carnationsgalore

This seems to be one of the biggest concerns I hear: My child must learn to write book reports, essays, and research reports in order to do well in college or even a job.

It used to be a big concern of mine too before I really understood and started living unschooling. The irony of that belief was that I did not do so well with writing when I was in school. Yet in college, I found ways to manage. It's not rocket science to follow a pattern. Some people just don't think it's a skill that should be left to the child, even in an unschooling environment.

I have heard a few people say they were unschooling except for the necessities such as math skills, reading comprehension, and writing (as in composition not handwriting).

My children are doing quite well writing things they want to write. My son Jeffrey (13) makes lists of video games and writes up reviews. He hasn't felt comfortable posting them to the various game sites he reads though he talks about doing it some day. He'll either do it later or not do it. I can't imagine making him do that just to teach him a lesson. My daughter Allie (11) likes to write song lyrics and stories. She can work on one story for months. I don't ever tell her she needs to keep it a certain length or critique it to fit some arbitrary guidelines to prepare her for high school or later. I am positive she'll figure out formal writing when she needs to do so.

These thoughts have been going round in my head since I read some posts on a homeschooling board. People get so worked up. I'm so thankful I was able to learn to move past those hang-ups, even though it took me quite a long time. :)

Beth M.

C Johnson

My 12 yro daughter is taking a class. She recently had to write a formal report. With no experience at all her report was just as good as the other students in the class who have written reports all through public school.
 
BB,
Chrissie

"All you have to decide is what to do with the time you have been given." Gandalf

--- On Tue, 8/18/09, carnationsgalore <addled.homemaker@...> wrote:


From: carnationsgalore <addled.homemaker@...>
Subject: [AlwaysLearning] Why does schoolish writing haunt people?
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2009, 9:13 PM


 



This seems to be one of the biggest concerns I hear: My child must learn to write book reports, essays, and research reports in order to do well in college or even a job.

It used to be a big concern of mine too before I really understood and started living unschooling. The irony of that belief was that I did not do so well with writing when I was in school. Yet in college, I found ways to manage. It's not rocket science to follow a pattern. Some people just don't think it's a skill that should be left to the child, even in an unschooling environment.

I have heard a few people say they were unschooling except for the necessities such as math skills, reading comprehension, and writing (as in composition not handwriting) .

My children are doing quite well writing things they want to write. My son Jeffrey (13) makes lists of video games and writes up reviews. He hasn't felt comfortable posting them to the various game sites he reads though he talks about doing it some day. He'll either do it later or not do it. I can't imagine making him do that just to teach him a lesson. My daughter Allie (11) likes to write song lyrics and stories. She can work on one story for months. I don't ever tell her she needs to keep it a certain length or critique it to fit some arbitrary guidelines to prepare her for high school or later. I am positive she'll figure out formal writing when she needs to do so.

These thoughts have been going round in my head since I read some posts on a homeschooling board. People get so worked up. I'm so thankful I was able to learn to move past those hang-ups, even though it took me quite a long time. :)

Beth M.



















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Robin Bentley

>
>
> These thoughts have been going round in my head since I read some
> posts on a homeschooling board.

I'd stop reading the homeschooling board posts <g>.

Those folks who unschool except for "whatever" are not unschooling.
And your life isn't defined by their anxieties anymore. Why take their
opinions in at all, if you don't have to?

Robin B.




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carnationsgalore

> Those folks who unschool except for "whatever" are not unschooling.
> And your life isn't defined by their anxieties anymore. Why take
> their opinions in at all, if you don't have to?

I looked back at my post and wondered if the first line was written badly. I should have said they were concerned about their own children, not mine. It's just like any other group of people, there are some great conversations and some idiotic ones. :)

Beth M.

alanlmarshall

I teach college, and I can confirm that public school does not produce graduates who can write reports or other academic prose. Several of my students have not been able to write in complete sentences. Every one of them has a high school diploma.

Alan

Marina DeLuca-Howard

You can be disappointed that you haven't found kindred spirits, you can be
disdainful of their use of unschooling to promote themselves as hip
happening homeschoolers or you can just shrug and move on...I too am
struggling with this idea when someone introduces themselves as an
unschooler. It sets up expectations for a path of life learning in freedom
and mutual respect between parents and children. Who wouldn't be happy to
find a community of like-minded people? I am learning to just ignore the
self-identification and decide whether I am going consider people
friends/colleagues by using other criteria. Are they a thoughtful, kind,
gentle person?

There are enough of us striving for freedom, and respect in our lives:
attempting to live in love peacefully and joyfully with our kids! I think
just sorting through information is the skill of the future--learning to
discern and to shut out contradictory voices, rather than memorizing them by
rote or regurgitating them!. Learning to live and negotiate the world by
looking at other things other than labels is a great gift to our kids and
something they may choose to emulate or learn from watching you!

Marina


--
Rent our cottage: http://davehoward.ca/cottage/


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Sandra Dodd

-=-I'd stop reading the homeschooling board posts <g>.

-=-Those folks who unschool except for "whatever" are not unschooling.
And your life isn't defined by their anxieties anymore. Why take their
opinions in at all, if you don't have to?-=-

Yes.
And if anyone here is getting the alerts or bulletins from any groups
who make money telling people the sky is falling, that would be
another thing to click "unsubscribe" about.

Sometimes people who are fans of talk radio or political discussions
think this list is blowing sunshine up people's butts, but here's the
deal: Those "oh my Lord, can you believe this!?" outfits are blowing
fear up people, and into their eyes and ears and dreams.

Fear doesn't bring you closer to a state in which learning can take
place. Fear doesn't improve your relationship with your child.

Sandra




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Sandra Dodd

Occasionally over the years I've brought unedited samples of my kids'
writing. It wasn't to show off, and it wasn't to violate their privacy
or any such thing. It was to show that kids without lessons in
grammar or spelling or composition could write. But I forget that not
everyone has taught Jr. High English and has a headful of random
samples.

So Alan's point is good. If you don't know what to compare your kids'
writing to, it might be easier to worry.

But to be fair, I write easily. My kids are easily verbal.
Undoubtedly there's an element of "verbal intelligence" (Howard
Gardner term) involved. Genetics. Environment.

School probably would not have made them better writers. But I'm here
to explain semi-colons and hyphenated adjectives, and two of the three
have asked about that, and understood it (being in a 1:1 student/
teacher ratio <g>). Marty, genetically more like his dad, has not
inquired about these subtle details of written English. But when
Keith was Marty's age he wasn't much of a writer either, though he had
finished high school and two years at the university. Keith writes
well now, and Marty might too someday, but it's a small part of Marty
one way or the other.

The other day in a side e-mail someone (who should remain anonymous;
no responses needed) wrote this to me, about unschooling discussions:

"it would take me much longer to try and compose my thoughts like i'm
having to write an essay in high school. no thanks. not me. i'd rather
just spit it out..."

I could take that statement down to its elements, but the point for
this is that some people do have haunting memories (nightmare
memories, some) of "having to write an essay." I don't think of this
kind of writing as "essay writing" at all, so I'm sorry some people
have those wounds. Having taught English in a public school, I cannot
escape having been one of the wounders. Here's what I wrote about that:
http://sandradodd.com/gill

But back to this haunting problem: Even though it's harder for some
to write than others, not every list member needs to write. Most
don't; most just read. For those who do choose to write, though, I
want them to put thought into it. I don't want them to just urp up
whatever they're thinking. It doesn't need to be "an essay" to be
carefully chosen words.

Sandra

Jenny C

> > Those folks who unschool except for "whatever" are not unschooling.
> > And your life isn't defined by their anxieties anymore. Why take
> > their opinions in at all, if you don't have to?
>
> I looked back at my post and wondered if the first line was written
badly. I should have said they were concerned about their own children,
not mine. It's just like any other group of people, there are some great
conversations and some idiotic ones. :)
>


It doesn't matter who's kids they were concerned about, yours, theirs,
their neighbors, theoretical ones. If you are reading such things and
then thinking too much about it, then you are taking in their opinions,
wether you agree with them or not. I mostly avoid the local homeschool
message boards. I check them regularly to look for activities and law
updates, but I don't read or respond to posts other than those posts
that I specifically look for and even those ones, I don't respond to.

I don't like all the fear and worry presented by curriculum users, or
even eclectic homeschoolers, or relaxed homeschoolers. I love
unschooling a LOT. I want to protect it's precious place in my life and
the life of my family. Anything that I choose to explore along the
homeschooling lines had better be in the direction of making unschooling
better and anything that makes it worse can get thrown out the window or
into the garbage. I don't have time or energy to put into even reading
or thinking about someone else's fear about why their kids need
"whatever it is they need" for the parents to relax and be happy. I get
enough of it, just living life without seeking it out!

Jenny C

>>> It used to be a big concern of mine too before I really understood
and started living unschooling. The irony of that belief was that I did
not do so well with writing when I was in school. Yet in college, I
found ways to manage. >>>

It was never a huge concern of mine. I've always liked to write. My
sister is a way better writer than I am. I've had many teachers and
professors tell me that my writing is terrible. Yet, I still like to
write. Unschooling gives me something that I like to write about. I
figure that my kids will fare much better not writing at all than to
have people belittle their writing in large and small ways.

[email protected]

<It was never a huge concern of mine. I've always liked to write. My
sister is a way better writer than I am. I've had many teachers and
professors tell me that my writing is terrible. Yet, I still like to
write.>

What constitutes good writing's pretty subjective anyway. Some time ago,
I heard about an experiment in which someone sent a passage of D H
Lawrence's more purple prose to one of those "Make Pots of Money from Your Creative
Writing" courses. It was made to appear as if it came from the pen of an
ordinary writing student. From what I recall, the critique they received
was that the prose was clumsy, repetitive, overblown and slightly
disturbing. ;-)

From what I've seen here in England, schools teach
essay-writing-by-numbers. It's an approach that gets the results you'd expect - usually you'd
find more of interest in a shopping list.

Jude x





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Sandra Dodd

-=-From what I've seen here in England, schools teach
essay-writing-by-numbers. It's an approach that gets the results you'd
expect - usually you'd
find more of interest in a shopping list.-=-

After I quit teaching English, I started seeing references to "the
five-paragraph essay" or "a three-paragraph essay." That kind of
paint by numbers?

When we were doing essay discussions I would say the classic form is
tell what you're about to tell us, tell us, then make a statement
about what you told us. Then I told them that some of the best essays
break those rules by sneaking up on what they're going to tell you. <g>

Sandra

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jenstarc4

> When we were doing essay discussions I would say the classic form is
> tell what you're about to tell us, tell us, then make a statement
> about what you told us. Then I told them that some of the best essays
> break those rules by sneaking up on what they're going to tell you.
<g>


Formula essays are sometimes the only way to turn out an essay that you
had no interest in writing in the first place. That would make for bad
writing, I'd think! It's a compelling argument for not forcing writing.

If anyone here has read StarGirl by Jerry Spinelli, there is a very
beautiful part of the book where she writes a speech, but she doesn't
really write it at all, she fills her head with it and speaks. I won't
say anymore in case people want to read the book. It's a wonderful
unschooling story! The character in the book, did that sneak up on you
thing.