WKOW, Madison, Wisconsin, 13 December 2006, UN-Schooling

Un-schooling is the idea that children will teach themselves what interests them, and parents are there only to go along with the ride. 27 News talked to a mother and author about this very different type of teaching.

Alison McKee says the function of this type of teaching is to create a culture where the student has a distinct desire to learn.

Last week I was on my way out of a Dr.’s office and I was surprised to hear Dr. Sanjay Gupta of CNN Health Channel talking about the importance of unstructured learning for children. He also mentioned Christopher Paolini so I visited the CNN Health Channel to try and find the report. I wasn’t able to find the excact one, but I did find an interesting interview that Dr. Gupta conducted with author Christopher Paolini last fall. You can access it at the CNN site here. (You will need to scroll down and click on “Environment sparks the genius inside?” that can be found within the green box titled WATCH on the upper right hand side)

There have been many unschooling articles in the news as of late and it is nice to see that some of them actually do see the value of allowing children to follow their interests at their own pace. I was reading my blog feeds this a.m. and saw that there was yet another decent peice on unschooling today!

You have to trust that the child will learn, ”Unschooling’ movement leaves education choices up to kids was published in the Chicago Sun-Times, December 24, 2006 BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

The whole report is a good read, but I particularly enjoyed the quotes below by Dorothy Werner and Pat Farenga:

“Not for everyone
Yet even advocates caution that unschooling is not for everyone.”It’s just kind of a scary way of doing things. Not many people are willing to go out on that limb,” said Dorothy Werner, founder of Home Oriented Unique Schooling Experience, an Illinois home-schooling support group.”You have to trust that children want to learn. You can’t believe that children must be forced to learn,” Werner said.”Parents who need to be in control … would have a hard time. If you want your child to be learning the same factoids as the child next door, unschooling is not for you.”

Home-schooling researcher Michael Apple, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is “wary of the hype.” He wonders what unschoolers are really learning about people of other races, religions and cultures.

“There is no public accountability,” Apple said.

Counters unschooling author Farenga: “Who is going to be the commissar of correct thought?”

William Schubert, professor of curriculum studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, home-schooled his daughter using a few unschooling ideas.

He says unschooling can be positive, but requires time, resources and “dialogue with … well-educated people.”

“We don’t know that children are innately curious. The question is open,” Schubert said. Some unschoolers “may not get any further than eating candy bars.”

Unschooling may be easier for parents with the time and resources, Farenga agrees, but “everyone can find that within their own little sphere.”

“I’m not trying to make this sound like it’s easy,” Farenga said, “but it’s not easy if your child is failing or hurting in school, either.”

Abby and others insist every child has a passion waiting to be ignited.

“Every person has something they absolutely adore and would like to do for the rest of their life,” Abby said.

“If you can pinpoint that, and have your kids run with it, you’d be amazed how excited your kids can be about learning.”

Posted by Mary Nix

homeschooled, unschooling

Education Week has published an article about unschooling, ‘Unschooling’ Stresses Curiosity More Than Traditional Academic by Michelle R. Davis. You may have to have a membership to sign in (it is free) to read the December 20th report, but it is worth taking the time to register.

Ms. Davis first tells us about Nicole Pucket’s family of Washington state:

On a typical day, Ms. Puckett’s childrenwho range in age from 4 to 17 and have never gone to a traditional school might watch a few hours of television, read the Bible, amuse themselves with video games, play with their siblings, practice the violin, or learn Russian. On many days, they’re out of the house visiting museums, going to concerts, or attending theatrical plays.“I believe that each child is gifted, but each has different gifts,” said Ms. Puckett, who sees it as her job to help facilitate the learning that her children choose. “When I see them veering toward something, I guide them toward it. If they’re showing no interest, then we don’t do it.”

This child-led method of home schooling means that what children do during a typical school day is entirely up to them. In an era of increased standardized testing, top-down curricula, and the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, unschooling is attractive to some parents, who say learning should be a more organic, curiosity-inspired exercise. Advocates say it allows children to become passionate about, and invested in, their own learning.

Ms. Davis also addresses some of unschooling’s critics. Here is just one:

Risks Involved
But critics, including some of those who opt for more-structured home schooling and proponents of “child centered” classrooms in regular schools, say that there are risks involved, and that learning deficits can result from letting children basically learn whatever they want. Nel Noddings, an education professor emeritus at Stanford University, describes herself as an advocate of child-centered education when it is done right. But she said unschooling raises many questions of concern.

You can also listen to an interview Ms. Davis conducted with Jane Powell, a Bowie, Md. unschooler.

All in all I think it is a fair report.

Posted by Mary

Madison, Wisconsin’s WKOW 27 reporter, Elizabeth Hopkins, recently offered a well-balanced report on “Un-Schooling”. She talked with unschooling Mom Alison McKee who unschooled her two children who are now grown. Ms. McKee is also the author of “Homeschooling Our Children Unschooling Ourselves” and “From Homeschooling to College and Work: Turning Your Homeschooling Experiences into College and Job Portfolios”.

In the interview, Ms. McKee states that when asking individuals what they learned in 3rd grade?, they can’t remember, but if it is directly related to something that they needed to know, for whatever reason, they will remember it. I don’t recall what I learned in public school in 3rd grade, but I do recall that our very kind 3rd grade teacher was married that summer and that our entire class was invited. I can’t recall what books we read that year, nor what math text we used, but I do remember feeling like an honored guest when I attended the wedding!

At the end of her story, Ms. Hopkins mentions that she had the pleasure to meet Ms. McKee’s adult daughter and that for the record she seems like a very well adjusted individual. I wonder if Ms. McKee’s daughter felt the reporter was a well-adjusted reporter? Seriously, Ms. Hopkin’s interview with Ms. McKee is an excellent one.

You can access the interview with Ms. McKee here.

Posted by ~ Mary

This article from Massachusetts provides a reasonably broad look at unschooling, along with the ‘balanced’ viewpoint from professional educators. I’m still looking forward to the day when the articles about public school include ‘obligatory’ comments from homeschooling veterans.

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Massachusetts, 9 December 2006, When DROPOUT isn’t a bad word: Some local teens are thriving by setting their own schedules and learning by doing

Some education experts worry that unschoolers will lack social skills and basic life skills necessary for life.

“Schools provide sort of a liberal arts education. You get well-rounded. Does that happen in an unschooled situation?” said Lorne Ranstrom, chair of the division of teacher education at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy. “Who’s in charge of that kind of teaching? Is it her parents? Is she pretty much on her own?”

Donna San Antonio, a lecturer at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, agrees.

“The idea behind unschooling is that not everyone is going to be a biologist or a mathematician,” San Antonio said. “The idea is that people can follow the path that their own learning brings them.

“The problem is that we never know where our lives are going to bring us. Some people find themselves in situations where doors are closed because they didn’t have biology or they didn’t have algebra 2 and pre-calculus.”

The up-side of the article focuses on specific people and their accomplishments. Both John Holt and Grace Llewellyn are mentioned.

Anna Finklestein left Sharon High School after the ninth grade because she was bored and felt she could put her time to better use. She started a professional theater company for young adults, interned at Boston’s Huntington Theater and took college courses at the Harvard Extension School.

This year, she got a part-time job at Ward’s Berry Farm.

At 16, she spends her spare time thinking up future projects and how to accomplish them – like starting a coffee shop, a homeless shelter or a baby-sitting service.

“I’m unschooled. I basically control what I do,” said Finklestein, whose second theater production, “The Laramie Project,” closes this weekend.

Dr. Phil’s show put up a poll:

Which style of schooling do you think is best?
Public school
Private school
Homeschooling
Unschooling

You, too, can vote.

(Daryl had it first:  Freep this poll)

 

Daryl also linked to an article about unschooling:

The New York Times (via the International Herald Tribune), New York, New York, 26 November 2006, In extreme form of home schooling, kids call the shots

As the number of children who are home-schooled grows – an estimated 1.1 million across the United States – some parents like Walter are opting for what is perhaps the most extreme application of the movement’s ideas. They are “unschooling” their children, a philosophy that is broadly defined by its rejection of the basic foundations of conventional education, including not only the schoolhouse but also classes, curriculums and textbooks.

In its modern U.S. incarnation it is among the oldest home-schooling methods. But it is also the most elusive, a cause of growing concern among some education officials and social scientists.

Two Google-able names for the concern are Michael Apple and Rob Reich.

“It is not clear to me how they will transition to a structured world and meet the most basic requirements for reading, writing and math,” said Luis Huerta, a professor of public policy and education at Teacher’s College of Columbia University in New York, whose national research includes a focus on home schooling.

They’ll do it just like kids from other educational paths.

Over Thanksgiving my sister told me that her publicly-schooled son who is now a college freshman, observed (after his always-unschooled sister was told :::again::: by non-family members about how college was going to be a shock to her) that college was a shock for public school grads, too.  Any change is a shock.  Not all the people who find their college freshman year difficult are homeschoolers.

No, I don’t know why this only just showed up in my Web Clips. 

The overall feeling of this blog post is exciting as the main subject is how a family is “taking a year off” and traveling the country, plus how the daughters in the family will be (apparently unschoolishly) homeschooled.

Still, I sense an ambivalence on the part of the blogger about homeschooling itself.  The importance seems to be what homeschooling can offer to schooling, not the “medium is the message” value of homeschooling itself — nor the value of everyday parents homeschooling their children.

Confessions of a Aca/Fan:  The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins, 20 September 2006, The Education of Sky McCloud

My wife and I home schooled our son for a year when he was Sky’s age and oddly enough, one of his primary textbooks was Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, but at the end of that year, he returned to a private school for the rest of his high school experience. I am not suggesting everyone should home school their kids. Most people should not. But I am glad that it is an option and I think that educators should study what is working in these home school contexts and pull the best of it back into their pedagogical practices.

The comments are varied, and I spy Chris O’Donnell’s e-signature among them. 

Still, the McCloud family’s homeschool-journey journal is interesting.

McCloud Tour

first blog entry:  Pre-tour:  Getting ready for September 5

The Official Website is at:

The Making Comics 50 State Tour

I can understand a ‘civilian’s’ reaction to the concept of unschooling because I didn’t embrace it when we set off on what would be our homeschooling adventure. (a tip of the hat to HSWatch for the link)

Salem’s Lots blog, 11 October 2006, I was born way too late, or, Unschooling, no fooling…

This new trend is to let the KIDS decide what they want to learn. As if the little bastards aren’t narcissistic enough..

Like John H. at Salem’s Lots, unschooling looked irresponsible, and, for me, the initial homeschooling-flavor-of-choice was a ‘school in a box.’ That changed by the next year because ‘school in a box’ didn’t work for us.

After that first ‘if we could divorce each other we would’ year, our style settled down to what I called ‘sorta schooling’ which consisted of me reading to the kids what I thought they ought to know: history-from-the-beginning with appropriate stops for literature and science. After my voice failed for the day, we’d go off on our own. Mom croaking = school’s out, sauerkraut. I read to the kids because, 1) I like reading aloud, 2) reading aloud is a family tradition, 3) I hate nagging people to ‘do stuff,’ and 4) I’m a tightwad and my voice cost less than four copies of each book.

Sometimes we’d go off together if, say, it was a nice day. Then we ‘did P.E.,’ which was code for long walks out to the lake and nature preserve formerly known as a gravel pit. We also enjoyed bike rides through the woods and out to a bridge where we’d desultorily play Pooh Sticks. We also laughed a lot, such as the time my (famously loud) sneeze echoed back to us in the woods.

John H. finishes up with:

Actually, I’m glad my parents ‘schooled’ me. I’m the proud owner of a B.A. in Political Science..a degree I have not used in any form or fashion in my entire adult life.

Yeah, my kids got degrees, too, and they’re all using their degrees in one form or another. (in the interest of full-disclosure, I have naught but 98.6 degrees augmented by a large at-home library) But, as one sometimes finds out through homeschooling, it isn’t the degree that’s most important, it’s the life. Ours was grand and we’re still having fun more of the time than when we’re not having fun.

Good luck and happy lives to you and your commenters, John.

I don’t know if Geraldo’s ‘deciders’ got the idea from MSN, or if unschooling is just coming to the notice of those in the news business.

This article from MSNBC is ‘middle of the road,’ and includes the obligatory nose-counting, and counter-opinion from an expert, with the extras,

• “Others have called unschooling ambient learning or child-led learning. Some call it bunk.”
• “Homeschooling itself is controversial.”

The idea that the earth revolves around the sun was once controversial, too.

MSNBC, Redmond, Washington, 2 October 2006, A new chapter in education: unschooling Controversial home-taught approach lets kids take the lead in learning

Mom, Heather Cushman-Dowdee, keeps the younger girls, Fiona, 5, and Gwyneth, 2, busy drawing pictures. For Isobel, she’s made a large grid with numbers down the side and across the top so her daughter can fill in the multiplication answers. Not that Cushman-Dowdee cares if Isobel does the chart. It’s just that the girl actually wants to do it. Occasionally they play math games or sing counting songs.

…

Shana Ronayne Hickman of Cedar Park, Texas, says unschooling has worked well for her son, Kenzie, 8.

She first learned of unschooling when her son was 3. “It made more sense than anything I had ever read in my life,” says Hickman, who now publishes an unschooling support magazine called Live Free Learn Free. “Of course, people learn best when they’re interested in something. Of course, we retain information much better when we actively seek it out. Of course, learning through life is ideal.”

Those less-or-more positive mentions are offset by an outsider’s opinion.

Dembo, the author of “Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success,” (sic) agrees that the best education comes when children are self-motivated, but he says without formal matriculation some kids risk simply being left out.

And this, from a review of Mr. Dembo’s book: “Motivation and Learning Strategies for College Success teaches college students how to become more self-directed learners.”

Unschoolers probably show up at college already self-directing.

I also don’t know why the reporter asked a person in the mainstream educational business how unschoolers get into college.  Wouldn’t someone like Peter Kowalke have more inside information than a person with the opinion that children of upscale parents won’t be “harmed as much” by unschooling as their less well-to-do peers?

They may not master basic skills, they won’t receive so much as a high school diploma, and their chances for productive futures could become nonexistent.

Yes, but …  Children in regular schools don’t all master basic skills, and even if they do receive high school diplomas sometimes the peer pressure within high schools makes their productive futures nonexistent as well.

If we’re going to have mainstream counter-opinions in articles about homeschooling, we ought to have homeschooling counter-opinions in the human interest articles about schools as well. 

 

Yet he acknowledges there are alternative ways to gain college acceptance — such as taking the GED or writing an essay. And unschoolers may enroll in school, or even community college, long enough to develop something of a transcript.

” … something of a transcript?”  Unschooled teens are able to enumerate and quantify their activities as well as anyone else, and if the family wants, they can even use a school such as Clonlara.  Unschooling activities can fit nicely into a transcript-generating format.

Still, I’m cautiously glad to see unschooling getting mainstream attention.  Greater awareness of the richness within homeschooling can help more people understand that homeschoolers and unschoolers are ‘just folks,’ like everyone else.

Yesterday evening, Pat Farenga of Holt Associates, and editor of the Growing Without Schooling newsletter, was interviewed on Geraldo Rivera’s television show. I missed seeing it (duty called), but the reports on email lists about the interview are positive. The one complaint is that the news show recommended that state boards of education be the source for homeschooling information.

Geraldo’s website doesn’t (yet?) have any links to the story, so the only discussion right now is on the email lists.