Toney , Cynthia Hammontree

Thanks for the reply ladies. I hate to change cover schools because I've been with this school every since we started homeschooling, 9 yrs. ago. I also hate to see my son not be able to graduate just because he can't do testing after we have spent so many years of schooling. He wants to graduate so he can be finished with school. He has no desire of going to college. He just wants to get out there and work, he does this everyday. He has just turned 17 years old, he doesn't want to quit school, he wants to graduate. The bad thing about the test is that he remembers doing all the things that are on the test last year and the year before.
We done a little unschooling last year for the 2nd half of the year.
Blessings to all, Cynthia


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[email protected]

In a message dated 9/10/2006 6:07:27 PM Central Daylight Time,
ushamntres@... writes:

The bad thing about the test is that he remembers doing all the things that
are on the test last year and the year before.




Just curious but who gives the test? If its something you give at home
cant you "help" him? Maybe give the questions orally or somehow modify it for
his success?

Chrissy


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Michelle Leifur Reid

On 9/10/06, Toney , Cynthia Hammontree <ushamntres@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply ladies. I hate to change cover schools because I've
> been with this school every since we started homeschooling, 9 yrs. ago.


Why are you loyal to something that is not working for you? Also you don't
need a cover school now that he is 16 as he is beyond the age of mandatory
attendance.

I also hate to see my son not be able to graduate just because he can't do
> testing after we have spent so many years of schooling. He wants to graduate
> so he can be finished with school. He has no desire of going to college. He
> just wants to get out there and work, he does this everyday. He has just
> turned 17 years old, he doesn't want to quit school, he wants to graduate.
> The bad thing about the test is that he remembers doing all the things that
> are on the test last year and the year before.
>
Did you know he can "graduate" by printing him out a "diploma" on the
computer? There is no "finishing" in unschooling. This is lifelong
learning. We don't quit learning just because we have reached a certain age
or completed a certain course work. And just because he manages to struggle
through a checklist of "needs to be completed" doesn't mean that he has
learned anything from that. What is it that he wants to do? What is his
passion? What kind of work interests him? What does he need to do in order
to do that kind of work? *That* is what is important, not this piece of
paper. No employer is ever going to ask to see his diploma. I've never had
one ask to see mine. When he fills out an application and it asks for
"Education History" he can say that he "completed" his homeschool
education. Getting this diploma is not going to help him get a job. He'd
probably get more positive feed-back by filling out the subjects that he has
studied that are relevant to the job he is applying for.

I would really encourage you to read some of the articles and links from
http://www.sandradodd.com and to check out the book The Teenage Liberation
Handbook (for both your son *and* you). It will give you both a totally
different view of what unschooling is about and the "finishing" of school.
There are so many times that I look back at my high school education and
wished I had just "skimmed through" rather than challenged myself and taken
the classes that I really wanted to take rather than the classes that I felt
I needed to take.

Michelle


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KARA CASSIDY

How do you unschool well I guess what I am trying to say is I have gone from homeschooling to unschooling I have done away with lesson plans and schedules and I am going with what ever the kids are interested in my family was not happy with homeschooling so they are really not happy with unschooling my only concern is my kids are 14 12 and 3 my older two hate reading and are not even willing to try to learn my 14 year old is so so at reading my 12 year old for get it she hates it she is ADHD and dyslexic so I have to take that in to consideration I am just a little nervous about doing away with the structure of schooling has any one else had these feelings and how did you go from work books to trusting in the unschooling approach?

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Nicole Willoughby

my only concern is my kids are 14 12 and 3 my older two hate reading and are not even willing to try to learn my 14 year old is so so at reading my 12 year old for get it she hates it she is ADHD and dyslexic so I have to take that in to consideration I am just a little nervous about doing away with the structure of schooling >>>>>>>>>>>>>

Insanity.......doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Do you think buckling down more and making them practice more will make them like reading more or even make them better at it?

Do you think that reading is the only way to learn about something?





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Becca

Hi Kara I guess Ill start on this as I have a child that was totally agaisnt structure thats how we started unschooling... He is 8 now and when I tried to force him to do school work he would find away to get upstairs and out the door and run off down the street. Constantly had the neighbors turning me into SRS for homeschooling my kids. He would do the work it was just at his own time that he choose to do it. So I became more laxed and told him when he was ready he could pick it up and do whatever..... Needless to say it stopped the temper tandtrums, the running off down the street, the disrubtiviness in (class time) the attitude and all. I have a totally different child. He yes still has his mood swings at times but they are at least bearable and we can sit down and work through it....... I do have available workbooks that they can pick up at anytime and do. Its not a forced thing here but they do have them available.... I have seen him numourous times go and
pick up a Math workbook and do 40 pages in 1 day. He may not pick it up for 2 or 3 weeks again and then he may pick it up the next day I have seen both happen here... As long as it is his choice he is a lot better. He loves hands on activities also so last year around Thanksgiving we decided to talk about Indians as we were doing a theme dinner. we got books from the library on different types of Indians. My kids choose a branch of indians they wanted to learn more about each one picked a different branch. They made one of the foods they ate and also built a house. It was awesome as I would sit back and watch and they were telling the others about their choice of Indians. It was a history lesson in itsself, and the fun thing was they were telling their Dad and myself all about thier tribe and to make it neater they still talk about it and want to do it again and are talking of doing it a lot bigger.... I hope this helps feel free to ask more as there is so much
more I have seen with my kids.... If they want to learn about something they are going to do it on their own a lot better then me shoving it down them and they will remeber it cause it is something they want to learn about....

Becca




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Ren Allen

~~As long as it is his choice he is a lot better~~

How about giving him the choice to never touch another workbook again?
How about playing and connecting with whatever he chooses, even if it
doesn't look like learning to you?

Ren
learninginfreedom.com

Becca and Sarai

How about giving him the choice to never touch another workbook again?


Actually Ren it is his choice. He has choose to do workbooks... He
actually loves them believe it or not. Its his choice when he does it
and I dont tell him how much to do he just goes and does it when he
wants too. Its amazing how he does it. He actually does more on his
own then if I was to try to set a limit and tell him to do so much in
a day thats what I was getting at. But it is his choice what he does
and when he does it. Math is actually easy for him he has always
loved to work with numbers. It just depends on his moods what he does
if its a game or a workbook that he decides to pick up and do and who
buys them will I do but he is the one that goes to the store and says
mom can I get this and of course Im going to get it if I can....

Becca

Fetteroll

On Jun 6, 2007, at 10:59 PM, Becca and Sarai wrote:

> but he is the one that goes to the store and says
> mom can I get this and of course Im going to get it if I can

If it were a video game or a comic book or an action figure, would
you say with the same conviction "of course Im going to get it if I
can"?

Those are the areas of ourselves it's useful to take out and examine.

It can be comforting for moms who aren't entirely sold on unschooling
to have a child who does enjoy workbooks or things that feel like
something that resembles school. It's good to examine our own
feelings to see if we'd be as relieved if they were choosing IMing
with friends or cartoons or skateboarding as often and instead of
the workbooks. Would we be as comfortable and pleased?

Joyce

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Melissa

I just wanted to chime in on this conversation, for two reasons. One being Emily, and the
other being Josh.

Emily is a girl who loves workbooks of any kind. She'll pick up a math workbook at
walmart just like I'd pick up a crossword or sudoku. It's fun for her, and she enjoys it. Her
favorite are the 'everything' series from some publishing company, they have one for each
grade, and she picks and chooses what to do. Sometimes the writing prompts are funny
and kickstart another video with their Tom and Bill characters. Sometimes it's geography
and she gets online to google about a country. Mostly it's math because math is fun to
her, like a puzzle.

Josh did workbooks for a while. The difference between the way he did them and the way
Emily does them was astounding. Josh was still under the impression that written work
proves intelligence, after five years of school, it was pretty engrained. He did choose to do
them, but only because workbooks are what kids do. He enjoyed them because it was to
him, a measure of intelligence, and he couldn't let go that there were other ways of being
smart. It wasn't until I had a dream that he and I were standing over a cliff with a garbage
lot full of textbooks that I realized how much it was damaging him. In my dream, I gave
him permission to throw his algebra off the cliff, and he just started crying. That morning I
told him my dream, and I asked him what he thought it meant. It was a lovely
conversation, and I basically asked him not to do workbooks for a while. i asked him if he
wanted to throw them away, and he gave them all to Emily ;-) He did keep his algebra
book, just in case. A few months later after watching South Park he got it out to check
something the characters were talking about, and finished the entire subject in a matter of
months.

I would never say a family should or should not use workbooks, but I would always ask
them to look closely at underlying assumptions of why the workbooks are there. We
obviously have kids who go both ways.

Melissa

--- In [email protected], "Becca and Sarai"
<angel_eyes_becca_and_hannah@...> wrote:
>He has choose to do workbooks... He
> actually loves them believe it or not. Its his choice when he does it
> and I dont tell him how much to do he just goes and does it when he
> wants too. Its amazing how he does it. >