Unschoolers Underperform Homeschool and Public School Peers
ZOMG! Studies show that unschoolers – children with no curriculum or set subjects tend to be “below grade level” compared to traditionally homeschooled kids and their public school peers. Well duh. This “problem” is often trotted out by those afraid that unschooling is next to child neglect. The study used 5-10 year olds and used a standardized test to rank kids. Are you surprised that unschooled kids did not excel at this? Of course they didn’t and here are some of the reasons why: Unschooled kids have little to no experience with...
Read MoreFive Steps to Get You Started in Unschooling
If you haven’t already done so you might want to read my previous series on my Homeschool Philosophy. It is a three part series that looks at holistic education, pedagogy, and most importantly, the 4 tenants of unschooling which are; Child-led Delayed Academics Interest based No Universal Knowledge In all honesty there is only one unschooling tenant: Child-led. Delayed academics and Interest based both stem from being child-led and if you are taking the child’s lead then all learning will be different, hence No Universal Knowledge. So, let’s say these ideas intrigue...
Read MoreMy Homeschooling Philosophy: Part 3
In Part 1 of this series I introduced the concept of Holistic Learning which focuses on the broader topics of knowledge of self, community, and nature instead of the discreet skills taught in traditional schooling. In Part 2 I discussed different approaches to teaching: transfer, transact, and transform. Now I want to conclude my series with a look at the continuum of homeschooling methods. The scale moves from highly structured on the left to completely unstructured on the right. Most homeschoolers (and even unschoolers) fall somewhere in between or even hop around depending on their...
Read MoreWhat I Learned in School
I’m preparing a series on “how to” unschool (which should be funny if you are familiar with unschooling at all!) but it got me thinking about what from my public school education I really learned. Not learned in the sense that I memorized it and then got an A on the test (which I was good at) but learned as in had an impact on my whole life and my formation of self identity. I had a “successful” public school experience. I was in the top 10% of my class and I went on to get several college degrees. However, the things I have “learned” that have...
Read MoreHomeschooling and Educational Neglect
I recently read this article on Salon.com called Home-schooled and Illiterate. My first thought as I read this very long and very disorganized article is that it was an editorial by a lay person. There is really no journalism in the article at all. She uses a very small sample of anecdotal stories and didn’t seem to spend any time researching the facts. It is written by Kristin Rawls who, according to Alternet, is a freelance writer. I’ve never read anything else by her so I can’t comment but based on this piece I would say she isn’t very diligent in her...
Read MoreMy Homeschooling Philosophy: Part 2
If you haven’t watched it yet pop over here to see my first post in this series about defining holistic education. Today I want to look at three types of pedagological styles. A pedagogy is a style of teaching so the focus is not on the things being taught (curriculum) or the way of learning (learning philosophy). You can right away see the problem with this because looking at pedagogy in a vacuum is pointless. Teaching, in even the least holistic manner, is a two person (at least) relationship. However, as used by college teacher preparation programs pedagogy allows a focus on...
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