School vs. unschooling
Sandra Dodd
I have a question about reading, about dyslexia, which I was unwilling to allow in the form in which it came because there were assumptions and terminology that won’t help anyone’s unschooling. So I will parcel it out into topics, and those new to unschooling, new to the group, should not share fears or schoolishness. Fearful schoolishness hasn’t ever helped unschooling yet.
"My situation is that I've recently started teaching in an alternative sort of school where I have freedom to teach as I want. It's not fully unschooling but I will make it as close as I can within what's possible. I'm getting some kids who I feel have been damaged by their time in mainstream schools in New Zealand where the teaching of reading starts at 5. With the previous government they were labeled as below/ behind etc if they weren't reading by 6. I know - horrible.”
For teaching as you want, forget unschooling entirely. It cannot be done a few hours a day, away from home. People whose kids are in school expect for them to be taught, and expect to “see progress.” To overlay that onto unschooling, or to overlay unschooling on that, won’t help either one at all.
Looking at other teaching methods might help, but that’s not the purpose or topic of this group.
Open classroom, look-say, whatever might be out there, about learning to read, over the past several decades, would be better to look for than unschooling.
Schools are divided into years. Even in a classroom that combines different ages, there are comparisons that cannot be prevented, and a child being left to learn to read at his own pace and in his own way without pressure can’t happen if he moves from being one of the youngest, and then there’s another year, and another, and another, and he’s becoming one of the oldest and still can’t read.
And yes, pressure harms reading. It adds confusion, and fear. Embarrassment and shame cause aversion and resentment. If the sight of words, or the clock showing “reading time” makes a child apprehensive or stressed, he can’t spend that time learning to read, but will more likely spend it trying just to feel safe and okay. Eventually, he might shut down and not even try.
That’s where lifelong non-readers come from, I think.
http://sandradodd.com/maslow
There are many unschooling parents who have taught in schools. The first year I taught, I was given the five lowest-scoring classes (125 kids whose reading was the worst) and told it was a reading class. I wasn’t trained in it, I did my best in fun ways to help them like books, but I saw scars and callouses in their emotions and logic and willingness and abilities.
After that year I had mixed-groups, teaching English (language arts) and that was much better, when reading ability wasn’t a dividing factor, and they could learn things less stressfully, in various ways. Getting information into them, and an appreciation of words, and exposure to stories they’re not able to read on their own, and acknowledging other ways of story telling and information sharing than reading itself can help with writing, eventually.
http://sandradodd.com/writing
Sandra
"My situation is that I've recently started teaching in an alternative sort of school where I have freedom to teach as I want. It's not fully unschooling but I will make it as close as I can within what's possible. I'm getting some kids who I feel have been damaged by their time in mainstream schools in New Zealand where the teaching of reading starts at 5. With the previous government they were labeled as below/ behind etc if they weren't reading by 6. I know - horrible.”
For teaching as you want, forget unschooling entirely. It cannot be done a few hours a day, away from home. People whose kids are in school expect for them to be taught, and expect to “see progress.” To overlay that onto unschooling, or to overlay unschooling on that, won’t help either one at all.
Looking at other teaching methods might help, but that’s not the purpose or topic of this group.
Open classroom, look-say, whatever might be out there, about learning to read, over the past several decades, would be better to look for than unschooling.
Schools are divided into years. Even in a classroom that combines different ages, there are comparisons that cannot be prevented, and a child being left to learn to read at his own pace and in his own way without pressure can’t happen if he moves from being one of the youngest, and then there’s another year, and another, and another, and he’s becoming one of the oldest and still can’t read.
And yes, pressure harms reading. It adds confusion, and fear. Embarrassment and shame cause aversion and resentment. If the sight of words, or the clock showing “reading time” makes a child apprehensive or stressed, he can’t spend that time learning to read, but will more likely spend it trying just to feel safe and okay. Eventually, he might shut down and not even try.
That’s where lifelong non-readers come from, I think.
http://sandradodd.com/maslow
There are many unschooling parents who have taught in schools. The first year I taught, I was given the five lowest-scoring classes (125 kids whose reading was the worst) and told it was a reading class. I wasn’t trained in it, I did my best in fun ways to help them like books, but I saw scars and callouses in their emotions and logic and willingness and abilities.
After that year I had mixed-groups, teaching English (language arts) and that was much better, when reading ability wasn’t a dividing factor, and they could learn things less stressfully, in various ways. Getting information into them, and an appreciation of words, and exposure to stories they’re not able to read on their own, and acknowledging other ways of story telling and information sharing than reading itself can help with writing, eventually.
http://sandradodd.com/writing
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
Before even looking at this I want to say two things:
Some people only “get permission” to unschool because their child has something wrong, some difference, some diagnosis. THEN, and only then, will the spouse or other parent or grandparents relax and support unschooling. That is a disadvantage to that parent and child. If there is anyone reading who began that way, I hope you will be able to move away from it gently and quietly and live as though that’s not the way thing started.
The other thing is that schools, increasingly, want to label kids. They get funding because of it. They get to adjust their test scores (by not including the scores of some of the kids) which improves their ranking in the district and state. They might get more classrooms or teachers, if they can identify enough of the right thing (whatever is in vogue in those days in that district) to justify hiring another special ed teacher. All of that competition between schools, and the desire for the teachers and administrators to have a reason NOT to expect a child to test well (so it’s not their fault, because that child has a disability or condition)…. all of that is some of the worst part of school politics and reality.
Do not bring that home. Don’t bring any of it home, if it can be avoided.
The questions, which I will take one at a time, are below. Others are welcome to respond IF the response will help others understand unschooling better. School-style discussions and the defense of labels can be found in thousands of other places. Don’t bring it here.
Sandra
Some people only “get permission” to unschool because their child has something wrong, some difference, some diagnosis. THEN, and only then, will the spouse or other parent or grandparents relax and support unschooling. That is a disadvantage to that parent and child. If there is anyone reading who began that way, I hope you will be able to move away from it gently and quietly and live as though that’s not the way thing started.
The other thing is that schools, increasingly, want to label kids. They get funding because of it. They get to adjust their test scores (by not including the scores of some of the kids) which improves their ranking in the district and state. They might get more classrooms or teachers, if they can identify enough of the right thing (whatever is in vogue in those days in that district) to justify hiring another special ed teacher. All of that competition between schools, and the desire for the teachers and administrators to have a reason NOT to expect a child to test well (so it’s not their fault, because that child has a disability or condition)…. all of that is some of the worst part of school politics and reality.
Do not bring that home. Don’t bring any of it home, if it can be avoided.
The questions, which I will take one at a time, are below. Others are welcome to respond IF the response will help others understand unschooling better. School-style discussions and the defense of labels can be found in thousands of other places. Don’t bring it here.
Sandra
> I'm wondering if dyslexia is caused by teaching / forcing children to learn to read too young before they are developmentally ready.
>
> Does anyone have any information on this? Do people who've unschooled for their children's whole life and let them read when they are ready have any dyslexia problems?
>
> Those who've sent children to school and later unschooled do you find you have some kids with dyslexia? And if so, do you find that unschooling helps with the dyslexia?
>
> I've found a few articles which suggest that it is forcing early reading which can cause dyslexia. It makes sense to me - imagine if we forced kids to walk when they were 3 months old.
>
> Any other thoughts about helping kids with dyslexia in an unschooling way would be appreciated.
Sandra Dodd
>Dyslexia is the description of a way of processing visually. That way of seeing has to do with spatial reasoning. There is a set of intelligences that go together and part of that is what schools began, after a while, to call “dyslexia.” It means “can’t read.”
> I'm wondering if dyslexia is caused by teaching / forcing children to learn to read too young before they are developmentally ready.
Don’t use the word if you don’t have to use it. It’s a fancy scientific/medical-sounding term for bad-at-words.
YES, pressing early reading can cause a child to dread and avoid reading, so in that broader definition they can create dyslexia.
But the description of people reversing letters and getting mixed up about which direction to read has to do with the relative position of something, from “the middle”—the midline of a person’s vision, or mapping (seeing what’s out in front). The coolest and most common example of this is little kids learning to write their names. If the first letter is backwards, the child might (if left alone) write the whole word in a mirror-image way. What they know is what the next letter, and next, look like next to the letter before. Kids grow out of that as they learn left-to-right.
In other cultures where words are written top to bottom, or right to left, there are probably other examples (though top down is less confusing to human eyes and brains than right-to-left is.
It happens that there is a skill in seeing things in a three-dimensional way, and in being able to reverse and rotate objects mentally. Engineering comes of that. And most people called dyslexic are boys. And many people whose strongest intelligence is mathematical and spatial reasoning are boys, and those can come as a set.
I went to look for other sets of intelligences. I’ll take that to another topic, but dyslexia isn’t created so much as it is a natural part of seeing for MANY, many people. Mostly male.
Unfortunately for male children in school, many boys are maturing more slowly than girls (as to brain development) so the girls (statistically, not all, every one) learn to read more easily, sooner. So some boys are called dyslexic because they’ve been frustrated and learned to fear reading lessons. Some have that math/engineering/dyslexia combination. They can be very productive humans if they’re not crushed and defeated in school.
-=- teaching / forcing children to learn to read too young-=-
NO one can force a child to learn to read.
All they can do is talk, test, press, shame, and MAYBE that child will happen to learn to read in spite of all that, or maybe that child will learn never to want to read.
Thinking that reading can be taught or forced “too young” is not clear thinking.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
I'm wondering if dyslexia is caused by teaching / forcing children to learn to read too young before they are developmentally ready.
Does anyone have any information on this? Do people who've unschooled for their children's whole life and let them read when they are ready have any dyslexia problems? -=-
-=--=--=--=--=--=—=-
If someone lets a child read when he’s ready, how could there possibly be any “dyslexia problem”?
It’s not necessarily that a kid who could be labelled dyslexic (if it would benefit someone to do that to him) is going to read later, but that he will figure it out in his own way.
The others will figure it out in their own various ways, too, but the droning-on that teachers tend to do about how to “decipher text” might irritate the dyslexic kids more. :-)
When a child is told there is something wrong with him, it’s a problem. So of course some parents have gone way the other way and kept the labels, but found ways to interpret them as advantages and glories and superiorities. That’s not helpful, either, to a child’s growing up whole and calmly in the real world around him.
There is a full range of when and how, about how people learn. Schools have needs that unschoolers don’t need to consider.
Sandra
I'm wondering if dyslexia is caused by teaching / forcing children to learn to read too young before they are developmentally ready.
Does anyone have any information on this? Do people who've unschooled for their children's whole life and let them read when they are ready have any dyslexia problems? -=-
-=--=--=--=--=--=—=-
If someone lets a child read when he’s ready, how could there possibly be any “dyslexia problem”?
It’s not necessarily that a kid who could be labelled dyslexic (if it would benefit someone to do that to him) is going to read later, but that he will figure it out in his own way.
The others will figure it out in their own various ways, too, but the droning-on that teachers tend to do about how to “decipher text” might irritate the dyslexic kids more. :-)
When a child is told there is something wrong with him, it’s a problem. So of course some parents have gone way the other way and kept the labels, but found ways to interpret them as advantages and glories and superiorities. That’s not helpful, either, to a child’s growing up whole and calmly in the real world around him.
There is a full range of when and how, about how people learn. Schools have needs that unschoolers don’t need to consider.
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=-> Those who've sent children to school and later unschooled do you find you have some kids with dyslexia? And if so, do you find that unschooling helps with the dyslexia? -=-
Does an unschooling parent find (discover?) that a child who used to be in school is now home and “has dyslexia”?
How would an unschooling parent determine that a child was dyslexic, if unschooling was going well at their house?
-=-And if so, do you find that unschooling helps with the dyslexia?-=-
…
This assumes that dyslexia is as real as a rock.
There is no dyslexia being unschooled, needing help to be more dyslexic, or more dyslexic.
Help with it? First, remove the “it.” Disregard the idea of “it.” Then it doesn’t need to be helped.
-=-Those who've sent children to school and later unschooled do you find you have some kids with dyslexia?-=-
Maybe the question was for a mom who has brought a batch of her own kids home at once, did some of them have dyslexia (from being forced to read too early, maybe).
Because some of the questions in that set were based on assumptions I think are wrong and harmful, and because the logic breaks down if dyslexia is NOT a disease caused by something that couldn’t have happened at school anyway, I didn’t let the original question through to the group.
Because the original questioner said she thought it would have been a good way to research her question, and didn’t seem very interested in the links I had sent, I brought it all here anonymously.
The links I sent, when I returned the post:
____________
What you can read if you want to see some things that have been written before would be in the reading section, or labels.
http://sandradodd.com/labels
http://sandradodd.com/reading
Or go to the bottom link here, and see what else might be on my site, or Joyce’s, or Pam Laricchia’s, by searching dyslexia or reading problems.
http://sandradodd.com/search
_____________
Sandra
Does an unschooling parent find (discover?) that a child who used to be in school is now home and “has dyslexia”?
How would an unschooling parent determine that a child was dyslexic, if unschooling was going well at their house?
-=-And if so, do you find that unschooling helps with the dyslexia?-=-
…
This assumes that dyslexia is as real as a rock.
There is no dyslexia being unschooled, needing help to be more dyslexic, or more dyslexic.
Help with it? First, remove the “it.” Disregard the idea of “it.” Then it doesn’t need to be helped.
-=-Those who've sent children to school and later unschooled do you find you have some kids with dyslexia?-=-
Maybe the question was for a mom who has brought a batch of her own kids home at once, did some of them have dyslexia (from being forced to read too early, maybe).
Because some of the questions in that set were based on assumptions I think are wrong and harmful, and because the logic breaks down if dyslexia is NOT a disease caused by something that couldn’t have happened at school anyway, I didn’t let the original question through to the group.
Because the original questioner said she thought it would have been a good way to research her question, and didn’t seem very interested in the links I had sent, I brought it all here anonymously.
The links I sent, when I returned the post:
____________
What you can read if you want to see some things that have been written before would be in the reading section, or labels.
http://sandradodd.com/labels
http://sandradodd.com/reading
Or go to the bottom link here, and see what else might be on my site, or Joyce’s, or Pam Laricchia’s, by searching dyslexia or reading problems.
http://sandradodd.com/search
_____________
Sandra
Sandra Dodd
-=- Any other thoughts about helping kids with dyslexia in an unschooling way would be appreciated.-=-
Find other things they CAN do, and leave reading pressure out of their lives. They’ll figure it out on their own eventually.
The latest I have heard of are 14, 15, 15, 16. Four very-late readers. Thousands of 8, 9. And we’re not talking about school reading, either, but real-world, magazines and novels. So those “can read” numbers WILL be higher than schools who are doing pre-reading, graded reading, “reading comprehension,” etc. For unschoolers, there’s no cause for reading aloud, for years, things that don’t turn to words and ideas immediately. In school, “reading” is sounding out.
If phonetically mouthing through some words was actually reading, I could claim to read a dozen languages. I would pronounce some things badly, but so? What if I get 90% right? THEN am I reading Portuguese? What if I can get 80% right but I sound like a cartoon Texan, but am I then reading Italian?
Reading without comprehension isn’t reading.
It is in school, but walk out those doors, and phonetically sounding out a street sign or a menu item is worthless.
The way unschoolers can help non-reading kids is to play music, ride bikes, listen to recorded books in the car, watch videos, play board games (not games that require reading), go to the zoo (and read the signs aloud, casually—don’t say “Look! This says 'kan ga ROO.’ See the ‘k’?” Even the kangaroo would be unhappy.
The way teachers in school can help non-reading kids is… not going to be unschooling.
Look for games and activities designed by sympathetic and progressive reading specialists, because no school will give teachers their paychecks if parents want kids to be taught to read and the teacher says she doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
Sandra
Find other things they CAN do, and leave reading pressure out of their lives. They’ll figure it out on their own eventually.
The latest I have heard of are 14, 15, 15, 16. Four very-late readers. Thousands of 8, 9. And we’re not talking about school reading, either, but real-world, magazines and novels. So those “can read” numbers WILL be higher than schools who are doing pre-reading, graded reading, “reading comprehension,” etc. For unschoolers, there’s no cause for reading aloud, for years, things that don’t turn to words and ideas immediately. In school, “reading” is sounding out.
If phonetically mouthing through some words was actually reading, I could claim to read a dozen languages. I would pronounce some things badly, but so? What if I get 90% right? THEN am I reading Portuguese? What if I can get 80% right but I sound like a cartoon Texan, but am I then reading Italian?
Reading without comprehension isn’t reading.
It is in school, but walk out those doors, and phonetically sounding out a street sign or a menu item is worthless.
The way unschoolers can help non-reading kids is to play music, ride bikes, listen to recorded books in the car, watch videos, play board games (not games that require reading), go to the zoo (and read the signs aloud, casually—don’t say “Look! This says 'kan ga ROO.’ See the ‘k’?” Even the kangaroo would be unhappy.
The way teachers in school can help non-reading kids is… not going to be unschooling.
Look for games and activities designed by sympathetic and progressive reading specialists, because no school will give teachers their paychecks if parents want kids to be taught to read and the teacher says she doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
Sandra
wildwestsky@...
>>I'm getting some kids who I feel have been damaged by their time in mainstream schools in New Zealand where the teaching of reading starts at 5. With the previous government they were labeled as below/ behind etc if they weren't reading by 6. I know - horrible.”<<
This post reminded me of how I used to feel around my 6 nieces and nephews (who were in school and some of whose parents were teachers), during my second year of unschooling my son. I was trying to use unschooling to save the world. That's not what it's for.
It did not help my nieces and nephews that I believed they were being damaged by school. It didn't help me to feel sorry for them about their IEPs, or to try to help their parents understand the evils of school and control. My pity was condescending.
People in this group helped me to shift my perspective.
What helped was for me to build relationships with these kids within the space that I was given. What helped was to get close, watch them, see who they were and where they were at, and then to let that all of that be ok with me, and to just be their champion. What helped was for me to focus on unschooling well in my OWN home, so that unschooling could (mostly!) speak for itself because our peace, connection, and engagement with the world was contagious.
It was a difficult reality to accept, but when I let go of the imaginary "unschooling world" I was able to let go of the idea of saving these kids, and my fear that they were being damaged. Once I was able to accept the kids as they were, I was able to give them as much unschooling love as would fit in the time and space I had with them. I was also able to stop doing them harm by wishing or insisting that things be different for them.
One of my siblings began unschooling her 3 kids this year. I don't think she would have done so without my example. I also don't think she *could* have done so, had I not stopped myself from arguing about the damage school was doing to them. It helped for me to encourage her, by shedding light on what our parenting styles had in common.
*********************
http://sandradodd.com/unschoolworld
Unschoolers live in the same world as other people. If you plan ahead, you can live in that world even better than most people do. If you stubbornly cling to frustration or fantasy, you can find yourselves isolated, and angry about it as though the isolation was imposed on you from the outside.
Don't pine for "unschool-world." -Sandra Dodd
************
~Tara