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Unschooling-dotcom... |
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On seeing results from unschooling:
My 18 and 16 year olds are unschooled Eagle Scouts. My 18 year old is
living in South America with a Spanish-speaking family, learning Spanish by
immersion, studying music there in Ecuador, and volunteering by teaching English to
primary school students. I'm thinking he'll come back and [try] community college
then college or some kind of vocational training (but after a year of living
internationally, he may have some changed interests/sensibilities. My
goodness, I hope so!). My 16 year old is very adept with computers, plans to
attend community college then college. Far as I can tell, they are pretty much on
their way to doing whatever they want. That may not be "success" as some
people definte it—but it looks like they'll be able to take care of
themselves financially and use their guts and gifts to do something they enjoy. They
also have the ability to have good relationships and understand how to "do
meetings," "do athletics," "join stuff," and consider ethical/moral questions.
They are very different kids—and at this age—who is to say what yet
might "intervene?" They have a lot to learn about being on their own, as do
schooled kids who are older teenagers, so we will just have to see. But
unschooling has certainly given them an excellent foundation on which to build a
life.
You might be interested in the Grace Llewellyn book Real Lives: Eleven
teenagers who don't go to school tell their own stories. If you get the 2005
version, it gives updates as to how these now grown unschoolers are doing and what
they are doing.
—Jeanne
Thanks! Were your kids always unschooled?
My older kids went to school thru 2nd and 4th grades, then came home to
unschooling. Our first three months of homeschooling, I attempted to use a
curriculum, which did not work even in the very loosest application. The rest of
the time they have been unschooled.
My youngest is 8 and he has always been unschooled, including learning to
read at age 8 "in his own time".
After I wrote my first response to you in a very bleary eyed "just woke up"
atmosphere—I wanted to add this. My opinion, and for OUR family, looking
at unschooling from a results-oriented point of view would be an error. For
us, unschooling is about PROCESS not PRODUCT. I have seen the most typical
"successes" (and my definition is broad—maximizing emotional health, being
able to function in the world, being able to pursue work or study that is
satisfying) actually emerge from unschooling families who do NOT aim at some
distant specific result, except whatever goals the kid has. Rather, their
unschooling is about daily life, weekly life. It is about creating family
connections, learning connections, community connections, not because it will "get us
somewhere" but because we ARE going somewhere. Does that make sense? Even
my kids Eagle Scout accomplishments were "learning by doing"—based rather than
purely the goal of this achievement. But the achievement comes because of
focusing on doing the right things and having warm relationships, not because
of jumping hoops. This time last year, we had no goal for our oldest son to
go to South America. However, we hosted a student from South America because
that was an exciting way to add to the experience of our family. The
opportunity grew from that—and because that is the way we have lived our life,
our oldest son was prepared for this experience.
I am still too sleepy to talk about this well because now it sounds like I
am saying goals are a bad thing, and that's not what I mean. Let's see. Let
me try something else. The other day at the pool I watched in horror as
parents tried to force their kid to learn to swim. He was about 7, and his
parents were pushing, berating, etc. His mom later commented to me that she could
not understand why he was so much later in swimming than his peers. I'm
thinking—well, if you'd just let him play in the water and enjoy it with you,
he'd be swimming in two weeks. We've been more the "enjoy the water/learn
about the water" folks, knowing that this was a way for us to help our kids
learn to swim—a goal we have for them. Now, even this metaphor breaks down,
because we HAVE used swimming lessons too (when kids wanted; when we had a
teacher who could at the very least lean toward our approach if not embracing
it completely). But I mean it more as a general metaphor for our approach to
living/learning. If we "enjoy the water" of living/learning together, we end
up living/learning together in a way that is productive.
Well, I hope someone else who shares this kind of philosophy and has had
more coffee than I can make this more clear. I know there are quite a few on
this list who will recognize what I at TRYING in vain to say.
Bottom line, I trust the kids to grow into who they need to be, given a
warm, supportive family that will provide them with love, resources, guidance and
opportunity. It is very much a potential-based model, rather than an
accountability-based or "outcome-based" model. If I didn't "do it this way" with
my kids, I might cover up their potential by presuming some result or outcome
as more important. And what if I aimed far too short or at the wrong star?
— Jeanne
Well, my oldest child is only 15, but I have several friends who have
unschooled their now adult children, and I am not exactly sure what
you mean by "results", as I think that depends on your goals. In our
family the goals are more about connection and relationship, so we
define "success" as more the ability to solve interpersonal problems
respectfully and how we all feel about each other. I believe that
humans are born learners, but I also think that [a] strong base of family
relationships enables the kind of confidence that inspires limitless
passionate learning. I found that our relationships suffered when we
coerced our children to go to school and when we used ANY kind of
punishments or rewards, so, we stopped doing all of that with our
older child and never have with our younger three. The "results" I
have seen so far are: happy, free, authentic, contributing, joyous
kids who love their family and are thoroughly experiencing their
childhood, and an absence of resentment, anger, power/autonomy
struggles and weird manipulative behaviors. In our family, we do not
define success or "results" in the way that others might, and I'm
pretty sure that our kids won't care about well-respected positions
or how much money they earn, but they'll surely care about being
happy and satisfied and fulfilled in their work.
—Emily
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