ABC News has an article about Joe and Dayna Martin’s approach to unschooling titled Unschooling: No Tests, No Books, No Bedtime, in which the reporter seems somewhat aghast at the concept: “They live as though school doesn’t exist. They’re at home all day, but they’re not being homeschooled. They’re being “unschooled.” There are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world.”

The writer does concede “It’s a philosophy that makes sense to a small but growing number of parents. Unschooling is legal in many states, and now there are at least 150,000 unschooled families nationwide.”

The comments are as interesting as the article – perhaps more so – from declaring unschooling ‘immoral’ and ‘just plain wrong’ to this insightful question: “How does ABC know that ‘roughly 150,000′ children are ‘unschooled’? It is only estimated that 2-3% of all school aged children are homeschooled at all, and most who homeschool don’t have to declare their ‘method’ of homeschooling anywhere. Where did ABC come up with this number of unschooled children?”

A several minute video clip accompanies the piece. It’s a pretty typical article, but unschooling is not exactly news; it’s every bit as old as the concept of homeschooling itself.

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.

Wow, unschooling hasn’t gotten this much attention – maybe ever.

After over 30 years, thousands and thousands of families from almost every walk of life and across multiple generations, I do not see that unschooling needs any need defending. In fact, unschooling has a more proven track record than say, 1994 Educate America Act, Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind. These reforms have come and gone, or are their way out with a new round of reform to take their place.

Yet, after a tightly edited 5 or 6 minute segment on GMA we now have expert critics on the subject:

Careful, don’t ‘unschool’ your kids

I often advocate that parents “trust their instincts.” But if you are one of the small but growing number of parents “unschooling” their kids — I think you should start doubting!

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Is Unschooling the Worst Idea Ever?

Enter unschooling, a new movement that takes kids out of school and let’s them do whatever they want at home.

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Unschooling: The Ultimate in Lazy Parenting

The popularity of homeschooling has been skyrocketing. As most people know, teaching your kid at home isn’t easy; it takes time and patience. Maybe that’s why a small faction of renegade parents have turned to “unschooling” their kids. It’s easy enough: All you have to do is … well, nothing actually.

Here is a review of the journalism behind the original GMA piece:

Unschooling and Unjournalism.

My primary job is that of a homeschooling father. But my other job -– the one that I actually get paid for –- is in media analysis. Both of these sides of myself were deeply troubled by a feature on ABC’s “Good Morning America” earlier this week that set itself up to be a news report on radical unschooling. It featured the close-knit, intelligent family of Phil Biegler and Christine Yablonski and their teenage children. But rather than offer a fair and detailed portrait of these individuals, the ABC story was a hatchet job from the start.

Frankly the GMA piece is a throw-away. It was run for ratings and the news/entertainment cycle will move on to the next big outrage or oddity. A few people will be convinced one way or other but mostly positions will just be hardened – pro or con.

My bigger concern is the division within the homeschool community. Over the years a tremendous amount of virtural blood has been spilled and ill will has been generated for political ambition and ideological purity, and, those divisions were reflected in comments and on email lists over the last few days. We had better figure out how to reject the leadership that fueled these divisions and start working together or homeschooling – as fits your family – will be swallowed up in the next round of reform.

Christine Yablonski and Phil Biegler appeared live on “Good Morning America” today to defend their controversial education method, which prompted an overwhelming response from viewers after a story about their family appeared on Monday’s show, titled “Extreme Homeschooling: No Books, No Classes, No Tests, No Curriculums.” Yablonski and Biegler, from Westford, Mass., describe unschooling as living as if the school system doesn’t exist. They don’t homeschool their children — they allow their teen daughter and son to decide what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it. There are no textbooks, no tests and no formal instruction.

After their story was featured on “Good Morning America” on Monday, viewers wrote in expressing everything from outrage to confusion to support, raising questions about the differences between homeschooling and unschooling, and how unschooled children could be prepared to function as adults. Today’s story details the controversy and includes video clips from both shows.

Reading the headline, More Parents Opting For Homeschooling, in my newsreader I thought I knew what I would find. But when I followed the link:

Does your child hate going to school? Is she stressed out, pressurized and overloaded? Or, are you sick of the conventional schooling system? Simple, don’t send them to school. Try homeschooling — that’s what more and more parents in Bangalore are doing.

India? So, what how does this Indian site say about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ to homeschool?

“My wife and I were not satisfied with the education we got. We don’t trust the present system of schooling. I don’t want to see my child growing up without thinking.”

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None of them thrust books on their children. “When my child was in first grade, I used to take him to shops and make him understand addition and subtraction. Later, I used textbooks as worksheets. That’s how I taught him maths,” said a parent, Chetana Keni. Children are encouraged to figure out things by themselves and find pleasure in learning new things.

Encouraged by the portrayal of homeschooling from The Times of India I went looking for another non-homeschooling site’s take and sandwiched between, “Get Rid Of Belly Fat Three Crucial Areas” and “Understanding Your Style of Ladies Leather Handbags” I found, Is Homeschooling For My Family?:

“First you need to evaluate your knowledge base and your teaching skills. Will you be able to teach your children everything they would learn in any other school?”

I can recommend reading The Times of India piece. The other? Read the The Times of India piece.

From home schooling to ‘unschooling’

By Joe Burris of the Baltimore Sun

If most [people] think back to their own school experiences, how much of the information you were expected to learn do you know today?” added Conner, an unschooling parent. “We cannot know beyond the shadow of a doubt precisely what our children will need when they are 10, 20, 30 or 80. We do all want what is ‘best’ for our children and we want our children, now and when grown, to be poised to accomplish whatever they may decide is important. This is where unschoolers excel.”

While unschooling parents say the method is growing in popularity, some education experts question its effectiveness.

Joyce L. Epstein, director of the National Network of Partnership Schools at the Johns Hopkins University, had never heard of it. She knew of no research on the topic, “and research would be needed in order to justify it.”

Teri Flemal, director of Quality Education by Design, a New York-based program that helps parents hire personal teachers and build home curriculum, said she believes unschooling has its place. But she says it’s most useful for a child in a crisis transitioning from traditional schooling to home schooling, not as a regular teaching method.

“I’m reading e-mail from unschooling parents who think having their kids remodel their house with them is ‘school.’ I’m sorry, but it’s not,” Flemal said. “Painting, hammering, measuring – hey, that was great in primary school. I love that stuff.

Comments at the site are always interesting.

Woodbury teen (un) schooled in ways of the world REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
BY MATT JOHNSON

“I really got a sense of being a self-learner,” he said. “When you’re unschooled, you never stop learning just because you leave the classroom. I know how to seek the information that I want, and that’s huge in college.”

But while he was able to gain a solid fundamental knowledge of English and science, as he spent time with friends he began to realize that there were gaps in his education — such as higher math.

“I was hanging out with my friends, and they were talking about something that had to do with math and I had no idea what they were saying,” he said. “I started working harder to keep up with them.”

Berkowitz said his passion for information technology and the desire to keep up with his friends pushed him to dive into math more seriously than he had. He developed his own curriculum for learning algebra, but found that teaching himself more complicated concepts like geometry were beyond his means.

That realization drove him to a place he had never before stepped foot in — a classroom.

The article specifically asks for comments regarding unschooling:

What do you think of unschooling? Do you think it can work with the right child? Share your comments using the form below.

ht to Judy Aron of NHELD

If you’re looking for resources for Inaguration Day check out the great posts by Kathy Kidd-Wuest at the HEM Networking discussion group. From Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech to the National Geographic’s photo gallery to live streaming sites, Kathy shares some terrific links and resources for this historic event!

If you haven’t seen Julian Kreusser’s television program on Portland, Oregon public television or online at Blip.tv, you will want to check his show out soon.

Julian is an unschooler who has been interested in food since he was three. He is now five and his show is delightful.  I learned of this young chef via  Five-Year-Old Hosts Cooking Show: ‘Big Kitchen With Food’ gets national attention online.
–posted by Mary Nix

A few weeks ago The Wall Street Journal outed a Babble post by Joanne Rendell, author of The Professors’ Wives’ Club.

Unschooling

Nonetheless, when I used the term “unschooling,” they needed an explanation.

“There’s no good soundbite to describe it,” I said, “just as there’s no good soundbite to describe school. But generally speaking, unschoolers don’t send their kids to regular school and avoid teaching by curriculum. You won’t find them at the kitchen table every morning doing math, then reading, then geography.”

I went on to explain that unschoolers believe in letting a kid’s curiosity, interests and natural hunger for knowledge guide their learning.

“So are you unschoolers, then?” Julie, our friend, asked.

Brad and I exchanged glances then gave vague yes/no head waggles.

Ms. Rendell, herself, outed laid back unschoolers and it seems that some of Babble’s readers were initially outraged.

But outrage isn’t what Babble’s editor-in-chief saw. She saw readers who are either ‘behind the power curve’ in cool, or who perhaps are rocked (in the not-cool way) by reading about a child who is allowed to ‘be.’

The Anti-Schoolers, 15 October 2008, The New York Times

In Ms. Calhoun’s opinion, “what got people going,” was a sense that these readers “were being out-hipped or out-cooled,” as she put it, that they were “feeling jealous on some level that Joanne had the opportunity to stay home with her son.”

“And then the other side were comments just being totally critical of what they saw as not taking proper care of him,” Ms. Calhoun continued. “They were morally offended by this child sleeping late.”

If he has no appointments, and his family has a less-structured schedule, why does he need to wake up early?

In any case, the minimum compulsory school attendance age in New York is six (see “Compulsory school attendance age“), so however Benny is being raised (barring actual neglect or injury, a caveat I include because some people see anything outside their own style as a reason to call the authorities), the point is moot concerning schooling, whether it’s un-, home-, private or public.

I hope Benny and his family enjoy their time together.

** To every thing there is a season, but I do miss my all my kids being home (helped along by a little musical nostalgia from Chris).