This great headline is brought to you via Zev Singer of the The Ottawa Citizen and was found in a story about 19 year old Emily Witts. In a nut shell:

From ‘unschool’ to head of the class

When Emily Witts was homeschooled, the curriculum was pretty simple: her parents got her a library card. Read what you want, they said.

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For the next decade, there were no tests or exams, no science projects, no report cards.

So it was a bit of a culture shock for her last year, when Witts, now 19, finally went to school…

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The academic achievement, and the determination that went into her transition from the Pippi Longstockingesque curriculum to the more usual scholastic world, has landed Witts a Spirit of the Capital Youth Award in the category of academic perseverance.

And how is it working out so far?

So far, Witts has scored one B+, one A, and in each of the other seven courses an A+.

Soon, she will graduate.

While this piece quotes Emily’s defense of unschooling:

The wide-open educational model is sometimes referred to as “unschooling” and Witts defends it, saying a lot of people can’t see how it would work. She says it has huge advantages, like not burning kids out and souring them on learning.

The fact that this is a story of a girl who learned to assume the responsibility for her own education, and, with that, was able to put an entire elementary and secondary school ‘career’ into a single year is left to the reader to pick up on. And that story is not as unusual as Emily’s award might suggest.

May 4 2010 in Unschooling MarkTags: academic perseverance, burnout, Canadian homeschooling, Emily Witts, homeschooling, Spirit of the Capital Youth Award, Unschooling
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