I don't understand 'unschooling'? Can someone/ anyone explain why this is good for a child?

[TalkingPoint]

I get the concept of home educating and fully understand why someone may choose to home school. It is a decision I have even considered taking myself - but the concept of 'extreme' 'unschooling' where the child has no boundaries put in place seems to divert completely away from the responsibilities of parents. I don't under how this can be considered constructive? Is there anyone who can explain it to me, I see examples on a forum I use of children never having a bedtime and being up till 1am, never having to take regard of any rules and all the learning being completely decided by the child. I get why this may fun but I do struggle to see how these children will grow up in the social structures of the world as it is. I don't agree with all the structures we have in place but until some sort of revolution, if we want children to succeed/ function in the world they need to understand these structures at least to some extent. there is also a very good chance I just don't get it, so happy to be educated?!

greenbananas - "In school, children often learn to get "right answers" and pass tests without fully understanding what the point of the exercise is. a good example would be in maths, where it is possible to get a whole page of right answers by performing certain circus tricks with numbers, but then be completely floored if the question is presented in a different format, or needs to be related to actual life. "

I completely disagree with this. It is possible to pass a maths exam at secondary school without getting an answer right. If your methodology is sound and you progress through a mathematical problem in a sound manner then you can still score well with a wrong answer.

Maths is taught brilliantly at primary school these days too, certainly not by parrot fashion, but allowing children to discover the elegant geometry and patterns between numbers, often allowing children themselves to work out their own methods to solve problems.

You are stuck in the past with your view of mathematical teaching methods employed in schools these days.

This is one of the things that pisses me off about "unschoolers"- they have some very wrong assumptions about how learning in schools actually works.

museumum what you are describing is "Deschooling" rather that "Unschooling"

I believe Sandra Dodd first coined the phrase "Radical Unschooling"

'Maths is taught brilliantly at primary school' by some teachers.
Not many teachers with maths degrees in primary in my experience.

onarailwaytrain
I know hundreds of families who live this way, and all but one of them live on a limited budget, choosing to have someone mostly at home with the children, in order to live this way of life. Only one well off family, amongst hundreds.
We chose that I would give up my career to free the children from a very unhappy time in school...we have given up much to do this, but the financial loss was more than made up for by happy children living a lovely life with us.

We have no regrets. It's been fun and I would do it all in an instant...and even more importantly, the children agree and fully intend to live like this with any future children they may have.

I am really enjoying reading about this!

The only thing that crosses my mind though -and I'm not saying this to be inflammatory -is that this can only work with a sahp, so its the domain of those who can afford to be unstructured and spontaneous.

onarailway

I'm sorry, it must be how I wrote my post. I was just interested in your view, I didn't think you were criticising.
I wondered what you had read, which post had made you feel like that.
We haven't consciously "Unschooled" but the results have been similar iykwim.
For example dd doesn't have a bedtime as it would serve her no purpose and would at times lead to her being ill. She performs quite a lot and rehearses sometimes quite late at night. If her body clock was set to a bedtime like a schooled child she would be shattered only functioning on adrenaline and be ill the next day or unable to do what she wants to do.
So this works well for her and for us, plus she isn't a very good sleeper and it played havoc with her health when she was at school.

Fair enough bobby :) but I guess then my post still stands, that someone will be at home with the children so probably won't work much if at all.

X posted with you bobby.

We couldn't absorb the loss of one set of earnings without a substantial relocation away from much loved and hands on members of extended family.
I think if you're on the lower end of the income scale, the financial hit is much more life changing, than doing away with a foreign holiday and second car!

I think you are confusing home education with parenting style. There is a massive difference between unschooling and lazy half arsed parenting. My understanding of unschooling was that children learn rather like they did when they were toddlers. They follow their passions and learn through natural inquitiiousness rather like a toddler.

There is a difference between being moviated to learn about something because you are fueled by passion and learning about something to merely pass an arbitary test. Unschooling is getting way from the notion of pass or fail.

Real life home schoolers that I have met have all had had clear boundaries for their children on what is acceptable behaviour. Their kids might be functionally illiterate at nine years old, but they well behaved. (Or at least the few I have met!)

Good grief what is the world coming to, I am defending home educators! :)

I think it depends on the child. From a very early age I was convinced about my future career path, at the age of 8 I had researched the qualifications I would need and was very focused. I did lots of extra curricular activities from the age of 12 to strengthen my experience in the field and studied science subjects at weekends etc as I was genuinely interested and wanted to do well.

I found school very restrictive and the approach to learning very institutional. I was frustratedby having to study subjects that weren't 'relevant' to what I wanted to do e.g languages, RE etc

I now work in a branch of my career field that involves much ethical debate and overseas travel At the time I found learning these subjects frustrating but if I'd been allowed to concentrate on my 'favourites' I think my later development would have been hindered, so breadth of subject is important and difficult to deliver well at secondary level with a parent-teacher But I think I'd definitely have benefited from a less structured one-size-fits-all schooling approach. Even now I'm fortunate to have a fairly flexible output-based job which focuses less on 'clocking in' and more on what I achieve and I think that's much healthier

as I have just said, most of us live on a very limited budget to do this.
We didn't buy anything new for years, I drive an old banger usually bought of ebay! We only went camping (LOADS of Home Ed camps and gatherings!) and find ways of doing things very very cheaply or for free!

lots of families have one parents who work part time aroiund the other parent, to fund this. Many are single parent families, working from home around unschooling-same as any home educators really.

Being broke goes hand in hand with HE in most cases IME!

"We didn't make them do any of it. They knew they could choose to go or not."

bobbysgirl your post is inspiring but still I have to ask: what would you have done if your DCs chose to not study, or work, instead choosing to sit at home watching TV 24/7 spend all your money? Would you have accepted that as their choice or would you have ended up making them do something?

bobby

Absolutely agree, we are a low income family with a sahp.
I don't think you have to be rich but obviously there are sacrifices or good budgeting.
Saying that I know of quite a few families who H.ed and both parents work. Some work opposite shifts, some have cm, some a nanny, others have teens who can be left at home all day, like they would during school holidays. I know one family where they take the skills of extended family members who all add a bit to the childs education. Not dissimilar to granny collecting dc from school and helping with homework.

But don't you need to be able to read, write and do maths to function in society! It could be difficult fir them as adults as they are nit used to structure and rules.

Reallytired

I never thought I'd see the day. Well done you.
Not meant in a condescending way at all

I think it sounds great for people who can do it bobby!
But the fact remains that some of us have our only family car as a banger off ebay, and a camping trip even isn't a yearly event.
If you can't afford the rent on one wage, you can't HE.
I wish it were different.

I can see that working around each other could work, but to be frank that depends on both parents being able to HE, and thats not always the case!

I know, I know, I'm being negative ....

I too think this is such interesting reading - and how I wish I had known this stuff years and years ago - I might have taken this path. We did practice elements of it but not nearly enough. However, DS did have a fabulous childhood and is a happy successful young man and will, in time, raise his children in an even more unstructured way.

I don't think that bedtimes, house rules are anything to do with unschooling. Unschooling is a hands-off (or "autonomous" if you like) approach to education, it's not related to parenting in general. Of course some parents also have a more hands off or non-traditional approach to things like discipline and/or bedtimes and house rules, values of course which may well correlate with parents who decide unschooling is something they believe in, but the two things are not inextricably linked. You can unschool with bedtimes and you can homeschool/school educate without set bedtimes. Presumably the child who attends school would end up in a fairly regular pattern because of getting up early every day.

I actually love the concept of unschooling and would love to do it but I struggle with depression and I need the structure that school brings, and I need to work for my own mental health. I'm actually relieved we live in Germany where home ed is illegal, because it takes away that option, which I would love to take but would be really, really shit at.

That said I will happily chat theory with anyone for days :)

I do think there is a difference between unschooling where the parents are proactive and happy to facilitate a lot of things. I disagree that "the other kind" is about parents wanting to do nothing - if that were the case, surely they would send their child to one of the many free state schools we have in the UK. I feel that home education of any kind (but particularly unschooling, weirdly, anything with more structure is much easier to structure around things like childcare, clubs, etc although US can be done in any setting theoretically) does require quite a big commitment from the parents, really you need a SAHP or to share childcare. The example about the childminder and the four hour nap - great, perfectly fine if he was at home but unworkable in a CM's business, which is of course what she's trying to run. It's a shame - I actually wish that unschooling was more popular and that there was sympathetic childcare available. If I had loads of money, time and was back in the UK I'd love to set something like that up because I think it's a brilliant philosophy but it's understandable that parents don't feel able to give so much time to it.

Some parents feel that boundaries around things like bedtimes, mealtimes etc aren't particularly important and instead the boundaries are more fundamental things like safety, being kind to each other, expressing feelings in appropriate ways, etc. I think it's unfair to label a lack of bedtimes as "no boundaries". Parents who choose that just have a different idea about what's important than you.

combust 22, I take your point but think you are looking at the best case scenario, rather than what is still happening in schools.

ds1 is in school, and his primary teachers are brilliant. He loves maths in particular, plays with numbers, sums and mathematical concepts at home. He is a reasonably bright child, and maths inspires him.

I have also (quite recently) worked in schools where this quality of teaching is simply not present. teachers are still "teaching to the test". I've also worked with children and young people who have been excluded from school, and some of the teenagers I have known still count on their fingers to add numbers less than 10 - but were excluded for bad behaviour, with nothing on their records to state that they needed additional help with educational achievement.

so I think you are being disingenuous.

I said we were mutually respectful BalloonSlayer why would they spend all of our money?
They knew how little we had, and we talked through everything with them, they knew we worked hard for it, understood that there were certain outgoings that had to be paid, and roughly how much was left over, and we all discussed our priorities together.

They could have sat and watched TV for 24/7 if they had wanted to-they would have done it until they got bored and moved on to something else. Lots to be learned from TV-it's a tool for education, like any other.
They did whatever they chose for as long as they chose.
lived life as though every day were a summer holiday.
They didn't do any formal work at all until they chose to remember...and when they chose to they got their heads down and did it with passion.
If the work is not adult imposed, but freely chosen they were bound to love learning, and you can't stop someone learning what they love.
It's how adults learn and children can and do learn in exactly the same way.

I'm sorry people feel they can't afford to HE.
And let me be clear my old banger of a car bought on Ebay IS our only car...and home educators run camps very very cheaply-or work for their tickets....some can't even do that, but still HE-some have no choice as their children are very very unhappy in school. Very many live on the breadline..

It's not for everyone, but it is for a growing number of us.

Oh and I would love to home school and am totally prepared to do this wants to. It would be a sight better with money, but a nearby library, a couple of good local museums, the Internet and a good support network would be enough I think.

For children in school., the disparity been those with money and those without is already huge. There is probably a similar disparity when it comes to kids who are home educated. But home education on a budget is surely possible.

Xposted with lots of people!

I do think that you need an adult dedicated to be there all of the time. If you use childcare it would have to fit in with the needs and philosophy of the family, which of course means expensive options like a nanny or au pair, or a CM which fitted in with this kind of lifestyle must be rare as hen's teeth.

The families I know who unschool have a SAHP but they aren't wealthy - perhaps they would be more middle class than I on two incomes, but they struggle to pay the bills just like everyone else.

With unschooling I don't think you need an adult to be "able" - capable enough to look after children is just fine. But able to have a conversation, drive/walk/bus them somewhere (and I don't think that you have to follow every whim of the child, I'm sure you can say "Yes love we'll go to the museum but not today because we've got to do X, Y and Z. How about Tuesday next week?" The parents aren't teaching as such so they don't need to be good teachers or knowledgeable or whatever. It would probably be beneficial to do at least some reading about how talking can influence learning - e.g. DS is doing a coding app at the moment and he got really frustrated with me when I wouldn't tell him the answer, which I could see easily (because he's six, not because I'm some coding genius ) but I wanted him to work it out for himself so I asked him questions, he got closer to the solution, but in the end I steered him away from it for a break because he was about to get really frustrated by it, and it was late. We'll try again tomorrow.

"a nearby library, a couple of good local museums, the Internet and a good support network would be enough I think."

That's all most of have....we are VERY good at networking!

I'll admit I would be more likely to home educate if we had the money to go on the camps, buy great resources, go on loads of trips, could afford to drive to interesting places. Yes, it is to some extent the prerogative of the well-to-do.