Properly homeschooled?
I *thought* I had a grasp of the concept until it came to my attention that this is more than just about learning. It is a part of all interactions with children...
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I think you might be mixing what I see as 2 forms of unschooling. One kind is Radical Unschooling, which is a way of life, of living with your children, including educational style. The other one, is based more in educational style i.e.; no curriculum, total freedom for the child to follow their interests, joy-driven learning.
I'm becoming more and more radical as time passes, and it's freeing and soothing to me and to the kids. I don't know how "far" I'll go (I guess you could say), but with each change, my children and I respond better to one another, it's more fulfilling than ever before and we are enjoying one another more. It's not at ALL the child-king situation that I see you being concerned about. Or Lord of the Flies-esque. If so, we'd all be loosing our minds and not be as happy as these families are and I am.
Rather, this is a different type of hands-on parenting. It's just a matter of equality - we and our children are not the same. We are different, with different needs and wants and tastes. But we are still equal, and children can be an equal part of the family - it's almost like...in proportion to the whole family, I see it kind of like this: A new baby plays a strong role in the family, but not on decision making things. Babies of course can't chose their clothes, the carpet we buy or the color of the car or whatever we are doing, but as they age, they can and do. No reason NOT to allow that to happen! And as they age, the way they bring their ideas into the family, makes for more and more equality in more and more areas of the house...
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Unschooling is an attitude, a lifestyle, a belief that only the
learner has the power to gain information and only they can know what
is important for their own life journey. There is no way to pick out
activities and label them as unschooling or not. It's a philosophy,
not a set of actions.
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"What is the dividing line between homeschooling and unschooling?
Is it the type of work, the amount of work, or whether there is work at all?"
It has absolutely NOTHING to do with what work anyone is doing and EVERYTHING to do with the motivation behind the action. Unschooling is all about the learner choosing exactly what they want to learn, when they want to learn it and for their own reasons. That's why you can't say "workbooks aren't unschooling" because sometimes they ARE.
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***how do I prepare
him for the reality of most people's working-life: 8 - 5 stuck at a desk, working on someone else's schedule?***
Why does he need to be prepared for someone else's life?
He will meet all kinds of people and the ones who are "stuck" will seem like sad, stuck people to him. The ones who are alive and vibrant and who know they can do what they love will be the people who inspire him.
You can't prepare him for much, honestly. You don't know what he'll need in thirty years. But if you help him live the kind of life he wants to today, he'll be prepared to live the kind of life he wants in the future.
You can derail him though. You can make life seem like it sucks and he'd better get used to it, and chances are then, his life will suck.
***How much faith do you put in unschooling as "the right thing to do for the individual character" and how much is practical?** *
For me, faith doesn't enter into it at all.
When you think about how babies learn, they learn by doing. No one explains to a little baby how to pay attention to, or look for momma. Babies experience having their needs met and then naturally look to the one who has met them before to meet them again. No one explains how to start talking. Babies watch and listen to other people and experiment with making noise and then with saying words until they're talking. No one explains to them how to start walking. They become interested in standing and walking and we give them lots of opportunities to do that.
You have been trained to think that learning itself is a thing that is not natural to humans and must be put there by teachers. But humans naturally learn and naturally want to do what other humans are doing. There's evidence all around you in all the kids who aren't in preschool, who are walking and talking and playing and dressing themselves and feeding themselves. In the kids of people like me who aren't in school at all and never have been, who are pursuing interests and experimenting with ideas and in adults who are taking up new hobbies or traveling for fun, or making art, even though they're no longer in school.
You don't have to have faith *at all.* You just have to think.
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... There aren't very many teachers that devote extra time and focus on the individual. This was one of our main reasons to homeschool. Nothing compares to the homeschooled child and the rate at which they grow and progress ( assuming they are properly homeschooled;-)
The statement which lead to this post...
1 comment:
Re the title: Don't you know you should never assume? ;o)
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