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The unschooling movement
New research shows that more Americans are homeschooling their children, and it’s not just conservative Christians.
The number of children who are homeschooled has risen 74 percent since the Department of Education started tracking the numbers in 1999. As of 2007, 2.9 percent of school-age children are homeschooled, 1.5 million children.
Parents are turning to homeschooling less for moral or religious reasons than before, according to the research. One researcher described a growing group of parents who are rejecting education standardization and embracing nontraditional education for their children – what they call “unschooling.”
The “unschooling” group is viewed by educators as a subset of home-schoolers, who generally follow standard curriculum and grading systems. “Unschoolers” create their own systems.
Are parents rejecting traditional education standards or does this reflect an increasingly private view of the family, I wonder?
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“I’m better than you!”
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Education is a family institution, and I think even non-Christians understand that on some level. I think some people, no matter what they’re religious persuasion just have a V8 moment and realize, “Hey, they’re OUR kids. Therefore, they’re OURS to educate!” And I think they also realize that it doesn’t do any good for parents to send their kids off to another institution for 6 hours a day for several years, then get upset because the kids are learning and adopting the ways of others. What did they accept to happen? When you give your children to someone else to raise, you won’t influence them. Someone else will. It’s a little too late to get mad because the 7th grade school counselor gave your kids condoms, when the school’s been talking to them when they rise up and walk along the way since the kids have been in kindergarten. Non Christians are capable of thinking these things through too. And good for them.
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That’s their religious persuasion, not they’re.
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You mean even some non-conservatives have come to our view that educational programs and policies should be under more local control and authority? You can’t get any more local than the home.
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Ivan Illich, and Deschooling Society! Ah, a great radical.
Of course, the idea was known some years ago, too, as Mark Twain once wrote, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education…”
There often is also a certain class bias to all this, as well but then if the swells want to unschool their kids – go ahead, after all that’s what wealth and its great safety net get you.
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Not quite enough research went into the writing of this article.
It said, “The ‘unschooling’ group is viewed by educators as a subset of home-schoolers, who generally follow standard curriculum and grading systems. ‘Unschoolers’ create their own systems.”
There are numerous homeschoolers (I would venture to say “most”) who create their own systems who are NOT unschoolers. They do not follow standard curriculum and grading systems at all. The better term to use here is “relaxed” schoolers.
“Unschooling” is typically thought of, in homeschool circles, as a completely child-led eduction. There is no official “table time” and the learning activities are pursued by the child, not led or suggested by the parent. There’s a difference. It’s the old “some unschoolers are relaxed schoolers but not all relaxed schoolers are unschoolers” train of thought.
As a homeschooler who combines relaxed and unschooling methods, I know both have their place and benefit (and shortfalls, which is why we don’t use one method exclusively). But I do believe any relaxed, delight-directed, tailored method is better than a generic one-size-fits-all school-based method that does not take into account the individual giftings and God-given purpose in the child’s life.
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I remember reading an article about “unschooling” and I believe it’s based on the old “Sudbury School” model, except that it’s even less formal than that because there’s no classroom. It’s rooted in the idea that children have an innate desire to learn and that if they’re just provided with a rich environment, they’ll educate themselves sufficiently. It’s definitely not an idea consistent with a Biblical worldview.
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This could work it the kids grow up and get an unjob.
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#4 Good point
#8 Seems to me the spelling bee winners ea year are homeschooled.
I know lotsa folks presume homeschoolers do so for religious reasons. Lotsa homeschool parents dont have experience as classroom teachers but they come into homeschooling after “stopping out” from jobs like engineer or lawyer. If you have to explain anything to anyone (project managers, jury panels) you are presumably a teacher already in one sense, no??
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How do homeschooled kids get admitted into demanding universities at such a high rate? I’d love to see their SAT scores compared to the un-homeschooled masses.
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8. The point I’m was trying to make is that life will not always be fun interesting and centered around your talents and interests. What are unschoolers ding to prepare their kids for that?
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I cannot write about everywhere else, but I know that in one very lberal city not far from here there is a homeschool group not based on conservative reasons, but the fact that the only high schools in the city are filled with drugs and violence, so they are homeschooling to protect their children.
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11. This is the reason, for our family, that I mentioned the value of combining “relaxed” schooling with unschooling. So our children do have “table time” where they need to accomplish certain subjects each day (specifically the 3 Rs for the most part), and then they also have abundant time to pursue their personal interests after that. And boy, howdy, do they do a fantastic job at that! It’s not just sit around and play video games (well, they can’t do that since we don’t have one) or ride their bikes aimlessly around the neighborhood. They cook, draw, knit, design websites, plan ministry outreaches, build things, learn languages, do science experiments, go cross country skiing in the park, write letters, etc. It’s a fun process to watch — and to trust.
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KBells–This could work it the kids grow up and get an unjob.
LOL–I agree!
Endyblue–So our children do have “table time” where they need to accomplish certain subjects each day (specifically the 3 Rs for the most part), and then they also have abundant time to pursue their personal interests after that.
The important thing is that you do have the structured learning as well as the freestyle learning. I don’t think anyone would say that children shouldn’t be encouraged to pursue wholesome interests of their own. But only one in a million children would ever get a sufficient education without some structure being imposed upon them.
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While I am a homeschooling advocate, I definitely agree with others on this thread that the unschooling method is not biblical. It’s antinomian and has more in common with libertinism than Christianity. Children need structure and they need to learn the discipline of learning things that aren’t necessarily interesting to them at the time.
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I always wonder why people comment on something that they haven’t researched. My daughter was unschooled – no curriculum, no imposed structure, no coercion of any kind to learn anything in particular. She chose her interests and pursued them according to how strongly she was interested. There was no “table time,” or pressure. She was never taught that learning should be anything but fun.
She’s now working on her dissertation to earn her PhD in sociology. She’s a statistician, has been academically published, and was the managing editor of a rural sociology publication for four years while earning her Masters and taking PhD level classes. She begins teaching this summer.
When children are allowed to learn topics of their own choosing, they immerse themselves in the topic and learn all they can about it. They then move on to something else. And they do this without anyone pushing them. It’s not just my daughter who has done this; there are thousands of families worldwide choosing the method that gives children a love of learning that grows with them into adulthood.
As far as Unjobbing goes, check out the book of the same title. Also read Nowtopia, which explains the reasons behind people pursuing their dream jobs outside of paying jobs they don’t particular enjoy.
Valerie Fitzenreiter, author of The Unprocessed Child: Living without School.
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I have always been too disorganized to do parent structured homeschool. Or so I thought until I realized we have been doing this for quite some time now. Daughter will be doing her next short research paper on diamonds, based on a question she just posed while walking from one study moment to the next. But the core courses are covered by Abeka.
As far as SAT’s, we are quite satisfied with what we have seen so far and the colleges they chose to attend were as well.
KBells 11,
I have seen my kids in public school and I am concerned for the future of our country. Not all teachers are bad but they are not given the tools they need to succeed. We have an excellent band teacher but he has students who have been left to their own activities and have no concept of sitting down to work. It is difficult. We have an excellent sixth grade teacher but she is taking students who, for years, have been free to roam and do their own thing in class. She has the job of suddenly teaching them to sit down and do their work, without her telling them the answers! Challenging to say the least.
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#16 I’d love to attend the annual meetings of the nation’s rural sociologists. Typical participant is probably just a Jeff Foxworthy in a tweed coat, puffing on a pipe.
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#19 I think in the early years the little ones require the martinet structured regimentation. As they age, less so.
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“Are parents rejecting traditional education standards or does this reflect an increasingly private view of the family, I wonder?”
Peter L hit on a HUGE 3rd reason for homeschooling.
Yes, we homeschool because we reject traditional education standards. Yes, we homeschool because education is a private family matter, and yes, we homeschool because warehoused kids in mega-schools are at tremendous risk, IMHO.
Not only are schools ineffective–they are increasingly dangerous, both spiritually and physically.
Our primary reason for homeschooling is our desire to incorporate our faith and learning together. Compartmentalizing life is detrimental to the parts and the whole.
BTW, we are not unschoolers, but for some kids/families, unschooling is a great choice. I’m personally too uptight to go that route!
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Around 1810 roughly 650 americans could read for one who could not. (Excluding the slave population which was forbidden). This was accomplished with only the faintest traces of our modern schooling system. The few institutions that existed were not compulsory.
Today Americans are amongst the least learned of all first world countries. Oddly, they are also the most prosperous, (as of two years ago).
Compulsion schooling exists to transform intelligent young boys and girls into machines capable of performing a specific task. Do you truly believe the human mind is so limited as to enact only one specialty? That a mechanic lacks space in his head to also appreciate literature and comprehend computers? School presents knowledge in a , manner utterly seperated from reality. Children who sense this reject both.
Children who interact with the real world (family, community, friends) often enter kindergarten fully capable of reading, multiplication, and division. Those who do not can easily learn. In fourth grade these children instead add eight to thirteen, and read books akin to Dr. Seuss. How could this not be intentional?
There is little need to blame the teachers. All important decisions are proclaimed by a distant beaurocracy. What parent is so idiotic he needs a federal board to tell him how to raise his children?
Before I become sidetracked, we should discuss what k-12 (with mandatory preschool imminent) produces. People who cannot cook, make their own clothes, repair their belongings, make decisions, educate themselves, empathize with others, or look to the future to name a few.
Behold: Abundant restaurants, enourmous clothing industry, every item utterly replacable, think tanks, certificates of knowledge, government charity, and a malleable populace. None of these were present before America introduced compulsion schooling.
Children are now trained to voraciously consume, to mindlessly accept, and to do as told. The facade of rebellion applies only to family, religion, and community; those three institutions which discourage such shallowness.
Here’s your assignment McPherson, don’t ask why, just do it.
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#20 Actually, I want to amend the endorsement of unschooling. If parents insist on excellence, but let their kids choose areas to focus on, that’s what I endorse.
Letting kids learn or not, based on their inclinations, is allowing laziness. I don’t think that’s what most unschoolers have in mind, though. (But I’m no expert there.)
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ValFitz #16
Have you seen that success in other kids? Have you read John Taylor Gatto?
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Provost, GREAT points! Compulsory anything (school, doc appts, testing, etc) is just a power grab by a too-powerful gov’t.
Parents in this country are generally considered guilty until they prove themselves innocent (of whatever the social worker decides to throw at them). Real criminals get more consideration.
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“How do homeschooled kids get admitted into demanding universities at such a high rate? I’d love to see their SAT scores compared to the un-homeschooled masses.”
Don’t have any stats to share, but in general home schooled students outperform their public school counterparts.
Valfitz: There might be some students who will by natural curiosity learn the classical core studies that undergird Western civilization. Many more might find them of interest if they stumbled across them. The reason why some structure is necessary is to ensure that the child is exposed to the literary, philospophical, and historical treasures of our civilization. The world view that brought unprecedented liberty, prosperity and technology to modern man needs nurture if we are to preserve the trajectory of human progress.
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BTW I’m not against homeschooling. I think kids get just as much of this “life should be fun and exciting all the time” in public and private schools. I think kids get a better eduction through home schooling. BUT, we decided our people-loving, only child would be miserable. At the moment he loves his four-hour-a-day private Christian school.
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Here’s an idea: we could remove all federal influence from school and give absolute control to states. Let people decide what their own children will study, like democracy would.
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Sawgunner,
Was the SAT question concerning homeschooled with curriculum of sorts compared to unschooled kids or kids not homeschooled?
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I don’t know where Provost [21] got his numbers about illiteracy, but rather obviously an illiteracy rate of .15 percent (1/650) is close to absurd. Joel Turtel (no liberal slouch, he) gives an illiteracy rate of 10 percent in 1795 for white males. National Literacy Campaigns (Springer, 1987) suggests a rate of 25 percent.
The common school as developed in Massachusetts was seen as an engine for economic growth, since it equipped the whole populace to take part and not just some. Not surprisingly, the common school was also seen as an engine to overcome economic and political tyranny. Here’s the rationale, from Horace Mann himself (and published by the US government). This vision of education equipping for work and for democracy is certainly present in most of the homeschoolers I’ve known; perhaps not as much for our unschoolers.
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Harris, according to the Census of 1840 (I don’t know whether state or federal) one citizen from every 579 was illiterate. And yes they could count back then. My previous estimate was from memory, the source is staring at me now. Remember also what was then considered literate ranks quite higher than the current standard.
In 1812 a fellow I am unfamiliar with (Pierre Dupont) claimed four of a thousand Americans couldn’t read well. The most illiterate state in 1840, had one out of nine unable to read. I don’t know whether that includes blacks. Check the census. In 2000 the national adult literacy survey revealed that 17 percent of whites cannot read. That’s worst than South Carolina was without compulsion education k-12.
The common school was intended to create economic and political tyranny as it has. Courts now decide what our rights are rather than citizens. Horace Mann wrote to a certain Reverend Samuel May, “Schools will be found to be the way God has chosen for the reformation of the world.” The American revolution took place from an ensemble that was not subjected to the weapons of mass instruction. Ben Franklin even dropped out of elementary school. The rest of the revolutionaries were primarily college aged men, who had not recieved PHDs in nation building. They did all right anyway.
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#10 – I don’t know actual grade comparisons on a recent scale, but I can say that all my experiences with other homeschoolers have had high SAT grades; not brainiacs, but not low grades.
Vouching for myself, I got a 90th percentile on my PSAT, a 2090 (out of 2400) on my SAT and a 30 (97th percentile) on my ACT.
We never had a “unschooling” portion of our learning; it was always structured (but not restrictive) or, at least, parent led.
Hope that answers your question!
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ValFitz: She’s now working on her dissertation to earn her PhD in sociology. She’s a statistician, has been academically published, and was the managing editor of a rural sociology publication for four years while earning her Masters and taking PhD level classes. She begins teaching this summer.
So obviously, she understands the difference between anecdotal and statistical evidence.
In other words, glad it worked out so well for her but I have a very hard time believing that most kids who go through this turn out so accomplished.
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Ken #25 writes:
“Don’t have any stats to share, but in general home schooled students outperform their public school counterparts.”
That’s true. Unfortunately, the comparisons I’ve found don’t take into account all the relevant variables. They typically look at race and parental education, but not things like “both original parents” and “parental involvement in education”. Obviously a home schooled child is going to have parents who are intimately involved in his education. I would wager that the home schooled child is also more likely to be in a household with both his birth parents. There’s also the fact that the public school system is already working with a loaded deck, so to speak, since the parents of particularly bright children often put them in private school or customized at-home programs.
My personal opinion is that if all these variables were accounted for, home schooled children would still probably outperform their public school counterparts, but the difference would be very slight.
Provost #21 writes:
“Compulsion schooling exists to transform intelligent young boys and girls into machines capable of performing a specific task.”
If that’s why it exists, then it’s doing an amazingly poor job.
“Do you truly believe the human mind is so limited as to enact only one specialty?”
No. And neither do public educators. That’s why literature, mathematics, science and history are all pre-requisites at the high school level.
“In fourth grade these children instead add eight to thirteen, and read books akin to Dr. Seuss. How could this not be intentional?”
It ~is~ intentional, and it’s because that’s the level many children are at when they reach the 4th grade. Mainly due to their home environments being abysmal. You’re also exaggerating the simplicity of 4th grade math curriculum. What I found online lists multiplication and division, decimals, long division and handling numbers into the hundreds of thousands. Not surprisingly, the home school 4th grade math curriculum I found was ~on the same level~.
I agree with you that the pace of math curriculum used in both public ~and~ home school programs is way slower than (most) children are capable of handling.
“we should discuss what k-12 (with mandatory preschool imminent) produces. People who cannot cook, make their own clothes, repair their belongings, make decisions, educate themselves, empathize with others, or look to the future to name a few.”
Pure hyperbole.
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Sawgunner – I’d love to attend the annual meetings of the nation’s rural sociologists. Typical participant is probably just a Jeff Foxworthy in a tweed coat, puffing on a pipe.
My daughter is not a rural sociologist. She was the managing editor for the publication. I’m sure there are a few tweed coats and maybe even a pipe or two at the conferences since most participants are professors. Jeff Foxworthy is successful and happy in his chosen field of work, so I’m not sure what you’re implying.
Provost – Children are now trained to voraciously consume, to mindlessly accept, and to do as told. The facade of rebellion applies only to family, religion, and community; those three institutions which discourage such shallowness.
I agree and it’s a sad thing to watch. Watch behind the scenes (and sometimes out front) of any fast food restaurant, retail store, or other place where young people are working. If they don’t mindlessly accept and do as they’re told, then they are fired – only to get another job in a similar establishment. Today’s minimum wage job is less than slave wages. Owners paid the equivalent of $100K for a slave back in darker times. How long would it take someone to earn that much money working at McD’s? Yet they feel they can’t get a better job after twelve years of compulsory education.
Provost – Have you seen that success in other kids? Have you read John Taylor Gatto?
Yes, I have met hundreds of successful unschoolers at conferences all over the country. My definition of success is that they have followed their own path or paths and it has led them to meaningful work that brings them joy. Google “Eli Gerzon” for example. He’s a prolific writer about his adventures, but he is only one of many who are refusing to accept a meaningless job.
Ken – If children are allowed to pursue their passions, whether it’s in the classical core studies or not, they will become proficient at that passion. I would much rather have a passionate mechanic who has pursued his interests in any way he chooses, than to have a halfway decent mechanic who has been pushed through a school system and forced to study topics in which he sees no personal connection. I have learned to question those things that we are told are necessary or that we “should” do.
Steve G – In other words, glad it worked out so well for her but I have a very hard time believing that most kids who go through this turn out so accomplished.
As I said above, I have met hundreds, but there are thousands. College was not my goal for my daughter when I unschooled her. She chose to go and once she made the decision, she graduated summa cum laude. She loves sociology with a passion and after ten years of university studies (she took classes – eight statistics courses – just for “fun”), she still looked forward excitedly to the beginning of each semester. That’s the kind of determination and passion that is fostered by unschooling.
Provost – “Compulsion schooling exists to transform intelligent young boys and girls into machines capable of performing a specific task.” BuddyGlass – If that’s why it exists, then it’s doing an amazingly poor job.
Compulsory schooling is doing a terrific job of turning intelligent minds into docile machines, otherwise McD’s, Walmart, and all the other minimum wage paying businesses would go out of business. There are so many people willing to obey, that an employee is wasting his breath to ask for better conditions – he can be so easily replaced by the schooled robots. They are standing in line to be subjugated for the “good of the company.” Ask any store manager, there are hundreds if not thousands of applicants for every mindless job.
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Provost – Yes, I’ve read all of Gatto’s work. (I actually have his fax number ) He spoke at the 2007 Rethinking Education conference. I was supposed to speak in 2008, but my brother-in-law had heart surgery and I had to miss it.
I’ve also read all of John Holt’s books, Ivan Illich, A.S. Neill, Leonard, and anything else I could get my hands on back in the early 80’s. I then stopped reading about child-led learning and just started living. My daughter was born in 1980 and never attended school or suffered through a curriculum. Radically unschooling her was absolutely the wisest thing I’ve ever done.
Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned, unless I missed it. Unschooled children and parents have a tight bond. When you trust your child to learn what she/he needs to learn when he/she needs to learn it, trust and respect grows and carries through into the teen and adult years. I wouldn’t trade the closeness I have with my daughter for anything, and we both feel it is because of the way she grew up.
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Hmm, I could have sworn that “willing to obey” would be one of the last things said about this generation.
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Cheryl D – if only that were true. The anger (and anger is a symptom of fear) is a facade that disappears when they are faced with household bills and no marketable skills to pay them with except obedience to a manager who is also most likely to be a victim of coercive learning. But maybe our opinions of “willing to obey” are different. I don’t see that as a good thing. Strength, independence and self-confidence are more of a virtue in my opinion.
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Valfitz #34:
“Compulsory schooling is doing a terrific job of turning intelligent minds into docile machines, otherwise McD’s, Walmart, and all the other minimum wage paying businesses would go out of business.”
I should point out that there were plenty of menial, uninteresting jobs people worked at before compulsory schooling became the norm. There will always be people who lack the education, innate ability, or wherewithal to acquire intellectual interesting employment. And, honestly, I find your labeling Walmart and McDonald’s employees as “docile machines” to be somewhat offensive.
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One reason we’re following a more structured home school curriculum is that the state of FL requires evaluations or testing results to be submitted every year.
There is a level of intimidation in this requirement.
We have one musician so far (3 instruments now and she wants to learn more), and probably an engineer or architect. We do spend part of the school day on their interests. The musician, for instance, is interested in pursuing music at the college level, so we’re doing college prep math with her…but much of her day is spent musically.
We have one son who is all “boy”–good with his hands, active, active, active, and curious about how EVERYTHING works. I’m guessing he’ll want to work outside in some capacity. He lights up at the idea of chopping firewood, but sags when it’s time for some bookwork. For him most of all, I would wish unschooling were an option for us.
Children are different, but the gov’t requirements force kids into pretty similar molds.
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Momof5,
That is what we have found, though we are a bit more relaxed this time around. Idaho does not have the requirement of testing we found in other states but I have found it comforting to see that the kids are learning the “required” things as well as the special interest things. It was interesting to see the pressure put on the kids to succeed on the testing in public school. Seems like every day the stress was put on the upcoming tests, that has to be really tough on kids who fear tests and really a waste of time when they are just teaching to the tests. But then Idaho does not have a good record of reaching those federal goals on the tests. One more reason I am glad we were able to move on and move back home.
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Seems like every day the stress was put on the upcoming tests, that has to be really tough on kids who fear tests and really a waste of time when they are just teaching to the tests.
Actually the pressure to perform well on the standardized tests is on the teachers and the administration, not on the kids. The kids know they have nothing to gain and nothing to lose from those tests.
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I’m just curious, Valfitz. Are you a Christian?
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Ree,
Actually, I sat with the kids in class and in conference and listened as the teachers passed the buck to the kids. “If you all do not do well on this test, we will lose…”. The kids would come home talking about it and how important it was to do well, for weeks and months before the test. They would let down their school mates if they did not succeed. Yes, it reflects on the teachers and we as adults know that but when the responsible ones try to pass the buck to the students and they are too young to see through it, they are stuck with the stress.
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We can’t know why people do what they do unless we ask them all their own reasons.
Rather than unschooling, I prefer to call it delight directed learning. Gregg Harris used this term. My children learned to read early and read voraciously in the early years. It has paid off big-time, in OUR family, that is.
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Part of the difficulty in evaluating the validity of any argument for this or that way of giving children an education, is that there is no way to have a true “control group” to figure out which factors are actually making the difference in the success or lack of success in public school, home school, unschooling, etc.
Some kids thrive in an unschooling environment and some thrive in a more traditional school. There’s no way to know whether they would have done better or worse in a different environment. Others don’t thrive in one or the other environment, and we can try to identify factors that made it not work, but there are so many, in addition to how the (un)schooling is done – inborn abilities, home environment during their first years, personality (which is partly inborn but shaped by environment), etc.
And the schooling environment the parents choose for their kids is not a wholly independent variable, because parents are usually biologically related to their kids and passed on some of their own traits that affect learning, plus they are usually the ones who had the most influence on the kids in the early years so the kids reflect their attitude to learning.
So, for instance, it’s not surprising that a confident, independent parent doing unschooling with a child would produce a successful learner who is also confident and independent. But how much of that is the type of schooling chosen and how much the nature of the parent and the child? And how much is simply the parent knowing the child best and creating an environment best suited to the child? The success of homeschooling in general is largely due, I think, to parental involvement and individual attention.
But the only way one could determine precisely what factors in the way schooling is done make the difference (good or bad) would be to have children who were the same in other respects (abilities, personality, interests, previous learning, etc.) put in different learning environments. But that would mean intentionally taking some kids and putting them in what is considered a less than optimal environment simply for the purpose of studying the results. Aside from the difficulty of getting groups of children who really are the same in those other ways, no parent should want their kids used as guinea pigs that way.
Obviously a lot of kids are put in much less than optimal learning environments, but that’s because the people who might have the power to improve it (whether the parents or other people) don’t see practical ways to make that improvement (lack of funds, lack of knowledge, etc.), not because they want to give kids an inferior learning environment. (Some parents don’t care, but in that case they’re not really choosing how they’re kids get educated, they simply aren’t bothering to choose and let it happen however it does by default.)
Lacking the possibility of really controlled studies (except perhaps in some very limited situations, where the findings can’t really be broadly applied to larger groups), studies try to analyzing data from lots of different groups using statistical methods to try to control for various factors such as IQ, socioeconomic status, learning type, personality, etc. But there are just so many factors, some of which can’t be readily measured (is parental involvement measured by number of hours spent reading to the child? going to parent-teacher conferences? helping with homework? doing hands-on educational activities together?). And people aren’t even agreed on the desired outcome of education – marketable skills? good citizens? knowledge important ideas of the past and present? a confident and happy person?
So it’s hardly surprising that people can present evidence for the superiority of very different approaches – all of which work well for some kids and not so well for others.
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First of all, I am very impressed with the “stats” of some of the successful homeschooled families on this discussion. And I know that they DO happen–I know a few families who have homeschooled very well and I commend them for it. Those of you here advocating for it are doing so in a very convincing and mature way. Thank you.
However, let me share with you MY experience. In my church, there is a VERY strong “home-schooled clique.” If you don’t homeschool, you are not “accepted.” I once started a mom’s bible study; I felt the Lord leading me to do it. Within a year, I was replaced with “better” teaching by a homeschooled mom. The children at our church who are homeschooled are, for the most part, extremely disruptive. They don’t know how to sit quietly, stay in a line, play with others, etc. I have observed the moms, when discussing their “schooling”, often say things like, ‘oh, we just took off a few weeks; we’ll get back to it sooner or later.’ How does that work ethic pan out in the “work world.” I can’t imagine my son say–”Well, boss, I’m just gonna bow out for a couple weeks. I’ll come back when I feel like it.”
And why, in this discussion, is there no mention of truly Biblical Christian schooling?? That is where my children are. They are saturated with the Word all day long; they are in the presence of teachers who love the Lord and care deeply about the children; they are surrounded by people other than just their brothers, sisters, and parents who love the Lord (Christian friends); they get an excellent education; and they get a chance to be challenged by problems that will really occur as they get older, but in a secure loving atmosphere…
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The reason for my last point above is to point out that it is not just government-run public education OR homeschooling. There is another option out there–Pray about it!
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<iThere often is also a certain class bias to all this, as well but then if the swells want to unschool their kids – go ahead, after all that’s what wealth and its great safety net get you.
I was under the impression most homeschoolers were middle-class, as in between $40-$80k per year… my family certainly wasn’t wealthy. In fact, that’s why they homeschooled us for a few years: we moved, and they couldn’t afford the private school here, and they didn’t want us in a public school for both moral and academic reasons, so they schooled us at home.
So I was homeschooled for 4 years because we weren’t wealthy.
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Cuthalion–not all who send their kids to Christian/private school are wealthy either. The reason we’re able to afford it is because my husband teaches there so we are given quite a reduction. And I know MANY families who sacrifice a *lot* to send their kids there. Most of the families at our Christian school are single income, under 40K salary. (We ourselves are WELL under that salary). Yet my friend and I still get snide remarks about how they “wish” they could send their kids there, but they just can’t afford it. Some of them truly can’t (for which I wish there were an answer.) Some of them are driving posh cars and the wives go mall shopping every weekend (not kidding). Priorities???
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Pauline #45:
Excellent post. I’m in total agreement. I’m glad someone realizes the statistical difficulty in comparing different modes of education.
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Momoffour,
Your comments about homeschool cliques in churches, is, sadly, pretty accurate. We attended a “homeschool church”, and actively fought against the idea that homeschooling is the only choice that’s OK with God.
This is such an emotional issue for parents. We all want to believe that we’re doing what’s best for our children, and when other believers choose differently, there can be a competition of sorts to “prove” which way is best.
I’ve mentioned before that a dear friend of mine warns homeschools to beware of big heads and small hearts!
All that said, *our* reasoning for choosing homeschool rather than Christian school is precisely the increased peer influence and decreased parental influence.
My husband went to small Christian schools, and I went to large and small public schools. The peer pressure in all those situations was appalling.
Proverbs tells us that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. It also tells us that the companion of fools suffers harm. That made the choice clear for our family as a matter of conviction.
But God never specifically teaches against group learning, that I know of.
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#48 Cuthalion,
Our situation, too. We sacrifice to buy curriculum and raise a large family on a single income. We are by no means wealthy. We live in a double-wide and haven’t bought a NEW car since before we had any children.
Small trade-offs, though, for the joy of being with our kids every day!
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BuddyGlass – Have you ever worked at Walmart or McD’s? I have for short periods of time. I’m not the “obedient” type so I didn’t handle it for long. The long-time workers have learned to shut up. I wanted better for my daughter, so I raised her not to tolerate subjugation.
About being offended by what others believe, I recommend Dr. Wayne Dyer.
Ree – I’m curious as to why my personal spiritual beliefs would mean anything to you or to this forum on unschooling.
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Wealthy? Hahaha. Middle Class? Apparently not. Mall shopping? No thanks. Posh cars? nope. Contented? Absolutely.
We, too, have seen and fought the homeschool or bust mentality. Right now we are getting the message that “everybody at school is mad at you for leaving, they think you think you are too good for them or you don’t like them”. Huh? So, I asked the two why they wanted to homeschool. The answers? “It sounded fun. No fighting and bickering. Learning is a lot easier because you explain things so we can understand them. My teacher used to say things when the superintendant was in the room and opposite things when he wasn’t. She was not telling the truth.” I told them that meant they did not leave because they thought they were better or because they did not like the others so there was nothing they could do about other people’s opinions, let it go. I guess, when somebody chooses to do something differently, it can be very upsetting to those left behind.
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A response to Provost [30] from yesterday:
Literacy was measured as the ability to write one’s name. By that measure something like 40 percent of soldiers in the Revolutionary War were considered illiterate — the data is pretty rough. Regarding the 1840 census — all depends if the census is universal or of a sub-group. There’s plenty evidence that white males were generally literate, but of course much depends on where you were. The South lagged. Etc.
Again, I invite you to consider what your numbers indicate. For instance 1 in 579 gives an illiteracy rate of .17 percent — that is a precious small number. To get numbers like that you may have a very peculiar or self-selected sample. And then again, consider your problem: if 25 percent were illiterate a generation before, what was the means for suddenly zeroing out illiteracy? (Especially with the US expanding its population by a third in each decade.)
As with sales, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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Valfitz writes:
“Have you ever worked at Walmart or McD’s? I have for short periods of time. I’m not the “obedient” type so I didn’t handle it for long. ”
I worked at a video store briefly while in high school. Not the “obedient type”? Trust me, I’m not the biggest conservative around, but you sound like someone who has a problem with authority. That, or you just didn’t need the job that badly to begin with.
Nobody wants to “obey” a stupid, incompetent boss or work in a crappy environment. The people who work those jobs aren’t “naturally obedient”. Many of them are there because it’s the only job they can get. For you to call them all “robots” is incredibly condescending.
“I wanted better for my daughter, so I raised her not to tolerate subjugation.”
Dude. Are you serious? “Subjugation”? Really? When I ~voluntarily~ take a paying job, I do so with the understanding that I will occupy a particular place in the authority structure of that company. I have a boss. My boss has a boss. Maybe there are people for whom I am their boss. They do what I say because it’s in their job description, and for whatever reason they’re interested in keeping that job. Same for me with regard to the person I report to. That is not “subjugation” because it’s entirely voluntary.
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I question authority at all levels. I don’t take what someone says as something I have to do without thinking. To “work in a video store briefly while in high school” is not the same as trying to support a family. It’s not even close.
Training for “robots” begins in school, and usually in the home too. “Do what I say and don’t question me because I’m the parent/teacher.” Ever listen to The Wall by Pink Floyd? Ever read any of Derrick Jensen’s books? I’m not pulling what I say from an unread stance. Calling a last resort job voluntary shows ignorance about what so many are going through. A great book to enlighten is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. I do agree with you; the worker bees aren’t “naturally” obedient. Obedience has been forced upon them.
We obviously disagree and that’s fine with me. The topic is unschooling and I am giving my personal perspective derived at by unschooling my daughter and reading close to a hundred books on raising free children as opposed to raising them through traditional methods. I’ve corresponded with thousands of unschoolers all over the world. I’ve listened and learned about their experiences in and out of school. There are many facets of unschooling and giving a child the freedom to pursue a passion/passions is a great way to insure a child will find work that means something to him/her as opposed to settling for mindless repetitive work.
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I don’t think we necessarily disagree about unschooling. I think it ~can~ work for some kids, though a select few. I do have concerns that it will lead to insular education, where children just ignore everything that doesn’t interest them. For example, a kid who’s interested in math and science but completely ignores literature and developing his language skills. Or vice versa.
I also agree that “questioning authority” is a good thing. I don’t do whatever my boss says without thinking. For instance, I evaluate everything to see if it’s immoral. Then I try to decide whether it’s beneficial to our business. If it’s not, then I tell him so. If he disagrees, then I decide whether being “overruled” on that particular decision is annoying enough to merit me quitting the job and finding another.
What you’ve described, on the other hand, seems to be a complete inability to operate under someone else’s authority, and a complete denigration of people who ~do~ have that ability.
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As to teaching children to not tolerate “subjugation”, I must emphatically disagree.
Christians must obey anyone in authority over them unless they are being told to sin, in which case they must “obey God rather than man”.
Being entrepreneurial is different than questioning authority at all levels.
One of my most important jobs as a parent is to teach my children to obey me. As they mature, my prayer is that they will choose to obey God, as well.
That does NOT mean that they should obey robotically. I want them to think critically, but I don’t want that to lead to insubordination or an uncooperative spirit.
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Momof5 are you certain that your children understand the difference between “Christians must obey anyone in authority over them” and “obey me” and “obey robotically?” What if you aren’t there to explain the differences every single time? Will they always know if what they are being asked to do is a sin or not? The young girl in this video was doing what her parents told her to do. About two minutes into the video, she says just that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNsN9ysq7wQ
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What unschoolers (as a large communicating group) have found, is that unschooling can work for ~all~ children as long as the parents are able to grasp and implement the techniques. Not all parents choose to let go of the reigns, so to speak. In those cases, the parents hinder the children and thwart the unschooling success.
I understand your concern because I have heard it expressed hundreds of times. The way it works in unschooling, is that the child pursues whatever interest he/she has. While pursuing something he really wants to learn, he learns how to learn. Let’s say the student has no interest in math and spends all of his time developing his language skills. He’s passionate about it and absorbing everything he can on the topic because he finds it interesting. When the time comes that he needs math, he will have the ability to grasp knowledge and use it as it applies to his life. I’m sure it’s difficult to believe, but I’ve seen it repeatedly. My daughter detested anything to do with math. She never memorized her multiplication tables. Yet, when she decided she wanted a degree in sociology, she knew she’d need college algebra (and chemistry, history, geography, etc). The sociology degree was important to her, so she learned the unrelated topics that were required. She aced them all. She’s now a statistician and thinks statistics courses are fun! When something is important to us, we do what we need to do to get it. Kids who are allowed the freedom to learn what they choose, end up with a life-enhancing skill of grasping whatever they need to learn.
Good for you not doing whatever your boss tells you to do. But what if you were without the skills that you obviously possess? Let’s say you were one of the unfortunate kids in school that got labeled stupid (with name-calling or grades or whatever) and you had no marketable skills? No self confidence? What if your boss was the department manager in Walmart and following his orders was the only way you could keep your job? (I don’t mean to keep picking on Walmart, but they’re the most obvious). If you left that job, your next job will pretty much be more of the same. There are hundreds of thousands of people in that situation. Most, if not all of them would not be stuck in those jobs if they had been able to pursue their passions all of their lives. Talk to just about any of them and you’ll find a hidden dream that will go unfulfilled because of fear of failure. Talk to them a little more and they’ll tell you that the school system let them down; left them clueless as to what they wanted to do in life – much less how to pursue that dream.
I communicated poorly if I gave the impression that I look down on the people that work those jobs. I look down on the jobs, not the people. I look down on the system that forces people to accept the limitations of those jobs. I’ve become friends with way too many people working in those situations to believe that they see what they do as having the “ability to work under authority”. They are angry, exhausted, deflated and humiliated…but they have to work. I’ve been one of them myself.
Having said that, we all answer to someone else in our work. Even the store owner has to answer to the customers. As a publisher, I have to answer to the authors, the printers, even the bar code manufacturer. But it’s a position I have chosen – therein lies the difference.
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Momoffive–you’ve made a lot of sense. Thank you.
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The National Adult Literacy level represented 190 million U.S. Adult citizens in 1993. Look what that survey turned up: numbers with a scope to astound even myself.
1) Forty two million Americans over the age of sixteen cannot read or write. Some of this group can write their names on social security cards and fill in height, weight, and birth spaces on applications.
2) Fifty million can recognize printed words on a fourth and fifth grade level. They cannot write simple messages or letters.
3) Fifty five to sixty million are limited to Junior high level reading. A majority of this group could not calculate the price per ounce of a 20 ounce jar of peanut butter costing $1.99 when told they could round the answer off to a whole number.
4) Thirty million Americans with ninth and tenth grade reading ablities (and all previous groups) cannot understand a simplified explanation of jury selection proceedures.
5) 3.5% of the 26,000 person sample showed literary skills necessary for traditional college study. This group stood at thirty percent in 1940 and stands at thirty percent in other devoloped countries today.
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Harris asserted that the census considered anyone who could write his name literate. The census of 1840 only recorded whites, male and female, over twenty for literacy purposes.
The census of 1820 revealed a total american population of around 9.5 million. A million were slaves. By 1820 five million copies of Noah Webster’s Speller had sold, no color by number, fill in the blanks, Dick and Jane work that. Consider that almost everyone was married and had more than two children. A family only needed one book for all of them to read it. There were more of Webster’s Spellers than families in the American nation. The Census of 1820 did not record literacy and we had, as you pointed out, by 1840 doubtlessly improved.
It gets better.
By 1820 five million of James Fenimore Cooper’s novels had sold. Those were exceedingly complex works of art that only today’s best readers could penetrate. Again there were more of them in print than there were families. If we allow exxageration of these numbers (possible but not certain) we are still faced with the conclusion that America, with no compulsion from the State, taught herself to read.
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A few thoughts re: Valfitz #61:
Your description of unschooling seems to be “teach a child ‘how’ to learn, and let him naturally pursue things he’s interested in. Then, when he needs the other stuff, he’s equipped to learn it.”
My point is that some subjects don’t have the “utility” of something like Math. History, for example. Or literature. When is a kid going to suddenly “need” history? I’m all for freeing kids up to pursue their interests at a much deeper level, but I feel like you need to “guarantee” some level of breadth in education.
When it comes to my employment situation you’re right. If I had no skills and wasn’t particularly intelligent, I’d probably be working in one of those jobs. When you tout unschooling as a means of people escaping these jobs, though, I think you’re ignoring some facts. Namely, those jobs aren’t just going to vanish overnight. So someone is going to be in those positions. It’s naturally going to be the least skilled, least intelligent, least motivated, etc. segment of the population. That, or people who are in the process of obtaining skills but just haven’t acquired them yet, e.g. a high school student working as a checkout boy at a supermarket.
The other fact is that not everyone is as intelligent as everyone else. Some people are just dumb. That doesn’t make them worth any less as human beings, but it means there are some skills that are probably out of reach for them, and it means there will be limits on their employment opportunities.
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Provost #63:
While I agree that the results of that study are sad, I also think you’re exaggerating them. Check out page xvi in the Executive Summary here:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs93/93275.pdf
Adults in the lowest level ~could~ read, just not at a high level. There was also a high prevalence of extenuating circumstances for adults at that level:
* 25% of those at this level were immigrants who may still be learning English.
* 62% of those at this level terminated their education before completing high school.
* 33% were 65 or older.
* 26% had physical, mental or health conditions that kept them from fully participating in work, school, housework or other activities.
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To add to Buddyglass’s good comments in #65, it’s also a fact that not everyone wants to work independently. It’s not just how children are taught that makes some of them prefer to take directions from others. Some just are that way, long before they start school.
My sister is more than 5 years older than I am, so she helped take care of me right from the start and remembers what I was like as a very young child. (She also taught me to read, when I was three, then to write, long before I started school, and taught me a lot of things later on years before they came up in school.) She tells me that I was a “people pleaser” right from the start. I never wanted to be in charge.
There were things I was happy to go off and do on my own. For instance, I started my own “business” painting and selling notepaper when I was in elementary school, when our father had to cut out our allowance after a bad car accident, and I wanted decided to find a way to make money on my own.
But I was also perfectly happy to do what other people directed me to do, and loved to be able to fulfill – and usually exceed – their expectations. I got – and still get – as much or more satisfaction from that as from working out difficult problems on my own.
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In response to BuddyGlass – No, one doesn’t have to teach a child how to learn. A child is born knowing how to learn. He figures out really fast that if he cries, someone feeds him or changes his diaper. An astute parent can tell the difference between the two cries. He’s learning what he needs to know to get what he wants. He’s learning how to learn. When he decides that he wants to start talking, he starts talking. He might mispronounce a few words, but he eventually figures them out just by listening and “learning.” My nephew, who didn’t speak until he was four, just started talking one day. No one “taught” him how to speak; he just listened. And his vocabulary was that of an adult. No baby talk. When I wanted to learn how to garden organically, I read books and learned. No one could have stopped me from learning. I wanted the knowledge badly enough to do what I had to do to acquire it. I’m a really great organic gardener too. Just as my daughter is a top-notch statistician – she loves what she does.
You’ve hit on a good point. When is a kid going to suddenly “need” history? And it’s exactly my point. If a kid (or adult) doesn’t need history, then why should he have to learn it? History was my weak topic in school and I dreaded it. I memorized facts to pass tests. I’m fifty-three years old and have never “needed” history, but there have been certain aspects of history that have interested me, so I’ve found the information in books or online. I remember what I learned on my own, because I wanted to know it. I’m sure I was “taught” the same things as a child, but I wasn’t interested at that time, so I faked my way through the tests then let the information fly from my mind. I don’t feel that any level of breadth in education ~can~ be guaranteed. Making books about history available for your child can’t hurt. But forcing him to learn about history when he doesn’t care about history isn’t a productive use of your time or his.
You’re right. Someone is going to be working those jobs. But do you want it to be your child? It’s a sad fact, but there are parents who don’t seem to care about their children. Whether they’re schooled, homeschooled or unschooled, the parents are the key. When kids are allowed to pursue their passions, they don’t settle for these types of jobs. They go for what interests them.
And as you said, “some people are just dumb.” These are the people who will accept the slave wage jobs and spend their lives unfulfilled by their inner passions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if each worker could believe in himself and find his niche, leave those jobs and once again furnish us with quality products? Btw, with the economic recession, there are skilled and intelligent people also needing and working in those jobs.
Not all children can be unschooled and learn to choose their own paths. But it’s not because of the children; it’s because of the parents.
The systems that are in place; the big money that controls the government and the sheep that follow along and mindlessly obey, are why the Walmarts of this world are getting away with it. By unschooling our children, we remove them from that system and give them the freedom to figure out what they really want to do instead of what they have to do to survive.
Pauline – I also get lots of happiness from doing for others, but it’s something I choose to do. That’s a lot different than working for minimum wage as a service provider because it’s your ~only~ choice.
Being a “people pleaser” isn’t always a good thing. Ask any therapist. Some people don’t know they can say “no.”
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