Unschooling - Do you think it can work?

[abacucat]

Unschooling is the idea that children naturally want to learn and that what children need is the opportunity to pursue their interests.

Te school hours too There was a very interesting blog post written by a teacher about how much time was actually spent learning in the school day and then averaged out over the year. Whilst I think it's probably a bit more time per day realistically I don't think it's that much more than the 100 minutes per school day (averaged to 51 mins per day for home educators over 365 days).
monkeymum.blog/2015/09/13/time-is-precious/

I really think I was learning for more than 51 minutes at school.

Can it work? It would depend on the environment the child is raised in. I work in a school and I see parents who engage minimally with their child, so much so it affects the child's behaviour. So no, not for those families. And then there will be parents who enjoy being with their kids and will happily facilitate their child's interests - for those families it would work.

It was 100 minutes of actual learning per school day for those attending primary school, the figure which she then averaged out over 365 days as people who HE tend to do it every day. It was a post to basically combat the attitude some LAs had/have of telling new home educators that they should be doing 4+ hours of "education" a day, which apparently still gets spouted out according to the UK wide home ed groups on Facebook.

As I said, I suspect the figure is probably a bit higher but it's probably not that much higher and being reminded of all of the non-educating time spent in school was interesting too.

Agree with the PP who said it wouldn't work for her autistic child.

My son is currently being educated at home because there is no school that meets his needs and we have been let down by the local authority.

All of the home ed sites recommend a period of 'deschooling' before starting work. In reality that was a nightmare for my child. He had no idea what to do with himself and became very depressed.

Now we are following a structured programme he is much happier.

However I absolutely do think it can work for some children and it does not at all mean that the child is not accessing an education just that it is not based on the school model.

I home Ed and have one child that this laid back approach works really well for, and one that it would fail miserably! Like everything I think you have to consider the child in front of you and go with an approach that works for them. My son would spend all day on minecraft if he has total free choice!

I wish they would change the name. The name sounds like people believe they need to undo the harm schooling does (and some of them do) which is really denying that the concept of the education system has helped build civilisation.

It can work but for the right China and depends heavily on educated aware parents.

*child. Not China

No it doesn’t work.

My friend did a period of in-schooling with her son who is autistic, School just didn’t work for him after Y8. He spent six months not really doin much but then started studying again. He’s now the equivalent of Y11 and has Maths and English tutors. He will sit GCSE English and Maths next year along with science. Everything else can be done as he grows.
He has plans for what he will study over the next few years.

Yes, it can work, as evidenced by the people for whom it has worked.

You can say it isn't for you. I don't think you can deny that it works.

Does school work well for some children? Yes.
Does it work for all?
No.

Ditto unschooling.

Different styles of education can work at various times in a person's life.
We found unschooling something to dip in and out of, alternating with full time school attendance.
It worked well for my child when it was needed.

It could I think for some but not all. Just like many people would struggle with the motivation to work freelance from home but others are intrinsically driven.

It used to be 'deschooling'. Read Ivan Illich, 'Deschooling Society' and AS Neill on Summerhill (which was/is a school...)

Speaking as the aunt of 'unschooled' children, I worry that they are unconsciously making decisions now that will seriously limit their career options in the future.

I had subjects that I naturally excelled in at school, and others that I didn't enjoy or see the relevance of until much later in life. But a rounded education, from school and parents who actively encouraged curiosity and learning, meant I had a lot of different career paths available when I was old enough to be making that type of decision.

A PP said that children brought up this way are likely to reject traditional career options anyway. But that should be the choice of the child when they are old enough, rather than the path charted by their parents from primary school age.

My 6 yo son is very motivated with his learning and of my three kids is the only one who I think could possibly be 'unschooled' Eg is currently fascinated by Rosa parks and has been reading books about civil rights movements etc etc HOWEVER this is all very much underpinning what he's doing at school and the style of learning ...I think all kids have interests they'd like to focus on rather than doing a whole curriculum but it's all the more 'boring' technical stuff such as adverbs or division etc , that they'd miss out on and that they do need to know

I don't get what's going on with the education system now.
I and my peers all did fine in normal school environments as did the generations before me and after.

It's all got a bit airy fairy and makes me dread to think what dreamboat ideas of education will be in place when my child gets to school age 🙄

It used to be 'deschooling'. Read Ivan Illich, 'Deschooling Society' and AS Neill on Summerhill (which was/is a school...)

No, it's always been "unschooling"

"deschooling" is what you do when a child has experienced trauma or unhappiness at school. It's a break and rest from education whilst the child recuperates.

It can work (in that children will learn and develop skills and move on well into adulthood) for some able kids with the right temperament who can and is willing to clearly communicate their interests with some able parents willing and desiring to do so. I view it as similar to how some kids learn to read well and confidently just by being read to and having books around, it happens - probably not as often as claimed, but it very much happens.

I do not think an entirely child-led education is realistic for most kids or their parents. Most successful unschoolers I know tend to be child-led on content subjects or create unit studies based on interests, but still require other work to keep progress in core skills particularly for maths and writing alongside quite a bit of adult-led exposure to a broad range of things and structure rather than the common image of unschooling as kids doing whatever they wish.

I think there is an undue backlash against child-led/'unschooling' due in part how media and others focus on those who give it a bad name as with many other things but also from some of the proponents who hide the additional work they're putting in which feeds this unattainable for many ideal. I've home educated for over ten years, the 'my child magically got interested in this and started learning about it with no input from me - aren't kids amazing when we step back' conversations happen. A lot. And entirely different to what a lot of them will say one on one when they know you don't care about that ideal.

It reminds me of the common advice about discussing sex ed when kids ask with stories of curious 3 year olds and older kids with books... it works for some, but there is no mention of what to do with a child nearing secondary age - and puberty - who not only never asks but will run out of the room if the topic comes up or the many important parts that even not-question-phobic kids still won't ask and each parent has to decide how to deal with that (I built a thorough overkill body science unit study so that when we got to reproduction near the end, he was very used to discussing bodies in detail). There have been quite a few important subjects like that here where one of my kids had no interest until we spent months on it already or needed systemic learning like for reading which - living in an area where most are unschoolers it felt weird but really all of our kids are different and really most of us are more balanced even if we prefer adult- or child-led as our main method.

I and my peers all did fine in normal school environments as did the generations before me and after.

That's not true for all of us - I know many people in my own and in the generations before me who did not finish high school for a long list of reasons. I currently live in an area where about 10% of kids in the normal school environment get old-school-grade C or better for English and Maths GCSEs and I do not call that fine. Society and education change and sometimes the airy fairy ideas (in my day that was school-based counseling and therapy, even a lot of my teachers thought that was ridiculous but it saved lives) if not do things for the better at least challenge what's going on and what we think we know.

And what are his plans for the future? How does he hope to achieve them?

At 11 she hasn't decided her plans for the future. But if she wants to go to uni, then that's an option for her, same as it is for anyone else.