Sandra Dodd

The last two items ask the same thing and it had already been asked
before anyway:

-=-How does unschooling prepare children for a world that is not
catered to their interests?

-=-How does a child from this lifestyle learn to be independent when
the parent has facilitated their needs, wants and learning from day
one?-=-



If the author of those questions has followed the links given in
earlier posts, the answers are all there.

I will ask counter questions:

How does school prepare children for a world that does not cater to
their interests? (I rephrased the awkward ending.)

How does a child from a traditional family learn to be independent
when the parent has controlled and denied and limited him from day one?



Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

-=-How does unschooling prepare children for a world ...-=-

No matter what comes after that, unschooling isn't taking children
aside and preparing them for eventual entry into the world.
Unschooling is bringing children into the world and letting them be
there always. My babies were in the world. My older kids were in
the world, not in school-being-prepared-for-the-world. My young
adult children are still in the world, where they've been for 22, 19,
17 years. They interact with people who still don't feel that
they're "in the world" yet. They think they have to finish college
and THEN "enter the world."

Tonight we were at a birthday dinner with an extended family we've
known as long as Holly remembers. One woman has lately finished a
master's degree in English. She's teaching at a community college,
teaching English and sociology. She said she has many homeschoolers,
some as young as 16, and they are far and away the best and most
interesting and most interested students in her classes. She said
they ask interesting questions, they have interesting comments,
they'll volunteer to do things and to answer questions, they care
about how to use commas, and they pay attention.

Sandra



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Margaret

I wonder if she meant "How will they be able to get a good job and
support themselves without a traditional education? Are you just
preparing your child for a life where the best job they can get is
working at McDonald's... but they probably wouldn't want to do that
anyway as they are so self absorbed and used to having every whim
catered to?"

OK, maybe the last part of the question isn't helpful, but "how will
they get a job?" is probably something a lot of people wonder. If I
wasn't projecting snarkiness, I could probably have phrased the last
bit as "how will they function in an environment (office with a boss
telling you what to do) when they are not used to being told what to
do and having to do it even when they don't enjoy it or find it
interesting?"

Margaret

On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 9:23 PM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> -=-How does unschooling prepare children for a world ...-=-
>
> No matter what comes after that, unschooling isn't taking children
> aside and preparing them for eventual entry into the world.
> Unschooling is bringing children into the world and letting them be
> there always. My babies were in the world. My older kids were in
> the world, not in school-being-prepared-for-the-world. My young
> adult children are still in the world, where they've been for 22, 19,
> 17 years. They interact with people who still don't feel that
> they're "in the world" yet. They think they have to finish college
> and THEN "enter the world."
>
> Tonight we were at a birthday dinner with an extended family we've
> known as long as Holly remembers. One woman has lately finished a
> master's degree in English. She's teaching at a community college,
> teaching English and sociology. She said she has many homeschoolers,
> some as young as 16, and they are far and away the best and most
> interesting and most interested students in her classes. She said
> they ask interesting questions, they have interesting comments,
> they'll volunteer to do things and to answer questions, they care
> about how to use commas, and they pay attention.
>
> Sandra
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>