Don't demonize school
Sandra Dodd
Don't demonize school. That goes for anyone here. If you live a life of ANTI-school, of school is the devil, what happens if you die and your kids end up in school? And too much anti-school creates complacency in homeschooling parents. If you decide school is nothing but harm and abuse with no redeeming value, then it would be easy to do NOTHING and say to yourself "It's better than school." But if you see the value in school, and the benefits, then THAT is what your life needs to be better than. And not slightly, barely better, but so much better that relatives and government officials can see it without even looking very closely. It should be impressive.
I pulled that from something else I'm writing, because it's becoming the fashion to ridicule school or treat it like it's archaic nothingness. That's negativity your family doesn't need, and it's a dangerous direction to go if you want unschooling to be the best it can be at your house.
Sandra
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I pulled that from something else I'm writing, because it's becoming the fashion to ridicule school or treat it like it's archaic nothingness. That's negativity your family doesn't need, and it's a dangerous direction to go if you want unschooling to be the best it can be at your house.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
OH ha!
I was going through an old AOL chat, which was part of "The Unschooling Barrage" (kind of a long story, but one of about a dozen files that people could get by e-mail 15 years ago "in the AOL days." if they were interested in unschooling).
Here's something I wrote in the winter of 95/96:
HmSchDodd : Who could want more?
CherisHome : Not me!
HmSchDodd : Well, except maybe marching band and chorus...
HmSchDodd : A nice jewelry shop...
HmSchDodd : Darkroom...
HmSchDodd : The good parts of school
HmSchDodd : Too bad there are all those teachers and other students in the way!
Holly has a boyfriend named Will. I really like him. He went to public school and his youngest brother is still in high school, so I get to see how involved the mom is in school activities, and how encouraging she is of art and music, which I like. Will is the second of four boys, and has been 20 since the beginning of the year. He has been in the same punk band for six years. For a 20 year old, that's a long, stable situation. And they have changed one band member, without malice (the other guitarist went off to another city).
The reason I bring Will up is that he seems to have made many choices regarding school. He went out of his zoning�chose an artsy midschool, and went on to the high school it fed into, rather than the school nearest to him.
While he's rethinking some of his school memories from hanging out with Holly, he made good use of school opportunities in what really sounds like a healthy way, and he has good memories and associations. So some of that is personality, some is luck, some has to do with talent he was able to use to charm, direct and re-direct. Being good at music and art can be life savers, socially and even academically.
I think Will could have gone a long way without school, but he's done really well with it, too.
I'm glad Holly didn't reject his attentions because he had gone to school.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
I was going through an old AOL chat, which was part of "The Unschooling Barrage" (kind of a long story, but one of about a dozen files that people could get by e-mail 15 years ago "in the AOL days." if they were interested in unschooling).
Here's something I wrote in the winter of 95/96:
HmSchDodd : Who could want more?
CherisHome : Not me!
HmSchDodd : Well, except maybe marching band and chorus...
HmSchDodd : A nice jewelry shop...
HmSchDodd : Darkroom...
HmSchDodd : The good parts of school
HmSchDodd : Too bad there are all those teachers and other students in the way!
Holly has a boyfriend named Will. I really like him. He went to public school and his youngest brother is still in high school, so I get to see how involved the mom is in school activities, and how encouraging she is of art and music, which I like. Will is the second of four boys, and has been 20 since the beginning of the year. He has been in the same punk band for six years. For a 20 year old, that's a long, stable situation. And they have changed one band member, without malice (the other guitarist went off to another city).
The reason I bring Will up is that he seems to have made many choices regarding school. He went out of his zoning�chose an artsy midschool, and went on to the high school it fed into, rather than the school nearest to him.
While he's rethinking some of his school memories from hanging out with Holly, he made good use of school opportunities in what really sounds like a healthy way, and he has good memories and associations. So some of that is personality, some is luck, some has to do with talent he was able to use to charm, direct and re-direct. Being good at music and art can be life savers, socially and even academically.
I think Will could have gone a long way without school, but he's done really well with it, too.
I'm glad Holly didn't reject his attentions because he had gone to school.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]