe MY school district can provide a better education for my kids than I can. I cannot speak for other districts.

I have 2 friends who attended my school district themselves and one also taught there.One is homeschooling BECAUSE of this school district. She was told to "quit reading so much" when she was in high school. The same teachers are still there.

If there was a Sudbury school in my area, my kids would be enrolled if they wanted to be. Our co-op is kind of like a school since we do have classes ,fieldtrips,sports and playgroup with these people several times a week. I like the fact that my kid can spend all day working on computer programming instead of 40 minutes, 3 times a week or whatever the school class would be. My district never even had "duel enrollment"(allowed to take college classes during highschool),so my son would not be doing his MIT classes either.(BTW, the MIT classes are open course and anyone can do them for free)

My kids just finished their "school" for today. The are walking the dogs now and will then get to play video games for a while. Tonight,my daughter has piano and tae kwon do until 9pm. I do not think if she had a full day at school and she got home at 4pm,did homework, eat, go to piano/TKD and get home at 9:30 would be fun for her. She also has hockey 3-4 times a week.She would have no down time at all. I am not saying millions of kids who have that kind of schedule don't love it and do fabulous with a schedule like that. I am saying MY KIDS like the schedule we have that offers more flexibility. We are busy 7 days a week and it is hard for ME because I plan all the stuff and do all the driving,but the kids love it.

MY kids also know if they wanted to go to school they could. They have no desire because they don't feel they are missing out on anything. The stupidest question I get asked is "What about the Prom?" Like that matters somehow. What about it?They can go to the prom with a school friend if they want. We a eady have several balls a year with themes and dancing and all that. We are planning the Halloween Ball right now.

I didn't mean to act like you or your kids weren't putting something into your days or that you weren't doing something for nothing? Obviously, things may have seriously changed since even I was a kid -- I'm 25. And I spent most of my adolescence in psychiatric hospitals. To the point where school officials fought my decision to stay in AP/Honors in a regular highschool until I graduated.

I was in eighth grade in Olathe, KS when the school district decided to basically stop teaching evolution. So I taught myself, because I was interested in this idea that the authority seemed so opposed to. I learned advanced website building skills on my own because it made me money. I was probably making a couple thousand every few months by fifteen or sixteen? That's what gave me the money to fly airplanes. I basically taught myself the physics and mathematics with ground school tutoring from my instructor. I think it was my senior year of high school where I was asked to be on this panel. They were building a new highschool which would have schooling...tracts basically. Kids who liked HomeEc would be funneled into food services...kids who were good at math would be funneled into aviation/engineering. I hated the whole thing and said as much. (I sucked at math yet had a profitable business designing websites and never took a highschool physics class but was flying airplanes by the time I was fourteen.)

My key to success was a love of reading and a desire to learn things that interested me. I think what makes me so sad is that parents (not you -- drawing more on my experiences with my sister, etc.) are so happy that their kid is reading Harry Potter or the Twilight series. What makes me sad is that by the time I have children, I think the public library will be totally obsolete.

[Sydney Fox]

My key to success was a love of reading and a desire to learn things that interested me. I think what makes me so sad is that parents (not you -- drawing more on my experiences with my sister, etc.) are so happy that their kid is reading Harry Potter or the Twilight series. What makes me sad is that by the time I have children, I think the public library will be totally obsolete.

I agree. Our library is full of people surfing on computers and very few actually taking books out. The librarians all know my daughter and we get calls all the time from them telling us that a book G (my daughter) might be interested in has just arrived. Frequently, G is the first person to read some of the books she has taken out, some of them 5 years old or more. We are complete book addicts and drag home bags full of books each week, as well as keeping Amazon in business. G is an extremely eclectic reader and spends much of her time at the library browsing through the stacks. Last week she took out some books that were written in both English and Urdu - that really got the librarians talking. LOL. We are doing our part to create great readers in our family, and our home is furnished with bookshelves and little else. Sadly, there are so few of us out there.

[cjsmom]

Thoughts from a Canadian public school teacher (special ed):

-The sample size in the study is far too small. A random sampling of kids from K-12, from all over the country, should be included.

-Homeschooling/Unschooling looks very different from province to province. In BC, it is very difficult to unschool/homeschool your kids without a certified teacher marking (grading) assignments and providing report cards based on kids reaching the same learning outcomes set by the government that kids in public and private schools are expected to reach (all of which have been co-created by highly experienced teachers).

-Gifted/talented kids will naturally perform better on standardized tests than kids of average or low average intelligence, regardless of how they are educated (or not).

-Excellent homeschooling (such as what ClibbyJo provides for her kids) takes a lot of work - probably about the same amount as I put in to teach my total of ~20 students in public school (plus those who just like to hang in the resource room because it's a welcoming place).

-Conversely, it's incredibly easy to give a kid a workbook or the day off... in public/private/home/unschooling settings.

[dirtyhippiegirl]

I agree. Our library is full of people surfing on computers and very few actually taking books out. The librarians all know my daughter and we get calls all the time from them telling us that a book G (my daughter) might be interested in has just arrived. Frequently, G is the first person to read some of the books she has taken out, some of them 5 years old or more. We are complete book addicts and drag home bags full of books each week, as well as keeping Amazon in business. G is an extremely eclectic reader and spends much of her time at the library browsing through the stacks. Last week she took out some books that were written in both English and Urdu - that really got the librarians talking. LOL. We are doing our part to create great readers in our family, and our home is furnished with bookshelves and little else. Sadly, there are so few of us out there.

The library is where you go to use the internet and, more likely, check out DVDs for free!

I sometimes feel like I'm the only bibliophile left who still loves books. I have a Nook but don't use it. My husband makes fun of me because I'll drop $100 at a used bookstore and, of course, get half the books that I could get online. Again, I'm only 25 but I remember being ten or eleven or twelve and getting deliciously lost in the library. It helped that I was a huge non-fiction fan. So I'm looking up 495.10 and the stuff around it looks interesting, too. And I'm going from point a to point b, marveling at everything in between. Honestly, I can't be the only person who had an interest in mental illness (non-fiction) and found a love of aviation/flying (also non-fiction) inbetween the shelves?

My childhood was being totally surrounded by walls of books. I have no memory of actually liking to read or even of the time when I "learned" to read. (I spent quite a bit of time pretending to read until I got it.) But when I started reading -- I couldn't stop. It wasn't necessarily a family thing. Hell, my father was a raging alcoholic at the time who absolutely hated driving me to the library. But I continued to read and read. :)

[dirtyhippiegirl]

Dirtyhippygirl, I started a reply earlier and then got sidetracked :)

We homeschool (not unschool) and my kids do a lot of similar stuff. Obviously not reading the same books, interested in the same subjects or doing the same activities, but similar stuff. Each child has their own interests and they pursue that.

Their friends who are homeschooled/attend public school/attend private school also have their own interests and pursue those in their own time. Some are big time into programming right now (as is my 13 year old); some attend extra classes (in person or on-line) for subjects that their schools don't offer, and most have interests and read loads of books on subjects not covered during their "normal" school hours. Also about 90% of them do volunteer work regularly. Some hold down a part-time job on weekends and during holidays.

I think it is a little easier for my kids because they DO have more free time, but I really don't see their non-homeschooled friends having no academic/sport interests outside of their learning in school.

It's okay. I went into nursing because I have a bit of the ADD. ;)

Anyway, I'm glad that you've witnessed the magical phenomena of having interests outside of school/learning/sports.

At the end of the day, I hate that "my kid likes to read!" is a reason to gloat.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

The library is also where you go to lose yourself in years and years of microfilmed newspapers, both local and otherwise. That and the full run of loads of magazines on actual paper, including women's magazines from the 1860's.

[Sydney Fox]

I don't know what you mean about the difficulties of homeschooling/unschooling in BC. I live in BC and it is by far the easiest place in Canada to homeschool. All you have to do is register at your local school as a homeschooler and there are no other requirements.