Unschooling

Discussion in 'Home Schooling' started by Lazuli Blue, Feb 3, 2006.

  1. Lazuli Blue

    Lazuli Blue Member

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    So, what is unschooling? I understand that homeschooling is teaching your child as a school would - but how would I go about unschooling? My imagination is over run with unconventional lessons... go for walks and learning the names and properties of plants, spotting animals and guessing their names, teaching my child they way I would've loved to have been. But am I just romantising (sp?) the whole thing?
     
  2. Valdis

    Valdis Member

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    You might want to check out the magazine, Growing Without Schooling. This web site will tell you about it.​
    Depending on the age of your kids you should get the Teenage Liberation Handbook too.​
    Unschooling in basically interest based learning. The student and the parent do simply study what the student is interested in as well as from what happens around them day to day.

    Hope this helps,

    Valdis
     
  3. El Hefe

    El Hefe Member

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    What if the kids interest is videogames and TV?
     
  4. kitty fabulous

    kitty fabulous smoked tofu

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    educational programming, time limits and parental supervision, duh. just like schooled kids.

    (at least he's not calling everything "ghey". [​IMG])
     
  5. kitty fabulous

    kitty fabulous smoked tofu

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    is that magazine still in print? i thought it ceased publication a couple of years ago. home education magazine is another excellent resource. brain, child and mothering magazine are not about homeschooling specifically, but do tend to appeal to homeschooling families and may occaisionally have articles for homeschooling parents.

    we unschool. my son has an almost obsessive interest in the sciences. he's a little scary, actually. i'm actually afraid that some stormy night i'll hear cries of "IT'S ALIVE!!! MAD! THEY CALLED ME MAD!" coming from his bedroom/"secret laboratory". he does watch tv, and like schooling parents, i put limits on how much. his cartoon "heroes" are dexter and jimmy neutron. his other passion is drawing, and he processes what he learns by keeping sketchbooks, which he fills with detailed illustrations of bugs, animals, plants, buildings (he was really into architecture before the science), carefully labelled maps of just about everywhere he goes, and of course, childhood fantasies (also mapped and labelled. [​IMG]) my cousin's husband homesteads. and is giving damien a chicken skeleton, which he can't wait to get his hands on to reassemble, label, and draw. and yes, he plays video games too, the text-based dialogue of which improved his comfort level with reading vastly.

    my 3-year-old is a total bookworm. there will be no problems getting this one to read. she is also picking up spanish.

    all these are perfectly legitimate ways of learning. unfortunately, now i'm a single mom, i'm pressured for time, so i'm planning on getting a membership in the homeschooler's co-op i posted about earlier. this is a group of families in ithaca who homeschool their kids together. the environment may be more structured than unschooling, but the programs and social activities look like oodles of fun. there's a D&D group! (math, problem-solving, and reading skills, anyone?)
     
  6. busmama

    busmama go away

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    Have you checked out Tobins lab? We have been unschooling for years and I love their stuff. If your kids are interested in fun, real, science and history programs they are the best. http://www.tobinslab.com/

    Sounds perfect! Follow your own instincts, you know what to do.
    BLESSINGS
     
  7. busmama

    busmama go away

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    BTW, my kids do watch movies in moderation, They occasionally play video games,but the internet has put a dent in that. The need to read has given them all the bug. Now they want to read so they can see what to do on the computer. I'm not real particular about anything relly, if they wanted to watch TV all day I would probably let them. We follow no schedule but our own internal clack and interest at the time. And I do let them do workbooks, the younger ones like them and for the older ones it can be good practice for skills like spelling and math.
     
  8. busmama

    busmama go away

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    Just had to add this, unschooling at its best. My son is just pl;aying his computer.I was sitting with him seeing what he wa doing and he is on a virtual ship playing pirates with a 11yo croatian boy, 2 12yo danish boys and s 12yo british girl. and what do you think they are talking about?????


    Terrorism and world economies. Damn, I couldn't teach him as much if I made him read every social studies book out there.
    Just a thought :)
     
  9. hummblebee

    hummblebee hipstertist.

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    I guess "unschooling" is what I did for much of my youth. Reading this is giving me flashbacks to being a kid - even my dad used to tell me that I was the only kid he ever knew who, even at 8 years old, when a question about how something works or who something was came up, I would walk over to the encyclopedia and look it up. I lived with my head in those books and rarely ever asked silly questions. I guess that's why they didn't feel the need to public-school me, as my siblings did...
     
  10. kitty fabulous

    kitty fabulous smoked tofu

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    i'd never heard of tobin's lab before! i got excited over the lab equipment - damien would love that, but i was dismayed at all the creation "science" when i checked out the curricula. we're not christian, and will be teaching evolution, although the kids are free to exoplore the creation philosophies of various faiths if their interested. it's a site to keep in mind, i guess though, so thanks anyway.
     
  11. mamaboogie

    mamaboogie anarchist

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    unschooling is how stay at home parents teach infants and toddlers. thing is, it doesn't have to stop just because a kid turns five. Children learn from everything they see or do, every day. Unschooling is the philosophy that children will learn regardless of what you do to them or force them to do, that everything in life is a potential learning experience.
     
  12. busmama

    busmama go away

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    Yeah, we had issues with the heavily christian slant, but the lad equipment was so cool and the resources so fun, that we overlook that and just got the stuff that we enjoyed.
    I also don't like the fact that they sell dissection kits, I don't really want my kids to grow up thinking it is OK for them to just mutilate animals for "learning"
     
  13. Maggie Sugar

    Maggie Sugar Senior Member

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    I think it depends on what they want to do with their lives. I work in health care. There is no way to understand the workings of the human body, using a computer program, or even a plastic model. Plus, those computer models and plastic models had to be made while someone was dissecting something.

    Three of my children want to go into medicine (two into human medicine and one into vet medicine) they will have to dissect animals to understand the body. It can be done with respect. In medical school, respect of the cadaver and the fact that it was a human being, is always stressed. Good teachers will also stress this while any animal is being dissected.

    So many people put their own health at risk because they don't understand anatomy or physiology. It helps you to advocate for yourself. But when learning, the student has to be old enough to have the respect for the animal or cadaver, and also understand the reason for doing it.

    My 17 year old dd is a vegetarian, but refused to take and "out" on the dissection unit, in Advanced Biology, because she will be going into veterinary medicine and realizes the things she learns are things she needs to know. (The class did offer an exemption, and the kids could choose an alternate project with a computer model, but most of the kids in this class, a Honors Level Science class, are going into medicine as a career, and this year, none of them took the exemption. This exemption, you will note, is not offered, or allowed in real medical, nursing or Veterinary school.)

    I think dissection needs to be done with a great deal of respect for the animal, and an understanding that one will do good with the education that animal or cadaver provided for them.

    JMO.
     
  14. kitty fabulous

    kitty fabulous smoked tofu

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    my dad was a big customer of edmund scientific when i was growing up. recently he and i were discussing my "crazy school bus plan" on the phone and he suggested edsci as a resource for learning more about solar and other alternative energies. i was pondering this the other day as i surfed the tobin's lab site. so i went to edsci's webpage, and there i found a link here http://sciencekit.com/default.asp. don't know how their prices are, but they do cater to homeschoolers especially, and any other budding science wizard. you might want to check them out.

    animal dissection is unnecessary for the vast majority of students, let alone homeschoolers. go here http://www.pcrm.org/ for information about vegetarian/humane alternatives. PCRM is the physician's committee for responsible medicine. these aren't extremist PETA nutjobs, these are doctors.
     
  15. Maggie Sugar

    Maggie Sugar Senior Member

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    I don't think that it is a neccesity for most kids who are home schooled (dissection.) And, also, I think young kids, Jr High, or even regular High School age, may be too young to need this experience. My dd is in a Advanced Honors Biology class, which is specified for young people who will be using biology and anatomy in college and their careers. Do most people need a dissection unit? No, probably not. But, if one is going to go into any type of health care, you really do need it.

    If you are going to be an accountant, or a banker or a shopkeeper or whatever, it is not neccesary.

    But, knowing where things are in the human body is helpful. I have worked with people, in my career who actually have NO IDEA where their stomach is, (they usually think it is the entire area of the lower abdomen, when the stomach is right below the sternum, a little to teh side) or what it is used for. I have actually worked with mothers, who have given birth, who still think they carried the baby "in my stomach."

    But, you are right, if not going into medicine or nursing or other medical professions, dissection is not neccesary for all.

    The PCRM site is pretty good. I've printed pages off of it because the school insisted that ALL kids had to have cow's milk with lunch, and I wanted juice or even water for my kids to drink. A few months later, the school came up with a policy for "children with lactose intolerance or milk allergy" so they could choose juice or water with lunch. But, I am getting OT here. Sorry. :)
     
  16. kitty fabulous

    kitty fabulous smoked tofu

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    i posted the link because i thought it would be helpful. if your vegetarian dd is thinking about going into medicine, i thought she might find some of it interesting. as a vegetarian, i like the PCRM better than groups like PETA. i find their material to be informative, balanced, and sensible.
     
  17. Maggie Sugar

    Maggie Sugar Senior Member

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    Thank you.
     
  18. busmama

    busmama go away

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    I can agree you may need dissection if you are going into a medically related field. But, since most JR and lots of Sr high kids have no idea what they wat to do, I don't think it should be routine. I just don't like the idea that animals are so disposable that we can just let our kids cut them up to satisfy a curiosity that could be easily satisfied with a good biology book with lots of drawings. Studies have shown that kids who are cruel to animals often grow up to be violent. It may not be cruel to get a knowledge desperately needed by sacrificeing an animal. Heck we aren't even veg., but I do want them to learn that animals are not just for us to use and abuse, but that everytime we take a life, there should be a good reason. Just the idea of thousands of animals bred so we can cut them up to fufill a testing requirement seems kinda harsh. Others I know have done and enjoyed dissection units, but it just isn't for us.
     
  19. shaina

    shaina No War Know Peace

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    unschooling.com or .org can't remember which is a good site
     
  20. mamaboogie

    mamaboogie anarchist

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    they aren't there anymore, unless someone else bought the domain name...

    I had to look. unschool.com is no longer there. unschooling.com is a new website that I haven't seen before, seems to be run by home education magazine, of which I have heard mixed reviews, but don't know much about it personally.

    There are several yahoo groups dedicated to unschooling, as well. some are more ... uh, intimidating I guess is the word I would use to describe them. And some are more geared towards child-led education, whether that falls under the exact definition of "unschooling" or not.

    here's a good article that describes what unschooling is http://www.naturalchild.com/guest/rue_kream.html and at the end of that article was this link http://www.unschooling.info/ :)
     

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