Unlocking the unschoolers mind
Hannick Powell
Hi!
My name is Hannah and I am very new to unschooling. I have been inspired enough by my incredible unschooling sister-in-law to really look into it for my son who is 14months. I am studying early childhood education at uni and have been completing one subject at a time since my son was born. This semester was "Research in Early Childhood" and we were allowed to choose our own focus so purely for "professional" reasons of course (hehe) I chose unschooling.
There is multitudes of research out there looking into homeschooling and informal or natural learning in terms of whether it "works" or not (and the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that homeschooling - particularly with an informal approach - is so much better for the child in many many ways) so I decided I wanted to look deeper and find out about parent's epistemological beliefs - beliefs about how children learn and know - and their impact on educational choices.
SO I am interested in peoples thoughts, feelings and opinions relating to how children learn and also views on knowing - what is it, how does it happen etc. If you would be so kind as to share your ideas on the matter I would be so grateful! (It might be helpful for you too!)
For clarification some springboard questions are:
LEARNING
How do you think children learn?
Why did you choose unschooling specifically over traditional homeschoolong or schooling?
Can you think of an experience when you really noticed a child had learnt something?
How do you know when a child has learnt something?
KNOWING
Many people believe that there are “right” answers or “truth” when teaching children, what is your belief?
Do you agree with the idea that there are no right answers for teaching children and anyone’s opinion is as good as another’s?
I would greatly appreciate your feedback as I feel so inspired by everything I am learning and discovering and would like to share that enthusiasm with educators. This is not a professional research document, i.e. it WILL NOT be published, it is merely an undergrad uni research assignment and will be viewed only by the marker and participants if they request it. Any participation will be completely voluntary and confidential, I replace all names with a pseudonym and do not discuss personal information with anyone. Please let me know if you do not want me to include your response in my assignment and of course that would be fine and I completely understand!
Thank you!!
Kind regards,
Hannah.
P.S. If anyone is available for an interview please let me know and I'd love to organise it!
The new Internet Explorer 8 optimised for Yahoo!7: Faster, Safer, Easier.
My name is Hannah and I am very new to unschooling. I have been inspired enough by my incredible unschooling sister-in-law to really look into it for my son who is 14months. I am studying early childhood education at uni and have been completing one subject at a time since my son was born. This semester was "Research in Early Childhood" and we were allowed to choose our own focus so purely for "professional" reasons of course (hehe) I chose unschooling.
There is multitudes of research out there looking into homeschooling and informal or natural learning in terms of whether it "works" or not (and the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that homeschooling - particularly with an informal approach - is so much better for the child in many many ways) so I decided I wanted to look deeper and find out about parent's epistemological beliefs - beliefs about how children learn and know - and their impact on educational choices.
SO I am interested in peoples thoughts, feelings and opinions relating to how children learn and also views on knowing - what is it, how does it happen etc. If you would be so kind as to share your ideas on the matter I would be so grateful! (It might be helpful for you too!)
For clarification some springboard questions are:
LEARNING
How do you think children learn?
Why did you choose unschooling specifically over traditional homeschoolong or schooling?
Can you think of an experience when you really noticed a child had learnt something?
How do you know when a child has learnt something?
KNOWING
Many people believe that there are “right” answers or “truth” when teaching children, what is your belief?
Do you agree with the idea that there are no right answers for teaching children and anyone’s opinion is as good as another’s?
I would greatly appreciate your feedback as I feel so inspired by everything I am learning and discovering and would like to share that enthusiasm with educators. This is not a professional research document, i.e. it WILL NOT be published, it is merely an undergrad uni research assignment and will be viewed only by the marker and participants if they request it. Any participation will be completely voluntary and confidential, I replace all names with a pseudonym and do not discuss personal information with anyone. Please let me know if you do not want me to include your response in my assignment and of course that would be fine and I completely understand!
Thank you!!
Kind regards,
Hannah.
P.S. If anyone is available for an interview please let me know and I'd love to organise it!
The new Internet Explorer 8 optimised for Yahoo!7: Faster, Safer, Easier.
rebecca de
Hello Hannah,
This is cool.. I'm not a perfect unschooler and I haven't totally entailed unschooling yet but I'm working on it. I did send my oldest to kindergarten yet again because he requested it.
any way I'm going to answer some of your questions below:
LEARNINGHow do you think children learn?
I really really learn intrinsically. However, I still have to rid myself constantly of the traditionally ways
Why did you choose unschooling specifically over traditional homeschoolong or schooling?I'm still looking truthfully but unschooling is about freedom to me.
Unschooling allows the parents to step back and get out of the childs way.
Can you think of an experience when you really noticed a child had learnt something?I'm not sure we can put it so cut and try. lets' think about when even our children were babies and they first had the curiousity to crawl , than eventually they want to walk -- and they do it -- do we particulary teach them or are we jsut there for them?
How do you know when a child has learnt something?
ok my 3 year old was never formaly taught to use the computer or the computer mouse -- yet all of sudden he seems to pick it up and is using it the only thing I feel I 'showed' him is where bookmarks and rarely have to help him with it at all
KNOWING
Many people believe that there are “right” answers or “truth” when teaching children, what is your belief?No -- again my belief that it is all individual what works for one doesn't work for another -- there is why 'school' doesn't always work -- kids don't all fit into there mold
Do you agree with the idea that there are no right answers for teaching children and anyone’s opinion is as good as another’s?I would agree that anyone's opinion is as good as anothers
I
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
This is cool.. I'm not a perfect unschooler and I haven't totally entailed unschooling yet but I'm working on it. I did send my oldest to kindergarten yet again because he requested it.
any way I'm going to answer some of your questions below:
LEARNINGHow do you think children learn?
I really really learn intrinsically. However, I still have to rid myself constantly of the traditionally ways
Why did you choose unschooling specifically over traditional homeschoolong or schooling?I'm still looking truthfully but unschooling is about freedom to me.
Unschooling allows the parents to step back and get out of the childs way.
Can you think of an experience when you really noticed a child had learnt something?I'm not sure we can put it so cut and try. lets' think about when even our children were babies and they first had the curiousity to crawl , than eventually they want to walk -- and they do it -- do we particulary teach them or are we jsut there for them?
How do you know when a child has learnt something?
ok my 3 year old was never formaly taught to use the computer or the computer mouse -- yet all of sudden he seems to pick it up and is using it the only thing I feel I 'showed' him is where bookmarks and rarely have to help him with it at all
KNOWING
Many people believe that there are “right” answers or “truth” when teaching children, what is your belief?No -- again my belief that it is all individual what works for one doesn't work for another -- there is why 'school' doesn't always work -- kids don't all fit into there mold
Do you agree with the idea that there are no right answers for teaching children and anyone’s opinion is as good as another’s?I would agree that anyone's opinion is as good as anothers
I
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]