miriam

A friend who I know from my doll collecting community asked me to write an article for her Yoga focused blog on homeschooling. I hesitated because I don't really like to make a big deal about unschooling as it is so easily misunderstood and it's always a bit unnerving going public with our life style. But I decided to do it because I thought the readers of this particular blog would be more amenable to the ideas expressed and also because I wanted my friend to know about this option since she has an autistic child and has gone through the mill with the public school system. I had never heard about unschooling before I started homeschooling my daughter 3 years ago. Sandra's and Joyce's websites made such a huge difference in my life. I thought I'd take a risk and come out of the closet about my way of homeschooling in hopes it might help someone else. Below is a link the article if you are interested in reading about my experience. I do hope I've expressed the philosophy of unschooling fairly and presented it in a realistic way. It was hard to do in such a short article which was supposed to be upbeat and to the point. I'd welcome your comments. (PS the pictures in the article are not of me and my daughter - they're stock photos).
http://yogabright.com/exclusive-articles/

Sandra Dodd

I like the article. I have two quibbles.

-=-Sandra Dodd and Pam Sarooshian. Sandra Dodd�s Big Book of Unschooling. Lulu; 2009.-=-

Pam Sorooshian wrote the foreword. Her name is misspelled there. If you're going to list her even though she's not a co-author, please do spell her name correctly. :-)

-=-Unschooling revealed a way to respect Katy�s interests and skills and put me in the role of learning facilitator and partner rather than authoritarian instructor/antagonist. Another name for unschooling is �peaceful parenting.� -=-

I kind of like that. It's not true, but I still like it. :-)
We can't set up "peaceful parenting" as another name for unschooling, because it implies that anyone who doesn't unschool isn't being peaceful, and that everyone who unschools IS being peaceful.

Other than that and the mystery of using a stock photo (rather than no photo at all) I liked it a lot.

Home Education Magazine used (still, if it still exists, probably) stock photos for covers, so none of those cover images were unschoolers at all. I don't like that, but then I'm the one who didn't like people not using real names, so it might be a personal problem. :-)

Sandra

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[email protected]

I’m emailing the editor to make sure Pam’s name is spelled correctly. I think I’ll ask her to change the wording of the “peaceful parenting” statement so it’s not so much a definition. I didn’t want Katy’s and my picture on the blog that’s why she chose to use a stock photo. The doll pictures are real though. I’m glad the article passed muster. It was really to hard to get the idea of unschooling across in such a short piece. My editor cut out a lot. This group has helped me so much. Thank you.

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