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?!

combust22, that's actually a very good point.

I don't think we would be living in caves without schooling. The Victorians were not living in caves when state schooling was introduced. Instead the surplus labour (that is children made unemployed by the factories acts...men wanted kids out first then women, to save their own jobs...less labour required...too complex to explain here) had to be taken off the streets and give something to do.

Plus, for most of our evolution schools have not existed. We somehow managed to get down from the trees, stand up, fashion tools and even create great steam powered engines, bridges and even develop medicine long before literacy was "foisted" upon the working class.

I also wonder whether you have an imperialist western mindset as well. Are you trying to tell us that places like Africa are "undeveloped" because they lack state schools? This is simply not the reason. Poorer countries have been over-exploited. Esp if you look back to our golden years of capital and empire the C19th. Yes we raped the world and we did this at a time when at least two thirds of British people received no education.

And no I am not trying to say we should return to the dark ages!

I have tried forcing puree into ds1 when he was 6 months old. He had food allergies, and to say it was miserable for both of us is an understatement.

even if a baby doesn't have the same food issues as ds1, they do have their own likes and dislikes, and sometimes too much banana or whatever can make them feel sick, whatever the well-meaning health visitor has said.

But I don't want to hijack, so will save the rest of this for another thread.

I dislike the casual use of "forcing puree" down by BLW fans. Spoon feeding is nothing remotely like force feeding. It does though take away the child's agency to choose and experience their food for themselves, which I am aware sounds ridiculously poncy and up-your-own-arse, but it's just one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle. Which of course may well turn out to be insignificant, and probably will. By letting the baby pick up and hold solid foods and transfer them to their own mouth when they are willing and able, they can make an active choice. Sitting there waiting to be spoon fed (however impatiently! :)) is passive. It's a choice the parent is making.

Jargon tends to be American, actually. They love branding, just look at the pumpkin spice craze. It tends to spread over the internet because the vast majority of the English speaking online world is US-based. That, and it's often easier to have a shorthand especially if you're trying to write an article or a blog or sell a product (or, yes, a book) and you want people to know what to search for. In daily life people (at least British people!) don't tend to go around saying "Oh we're unschooling, don't you know. And I'm natural-term breastfeeding, baby wearing and cloth-nappying the baby!" It only comes up in context and when it does you probably wouldn't use the special term, you'd just say "Oh yes this sling is very handy actually, takes up much less space than a buggy" or whatever.

For us, unschooling was the process of allowing our younger DC to let go of the terrible stress that school had been and learn about what he enjoyed doing.

Our other DC adored school and was never home educated so each of them saw the other one doing something different, and each had the opportunity to switch if they wanted to. Neither did.

We kept very clear boundaries on behaviour but the way we home educated was far more fluid than the way a school works - simply because it's a different situation. I don't believe either school or home ed is better or worse: different things suit different children.

We were extremely lucky that I was able to work from home, otherwise we would have struggled to do it.

Both DC are doing well at uni and have friends, interests etc, and I believe each of them had the educational experience (after the younger one left school) that suited them best.

Home education is generally undertaken by those who can't afford private education but wish they could.

And similarly "No we don't have a tutor. X just learns about whatever interests him at the time. Last week we planted some vegetables, and tomorrow he wants to go and visit the Roman monument" or whatever.

Sorry bertie, I shouldn't have said forcing. See my last post for my own experience of being told I should make my baby eat stuff which was bad for him.

When you have insisted that your 9 month old baby tries the porridge with milk that all the experts insist he should have, and he is then very poorly indeed (think throat closing, noisy breathing) then blw seems like a more sensible option.

But I am hijacking and will stop now.

Not at all for me ruffallo. I have had my opinion slightly changed by MN about private schools but I still don't think I would ever choose to send my child to one. Would love to HE if I could though. Luckily I think DS will thrive in school - he's just that kind of child. Bright enough not to get kicked down by it but makes friends easily so I think he's got both sides covered.

I wish I'd been home educated, actually. I think it would have been incredible for me and my sister. Both of us did well at school up to GCSE and then have sort of floundered off from there. It's a shame.

"Home education is generally undertaken by those who can't afford private education but wish they could."
That's not my experience mrsruffallo
Our children and their friends think a school is a school, whoever pays...

I loved BLW greenbananas :) Just wanted to say that (normal) spoon feeding is very different from force feeding.

I had a crappy experience with a food refusing child and "experts" when he was younger too and I wish I could go back and tell myself not to listen to the people who knew nothing about MY child. So

bless you bertie

Sorry, that was abrupt. I should have added 'in my experience'. I know two families that home school as there was an element of not wanting their dc to mix with 'rough types' but wishing they could afford private school.

I think there's an awful lot of assumptions going on about unschooling by people who really don't know any better. If you are interested then read up about it, there is plenty of documentation available to show that it works and produces happy and self motivated adults. I wish I'd known about it earlier in my parenting as I could of avoided a lot of stress that school caused my middle daughter and myself. The unschoolers I know certainly do not neglect their children, in fact spend a lot more time with their children than mainstream parents getting to know their passions and helping to facilitate them it is not lazy parenting.

mini " and even create great steam powered engines, bridges and even develop medicine."

Yes and all these things were done by educated people- James Watt- went to grammar school. Brunel- went to boarding school, Pasteur- went to school.

Yes these were priviledged people who recieved a good education. They were not some random chimney sweep family who suddenly home educated their kids- how could they?

It's no coincidence that the runaway success of the technical and information revolution has co-incided with mass schooling for all children. It has happened largely due to schooling. It's because of schools that you have the freedom, expertise and access to information which enables you to have the luxury of home educating.

Schools give us an educated society. Without them we would not have been able to have made the progress that we have in many areas of medicine, engineering, technology.

Schools have given you the ability to home educate and I think we should dismiss them at our peril. I dread to imagine the state of things if everyone unschooled.

It's a nice luxury for those families who want it- but can only exist if we have a school system to teach the rest of us.

But at the times those people were alive, the only access to information and previously learned knowledge was through school. This is not the case nowadays. It's possible to go to college or university (and indeed, take GCSEs) without ever having been to school - many home educated children do. I did go to school but I still managed to get onto a degree course without A levels and another qualification usually regarded as a postgraduate qualification without having finished my degree, I did that by asking, and showing that I could do the work expected.

Albert Einstein was told by schoolteachers that he would amount to nothing. If you like, he "unschooled" himself after leaving school.

These days you can access so much information so much more easily than in the past. I definitely think schools are necessary but I don't believe that schools hold our society together as much as you seem to believe.

Is it a surprise that schools are more and more moving away from older styles of teaching to more flexible, learner-focused methods? I find this fascinating and encouraging. I do think that schools are a much better place nowadays than they were 30 years ago, and they are improving all the time. And for the most part, this wouldn't have happened without research done by home ed enthusiasts who have seen the immense benefits which come from home ed, and wanted to know how that could be applied in schools.

I'm completely in favour of everyone having an entitlement to education, and even the much-hated national curriculum is about entitlement.

Still, it's not entirely true that only mainstream educated people can make significant advances. I know this example is outdated, but what about the man who invented the marine chronometer (Harrison, I think) he was "just" a carpenter, but this was a huge scientific advance. The bloke who invented the sextant (earlier) was just a carpenter. My stepdad was a carpenter, but a very clever man.

james watt may have been educated, but he got the idea for the steam engine when he was lounging around in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil.

It's my understanding that unschooling is a cheesy American term, whilst in the UK the term autonomous education (which is more accurately descriptive, I think) was more commonly used. I might be wrong though.

I have to disagree with your sample of two as well MrsRuffallo - I wouldn't and have never wanted to send my child to private school (although she's now at an online secondary, which we pay for, so I guess you could argue that I am ).

Thanks just caught up with this thread -See when it is written out by some of the people on here - I get it, I understand why you would choose such an approach and get that it can be a very positive experience. I think some of things I've understood to be home schooling don't reflect the experiences which I've seen on this thread. I think for me I conclude as I put earlier - often unschooling is a great, pro-active choice which benefits the whole family, but it can (as can home-schooling and pretty much ever parenting approach going!) be mis-used or not thought through and then not work so well.
My problem is I really don't like our education system, my twins are just on the cusp of entering it and I came across all of this via searching for alternatives, but I also have to work full time so struggle to see how it work in reality. However I do think it would be great (as with all forms of parenting!) if maybe we all took a little more time to understand the different perspectives - that's my lets all live in peace talk done for the day!

"My problem is I really don't like our education system"

What are you basing that judgement on? Your own experiences?

Life learning seems a better term, although it is something we all do anyway- I am certainly doing it at over 60yrs.
Learning doesn't happen in between the hours of 9 and 3 so the majority of us are home educating in addition to using a building and teachers.
I would call your experience 'unschooling', Chennai because that is what you were having to do for a while. Hopefully it didn't last too long before you could get onto a pleasant learning experience purely at home.
I think those who have never used schools need to come up with a more inventive, more accurate term and drop the American jargon.

bobbygirl

Can I just ask, because I would love to educate my ds in the way you did your children, did you ever worry that it wouldn't have a positive outcome for them?

Eg, that they wouldn't motivate themselves as teenagers/adults? I.e. That they would just watch TV all the time, and not get bored?

I am probably not explaining myself clearly (child is climbing all over me)... But when I think about educating this way the biggest concern I have is he would be happy, learn at his own pace etc but that it might not lead to self motivation and fitting into society etc and I would have let him down by not sending him to a 'good' school.

It feels like a bit of a big leap of faith somehow