In his Kindergarten homeschool year my older son asked to stop unschooling. He wanted to know what was expected of him and to a sense of satisfaction and "feel free" when his work was done. I followed his lead and we switched to the Charlotte Mason method blending with classical with some recommendations from The Well Trained Mind. Later we switched to what I guess is more eclectic as I tailor the learning to each child's abilities while aiming for a college prep level of coursework.
I love the concept of unschooling but over the years have seen it done with success by certain types of individuals. My opinion is that certain types of learners or people with certain personalities are better suited to unschooling or radical unschooling. Others do not thrive with unschooling, period.
At the time I'm writing this my older son is now fourteen years old and in ninth grade. In the last couple of weeks a few things have happened to make me realize a few more reasons why unschooling would never work for this son of mine.
There can be a mismatch of the estimation in how easy a goal is to accomplish. My son may think something is easy and he may block out a small amount of time to get the work done but the work can't get done in that time. If my description confuses you I'll say it another way. He will set a goal to do X by the end of the week. He will poorly plot his time and will leave things to the last minute. When he tries to get the work done in the short amount of time, he cannot get it done. Thus, he failed to achieve his own goal. If this happened once or a few times it would be no big deal but for him this has been a constant challenge for years which has not changed the older and more mature he gets. The natural consequence of over and over failing at that method has not led him to change his ways. Yet, if I make up the schedule and say to spend an hour a day doing science reading then the job gets done. He has not been able to set the schedule himself and get it to work.
There can be a temptation to work to get something done rather than to work to mastery. At present he is struggling with some concepts in math. I left my son on his own to do work with an online class. I was giving little oversight, leaving him to be in charge of monitoring his assignments, turning them in on time and so forth. Instead of sticking to the assignments that were given online he explored the website and switched the focus of his work to topics not being covered in the class (you may think that was good as he was following his curiosity and enjoying learning). He enjoyed doing those math operations. However when I went to check his work a week later I found him behind in four content areas but ahead in content areas that were not assigned in this course!
Once I realized that my son was about ten days behind with the online class, I had to start to work one on one with him to figure out what was going wrong. Now I realized he was not just behind in work but struggling to understand the content. He had to work double time to catch up while trying to get current with the course's content. (How kids in school can stay afloat if they get a bit behind is beyond my comprehension.)
I identified he was lacking mastery in content areas that were back at the beginning of the class a few weeks ago. He could not do current work as errors were being made with foundational areas. We had to backtrack to the beginning and work on the more basic concepts. He was unable to realize where he was going wrong and what needed fixing. It too a separate set of eyes to help him see it. If an unschooler is behind how do they know? If an unschooler thinks they get it but they don't then what?
Lastly with the math he is stubborn about practicing things over and over in order to learn them. Yet he is not getting it and is not able to master all the concepts with just a few practice examples. Unfortunately the curriculum we are using gives few practice examples so I have to make up more work on my own for him to practice. He has been fighting me on this as he insists this is not necessary yet when 2/3 of the work is incorrect that is glaringly obvious that he can't do that type of work!0
He begged to go forward and go faster and to "get the chapters done" as "he had a goal to finish Algebra I". His inability to recognize when he is struggling is a problem if he were left to be the designer of his own course and his goal to finish the course and to know the information was not meshing with the reality that he was not really learning the information!
Even when this son has something he really, really, really wants to accomplish he can't seem to figure out what it takes to get it done or he messes up on the timeframes and deadlines. Thus the case that "if a child or teen really wants to do something they will figure out how to get it done or what needs doing" is not true for all kids and teens. Good intentions and wishes do not always result in something getting accomplished or finished.
Unschooling and radical unschooling, I believe, are right for a certain type of person, it is not right for everyone. Exactly what type of mind jives with unschooling is something we could discuss and debate.
What I want is for my kids to learn and to have success at their attempts to learn. I want my kids prepared to do what they want with their adult lives, at this point that is college attendance. I need to do what helps my kids meet their goal and so far neither of my kids seems to jive with unschooling. No matter how much I admire unschooling I am not forcing it on my kids when it isn't what works for them and when it is something they flounder with rather than flourish with. If unschooling works for you, I'm a bit envious of your situation!
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6 comments:
I have often wondered if that whole "concept of time" is something some people just don't have... Like my husband, who for the last 18 years has severely underestimated the amount of time it takes to complete any task, or to get anywhere. This was exacerbated by the advent of children in our family... the idea that one must include in one's estimates the extra time it takes to get the children ready to go anywhere is utterly foreign to him. Can you tell this is a pet peeve of mine? I tell him to make his best guess, then triple it, because that will be the accurate answer... but he doesn't do that. Sigh.
I have probably made things more difficult for my daughters to learn good estimating skills by telling them they have one minute before it is time to leave the playground, and then giving them 15... so we will be doing a "telling time" review, and some stopwatch activities in hopes of improving this. And I'll start being more accurate with my directions to them!
We don't do unschooling. I think it is a grand idea in theory, but it doesn't work for us. I do not actually care if my children attend college, trade school, volunteer for the armed services, or become entrepreneurs straight out of homeschool - but I want them to have ALL those options, so our schooling has to be built around that. It means a college prep program, at least until they are mature enough to understand what they are giving up (and/or gaining) when they give up that option.
Unschooling would work probably just fine for my oldest. She's my kid who reads the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and the Life of Fred series "for fun" in her leisure time. I don't "unschool" her because my DH is still a bit skeptical about HS in general. But if I were to allow her complete freedom to direct her studies, I really think she'd do fine with it.
My 2nd child is not someone I think well-suited for "unschooling". He is bright but seems to need more systematic and explicit teaching than his big sister does.
I think you're still unschooling. Unschooling, in my mind, is about child-led learning. As long as your son is learning the way he wants, he's unschooling.
It takes respect, love, and faith to unschool a child. It takes those same traits for you to help your son have learning experiences they way he prefers. That's unschooling my friend. Kudos to you!
----Ben >@<
BenFSayer.com
I'm sorry, but what you described was NOT unschooling. During the whole article, you talk about deadlines, and goals. That's exactly what unschooling is not about. Of course no child is going to be self-motivated to set goal and deadlines and follow some kind of self-imposed curriculum.
To really do homeschooling right, you have to take a deep breath, and *let go*. Stop worrying about whether he'll learn algebra this year (or at all), or whether he is studying every single day. Your job is simply to make sure he can go to the library as much as he wants to, that he has a good computer with fast internet, and any other access to information. Then, sit back and let him get to a state of complete boredom. It will be scary at first, because he will probably appear to be doing nothing at first. In fact, he may spend a few months playing games, socializing, etc. But eventually, something WILL pique his curiosity, and then he will want to know more about whatever it is. Your job is to give him the help and information he needs...but ONLY when he asks for it. He may not need much help at all.
Why does unschooling work? Because it's curiosity-driven, information, once learned, is not forgotten. He will be learning the exact same way that Leonardo DaVinci learned how to draw...how Pythagoras learned how to do math...how Sir Issac Newton learned physics. They learned these complex things not because some teacher forced them to read textbooks, but because they WANTED to. They were passionately interested in it. Now, sometimes it freaks people out, because a child may want to know everything about one subject, and nothing about another. But specialization is nothing to be afraid of. Was Mozart a great scientist? Was Einstein a brilliant painter? Was Plato a mathematician? No. Did it matter? Of course not. They each spent their days passionately pursuing their own interests.
Unschooling CAN work for everyone. It simply requires a leap of faith and nerves of steel on your part.
Kim, are you saying an unschooler kid (not the parent) cannot set goals for themselves?
I have heard former unschooled kids talk about their lives and nearly all included goals by the teen years and definately young adult years.
If a person was unschooling then has a goal they want to achieve are you saying they divorce themself from using the term unschooler?
If an unschooler wants to learn an instrument and chooses to do a recital on a date which means they have to practice more leading up to that date, they then are no longer an unschooler?
Truly curious about your logic. Hope you reply.
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