Re: unschooling categories
Lisa Blocker
I get so frustrated by the category of unschoolers that do the whole sit around and assume the kids are learning because they read somewhere that no matter what you do kids will learn.... aka lazy parents. I know a few families like this and to me it really gives the rest of us a bad name when people like this proclaim themselves to be unschoolers. One person that I know in particular literally has NO BOOKS in her house! I am serious, lives in plenty of space to have books but hated the clutter they bring so she got rid of all but about a half a shelf of reference books (half or more are cook books that she thought were pretty but she doesn't actually cook but waits for her husband to come home after a full day of work and prepare meals because she was elected queen apparently!) They also do not go to the library so there literally are no books available to these kids on a regular basis. Her kids rooms are completely sterile... they have a bed and a lamp and a
few stuffed animals... again no books, no toys except for in a playroom downstairs where there is one small closet with about 6 bins of toys. She tried school for her 5 yr old for about 2 days(which failed because the child was totally used to fending for herself in every way and the school didn't like her wandering off when she felt like it) but her reason for sending her was that she was bored and kept telling her mom she was bored... I suggested she play with her or find out what she wanted or liked to do ...the expression on this mom's face was priceless you would have thought I suggested she eat dirt! She controls everything her kids do as far as eating, sleeping, chores etc (she once made her 13 yr old leave her sleepover guests to go downstairs and clean up from the party that had preceded the sleepover to which she had invited parents to...then expected this one child to do all of the cleaning) Anyway I could go on and on because this person irritated me
so much but the point is she would sit and play video games for 10 hrs a day and call herself an unschooler while her kids were begging her to do things and go places and she couldn't be bothered to set aside her own interests or pleasures for her children for any amount of time. Her kids are sneaky, they lie, they have no friends because they have alienated everyone because of their behavior (name calling, gossip etc), they physically hit and shove and handle other kids, other parents don't trust these parents to have their kids there and so on. When she proclaims herself an unschooler I just want to scream!!! I usually explain to folks once she moves on what unschooler usually is and how it usually looks and how folks have very different ideas but that generally unschoolers are very connected to their children and provide a stimulating environment for their children and follow their children's interests through travel, parks, museums, interesting people and so
on. While I think there are lots of definitions of unschooling I can't think of a single thing that she does or others like her that seems like unschooling to me! I think sometimes it's just something they can say when they are too lazy to parent but too lazy to send them to school either so now they figure they can call it unschooling and since people in general don't understand what that is they are off the hook! UGH!!!
Lisa Blocker (who's had it with toxic pseudo unschoolers!)
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few stuffed animals... again no books, no toys except for in a playroom downstairs where there is one small closet with about 6 bins of toys. She tried school for her 5 yr old for about 2 days(which failed because the child was totally used to fending for herself in every way and the school didn't like her wandering off when she felt like it) but her reason for sending her was that she was bored and kept telling her mom she was bored... I suggested she play with her or find out what she wanted or liked to do ...the expression on this mom's face was priceless you would have thought I suggested she eat dirt! She controls everything her kids do as far as eating, sleeping, chores etc (she once made her 13 yr old leave her sleepover guests to go downstairs and clean up from the party that had preceded the sleepover to which she had invited parents to...then expected this one child to do all of the cleaning) Anyway I could go on and on because this person irritated me
so much but the point is she would sit and play video games for 10 hrs a day and call herself an unschooler while her kids were begging her to do things and go places and she couldn't be bothered to set aside her own interests or pleasures for her children for any amount of time. Her kids are sneaky, they lie, they have no friends because they have alienated everyone because of their behavior (name calling, gossip etc), they physically hit and shove and handle other kids, other parents don't trust these parents to have their kids there and so on. When she proclaims herself an unschooler I just want to scream!!! I usually explain to folks once she moves on what unschooler usually is and how it usually looks and how folks have very different ideas but that generally unschoolers are very connected to their children and provide a stimulating environment for their children and follow their children's interests through travel, parks, museums, interesting people and so
on. While I think there are lots of definitions of unschooling I can't think of a single thing that she does or others like her that seems like unschooling to me! I think sometimes it's just something they can say when they are too lazy to parent but too lazy to send them to school either so now they figure they can call it unschooling and since people in general don't understand what that is they are off the hook! UGH!!!
Lisa Blocker (who's had it with toxic pseudo unschoolers!)
____________________________________________________________________________________
Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
natalijoi
>amen, sister!
> Lisa Blocker (who's had it with toxic pseudo unschoolers!)
_______________________________________________________________________
_____________
> Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
> in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
> http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>