Tina

I've been wondering about this for a while. I've been trying to just
live the unschooling way without too much explanation. We've
honestly been living in unschooling fashion for about eight months
now. When questions arise, I answer them. I instigate conversation
at times.

Yesterday Adrian and I were discussing the upcoming school year. I
hope this doesn't sound "mean", but we are both looking forward to
our immediate school children going back to school. This always
gives us time to live and be us more freely. We were talking about
things that he's interested in and so on. Well, he said that he was
looking forward to the kids going back to school, but he's not
looking forward to him starting homeschool again.

Like I said, we haven't done school at home in eight months. I
reminded him about unschooling, but everytime we talk about it I'm at
a loss for words. Yeah, I know. Me at a loss for words? It does
happen. :) How have you all explained unschooling during the
transition time between structure and personal control? Is there any
literature in the form of books or something that I could read to
him, he's 10. I really want him to know that he has the power in
regard to his education. He likes to be read to, and he likes
details. He is like me in the fact that he likes to totally
understand what he's doing. Any suggestions?

Thanks - Tina

Nichole, in Dallas

Hi Tina!

I would explain unschooling to him fully. My daughter was almost 6 when we started and I really wanted it to work. I didn't want to backslide into telling her what to do and I wanted her to know the power she has in our family and in her own life. Sometimes I do start to get nervous about where she might be in comparison to other children her age, and I'll try to get her to break out some certain subject books. She always gets me back on track with a "do I HAVE to do that?" I always of course say, "no." and she says something very nice and diplomatic like... well, maybe I look at that in a few days after I'm done with this whatever-it-is.

She knows that with unschooling she gets to choose what her days will be like, every day, and that she has an equal say in what the family does (in most situations).

She's very into Egypt, and Spies, and Geology, computer games, swimming, fashion, friends, and READING. She reads constantly.

Anyway... I think kids knowing that the dreaded curriculum is not going to resurface helps them. I think talking about unschooling helps them, and hanging out with other unschooling kids helps them.

I'm in the Austin area of Texas and I have two groups with a total of about 75 unschooling families.. then I have another group in Plano with about 33 families in it. The value of other unschooling families can't be overstated. If there are no unschooling families in your area, you might want to make it a point to get to at least one unschooling conference every year. The conferences are wonderful opportunities for children.

Reassuring your son he won't have to return to the drudgery of sitting at a table or desk will benefit him, and benefit your relationship. From here on out, it's so much about getting close to your child and really discovering who he is, while he discovers who you are. Trust is really built in the first few years of unschooling. If you have to reassure him that unschooling is here to stay every day for months on end... do so. It won't hurt.

:o)

Nichole
----- Original Message -----
From: Tina
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 7:41 AM
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Explaining Unschooling to Children


I've been wondering about this for a while. I've been trying to just
live the unschooling way without too much explanation. We've
honestly been living in unschooling fashion for about eight months
now. When questions arise, I answer them. I instigate conversation
at times.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

I have read some posts to my 12 yr. old.

You could just ask what he wants to do and answer that's unschooling.
He wants details? Ok how about walks, bikes, sticks, rocks, dirt, cars,
lego's,ebay,emails, shopping,cooking,reading(for fun/interest),travel and the
convention in August all can be unschooling.

There is also an Unschooling handbook but my son wasn't much interested in
that as much as I was.
Laura~Maine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/4/2004 8:42:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
zoocrew@... writes:

How have you all explained unschooling during the
transition time between structure and personal control? <<<<

Time is best. <g> I explained and explained---and backtracked a bit as well.
It took a while to correctly put into practice what I knew to be right!
Cameron could feel my instability, I know! He was unsure for quite a while, but
eventually he saw what I'd been saying---and he saw how more miserable his
friends were becoming. Now he's fully on board and a big supporter of
unschooling---he loves his life.

Any chance you'll be at the conference? There's a teen panel, and Cameron
would be happy to chat with him.

Is there any
literature in the form of books or something that I could read to
him, he's 10. I really want him to know that he has the power in
regard to his education.

Holes
Stargirl
The Giver
Skellig
Illusions


All a bit disturbing, but Cameron enjoyed them at 12 when we were going
through this. All have unschooling characters.

~Kelly




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Valerie

My Growing Up:
An Unschooler's Reflections
By Laurie Chancey

I am a happy young woman who is deeply grateful to my
parents for my unschooled childhood. My transition to adulthood
began when I was 16 years old with the creation of my own computer
bulletin board system – an online service for local people to dial
into. My online community sitting on the desk in my bedroom opened
a door to the world for me. I was one of the only female system
operators that our area had seen, and also one of the youngest of
either sex. I met several wonderful friends there, one of whom I
started dating when I was 17. My new friends instilled a great
sense of confidence in me, and my new boyfriend made me realize that
I was desirable as well.
I had a faint idea that I would try to go to college, so my
parents arranged for me to take the California Achievement Test
(CAT), a preliminary to the General Educational Development Test
(GED), so I could have a high school equivalent to help admit me to
the local university. My English and reading scores, said the CAT
administrator, were the highest that she had ever seen. However, my
math scores were below acceptable levels and I could take adult
education at the high school to bring me up to speed before I retook
the CAT.
So I tried it, and hated it. I sat in the school cafeteria for a
few hours every Wednesday night, frowning at a math book that Mom
had bought for me, slowly working through it but not wanting to go
to the instructor for help. Adult education was not a class, but
many people scattered throughout the cafeteria working on their own,
with the option of individual help. I felt stupid, a new feeling to
me. I should know this stuff already. Why hadn't Mom stuck to it
and made me learn math? Of course, I remembered resisting any of
her efforts at instruction. What was the solution? I was 17 and
the most advanced math concept I had under my belt was
multiplication.
I cried to my parents that I hated adult education but felt like it
was my only shot at succeeding in life. Dad told me that if I hated
it so much, I shouldn't go. Mom assured me that I would find a
passion and a way to achieve it. I didn't really believe her, but I
had been raised following my own pleasure so I stopped going to
adult education, feeling like a quitter.
I was restless and anxious, about to turn 18 with no direction in
life. With encouragement from my parents, I began applying at a few
businesses and shortly thereafter became employed at a local video
store. I loved my new job, and my self-confidence rose as I was
praised for doing well. But an uneasiness that had been lurking
finally surfaced when I was being trained to make the nightly
deposit at the store. My supervisor, a 30-something woman with a
husband and two children, counted money and stacked checks and wrote
notes with the expert lightning speed that comes with much
practice. I saw my future in her, and knew I wanted more. But what
could I do?
I despaired of my failed attempt at learning enough math to get a
GED, and asked Mom to help me find a solution that would get me into
college. A friend of mine left a university catalog at my house and
I read through it, thinking that the psychology classes sounded
cool. Then, a happy revelation occurred: Someone told Mom that a
GED was not required to attend our local university. All I would
have to do was take the American College Test (ACT) and they would
put me in appropriate classes according to my scores.
So I did, and I was accepted to the university. By virtue of my own
guesswork, my math score placed me in a higher math than I could
handle, so I switched classes after the first day. My college had
two developmental mathematics courses that corresponded roughly with
high school algebra one and two, so I ended up in the first one. I
believe we started on long division, right where I needed to be. I
grasped every new concept easily, finishing the course with a 94
average. As of now, the highest mathematical science course I have
taken was a senior-level statistics course, a discipline that I
immediately loved.
By the way, did I mention my 4.0 grade point average?
So, I have a success story, with my bachelor of arts in Sociology
and my flawless grades. My first boyfriend and I broke up when our
relationship had run its course after nearly three years of dating.
We are still friends and I consider our romance a pleasant chapter
in my life that I have now closed. I have had two great jobs since
the video store. I have many acquaintances and friends, and a small
group of very close friends that I see several times a week. I
don't have another boyfriend yet, but my standards are high and I'm
not really looking. My parents are now divorced, but I see both of
them often and maintain close relationships with them. I am looking
forward to graduate school next year.
Life has been beautiful, even with all of its flaws, since I entered
college. I absolutely cannot imagine myself without college. The
vast amount of knowledge imparted to me, the constant approval, and
the assurance that I was going somewhere fed me, watered me, and put
me into the light to grow.
But, I have a question.
It's not that infamous "What if I had gone through K-12?" question.
I have all but decided that I would have been like several of my
friends who got bored with school because they were too smart for
it, bucked the system, got in trouble, developed a passionate hate
for authority, and turned to anything illegal for defiance and
escape.
My question is, why was I so unhappy and unsure as a teenager? Why
did math cause me so much grief? Why didn't I have any friends
until I met them on my bulletin board system?
I laughed at myself as I reread that last paragraph, thinking I may
as well be asking, "Why wasn't everything perfect?" I'm considering
laying these questions to rest without trying to answer them. But I
won't, because the unschooling skeptics will come after me like an
angry lynch mob, justifying their position that my parents failed
me, because I had trouble with math before college and was restless
and without direction during my 15th and 16th years.
Also, I really must answer these questions for myself. I still
remember me, a tearful girl in her mid-teens, telling Mom
that "Well, you know, if I have kids, I guess I'll probably send
them to school." I have to answer these questions for that
uncertain girl. I have to do penance for myself for losing faith in
unschooling.
So, I must write down what I believe my parents did wrong.
The first thing that they did wrong was staying in Louisiana when I
was born. My uncertainty stemmed from the lack of a sympathetic
community.
The second thing they did wrong was not explaining to me what
unschooling was. I'll have to hand this one to Mom, because the
whole alternative education thing was her idea. As I reached my
teens and became embarrassed of the fact that I didn't know the
multiplication tables, I took her to task for being lazy and not
making me do schoolwork. Mom said that she believed that I would
learn what I needed to know when I needed to know it. She threw me
a couple of concepts from John Holt and A.S. Neill that temporarily
pacified me, but I only understood a few years later when I read
Summerhill for myself.
Back to the first item on the list: lack of community. I loved and
trusted my mother, but when I started growing out of childhood I had
to seriously reconsider her position, because nobody else in my
world agreed with her. Even Dad had pleaded with me to try school a
few times a year since I was 8 or so. I believe I considered his
suggestion once for about ten minutes. I certainly didn't want to
go to school, but everyone (except Mom) was telling me that I was
missing out, that my future was uncertain. I was torn; I didn't
know what to believe. I thought we were just homeschoolers that
were doing it wrong.
I now believe that Mom probably explained her philosophies on
unschooling a little better than I remember, but I think I would
have gone through much less stress if we had known just one or two
unschooling families to help set my (and Dad's, for that matter)
doubts to rest.
The lack of friends is part of the lack of community. I had several
friends until, frankly, they got stupid and annoying. My number of
friends was already limited because, obviously, I didn't meet as
many kids just hanging around in my neighborhood as I would have in
school, and most of the time I preferred solitary activities such as
reading books or inventing stories with the aid of Barbies and G.I.
Joes as actors. In fact, I don't ever recall truly wanting peer
companionship before my mid-teens. When my age got close to the
double-digits, my girl friends started acting silly over boys and
messing with makeup and obsessing over designer jeans. My girl
friends hated reading, except for Tiger Beat and other pin-up
magazines. Their Barbies only changed clothes and teased hair and
kissed Ken. I could still relate to a few boys I knew, but after a
while they changed too.
I had friends among my cousins and the few kids that Mom babysat,
and Mom herself was my best friend and confidant. I didn't have
friends as a teen because there weren't really any left over from
childhood, but I fixed that when I joined the online community. As
far as I know, I never suffered ill effects because of any of this
friend stuff, so that question is resolved.
As far as math is concerned, I know I would have learned it easily
from a tutor had I not been able to enroll in college without a high
school equivalent. The adult education was a mistake: I found it
hard to learn from a textbook lying under my nose without any
outside instruction. I could have had help from my parents and from
the adult education instructor, but I didn't want to ask. I have
always preferred to figure things out by myself. I also had math
anxiety from many sources. I knew how to do things like balancing a
checkbook and measuring ingredients, but beyond that I saw no
practical application of math in my life. Yet I had a panicky
feeling that I should be learning it. One of the most popular
questions asked of homeschoolers (my family included) is, "But what
about math?"
I remember saying when I was 16 or 17, "There's a restriction on my
driver's license that says I must wear corrective lenses to drive,
so why can't I get a diploma with a restriction that says I must
have a calculator to do math? Both are devices designed to assist
me in doing what I need to do to survive." That logic still makes
sense to me today, but I have learned something new. Math is a
wonderful science that is evident in some form or another in
everything we do. It's a tool for survival. That's why, in
college, my favorite problems were the word problems. It made math
seem real and not like jargon-filled number manipulation. So, what
about math? I had some anxiety about it, but that was quickly cured
when I started taking math classes.
Wow, it looks like I've answered all of my questions. Maybe
everything about my upbringing wasn't perfect, but I will never,
ever complain about the results.

love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com

Valerie

> In a message dated 8/4/2004 8:42:55 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> zoocrew@w... writes:
>
> How have you all explained unschooling during the
> transition time between structure and personal control? <<<<

I think the foreword to my book that Laurie wrote gives away enough
of my secrets about how I didn't explain unschooling as well to her
as I thought I did. <g>

Foreword

Hi, it's me, "the unprocessed child." I invented that name.
Several years ago a friend complimented me on my quirky handwriting,
and I said, "Thanks, it's unprocessed. Untouched by the school
system that shapes other kids' ABCs." Later, as Mom was searching
for a title for her book, I thought of `unprocessed' again and it
seemed to fit.
You'll become very familiar with me in the following pages.
My real name is Laurie, and I was earmarked to be an unschooler
while I was a mere gestating fetus, but I didn't know that I was an
unschooler until I was about seventeen.
I thought I was a homeschooler. When we were out in public
and nosy people asked why I wasn't in school, I would say, "I'm
homeschooled." I hated that question nearly as much as I hated the
varying degrees of horror and condemnation that followed. I suppose
that we never said "unschooled" in order to protect ourselves from
being reported to some governmental agency.
We told lots of white lies. We faked progress reports to
Louisiana's school board so they would leave us alone. When adults
asked me what grade I was in, I would try to figure it out. I would
think, okay, first grade is six years old because Aunt Laura teaches
first grade and her kids are six, so second grade is seven. I'm
eight, so I'm in third grade.
"I guess I'm in third grade," I'd respond.
Even though Mom told me that it didn't matter what other
people thought, and that the school board was stupid, I started
getting a little panicky when I was in my mid-teens. I had developed
a conception of myself as a lazy homeschooler. I asked Mom,
tearfully, why she hadn't made me learn math. She responded that she
knew that I would learn it when I needed to and was ready.
"How do you know that?" I'd ask. She said it would be just like
learning to read, but I didn't believe her. I thought of myself as
untested, unproven, in limbo.
Then, when I was seventeen, I read Summerhill and I
understood. It was amazing. I finally understood why Mom believed
what she did about the nature of children. I apologized to her for
being so doubtful about how I was being raised, and asked her why
she hadn't explained it to me. She thought she had.
Mom's mistake was only telling me the conclusions she
reached after reading Summerhill and various John Holt books. Of
course she told me that all people learn different things in
different ways at different times, but she didn't share the examples
that led her to believe that. Mom didn't tell me about the happy,
fulfilled man who had gone to Summerhill and was so completely
dedicated to being a mechanic that he didn't really learn to read
until he wanted to at the age of eighteen.
Here was a wealth of anecdotes about kids who were allowed
to be completely unique, just like me, outside of a mandatory school
system. And they were just fine. In fact, they were generally
happier and more successful than school kids.
More revelations came later, in the spring of 2001 when I
edited the first draft of this book and got Mom's full story. She
told accounts of my childhood that I didn't remember, and advanced
theories that I hadn't heard. It made me realize just how radical my
upbringing was, and how lucky I was to have experienced it.
I realize now that my teenage doubts were the same as the
doubts that plague many homeschooling and unschooling parents. I
hope that your fears will be quieted just as mine were as you read
my mother's story.

Laurie Chancey

Tina

Valerie

Okay, so maybe I should read your book...what's the name of it again?

Thanks - Tina

Joan Labbe & Salvatore Genovese

Valerie,

I wanted to say thanks so much to you and Laurie for sharing this. It is so
intersting and wonderful to read things from her perspective, all grown up
and thinking back on everything. I'm amazed at her and at you for being so
supportive of her when things weren't going well. Where the heck did you
get your support from? You are both amazing... I'm keeping this post
possibly forever.

Hey, maybe Laurie should write a book too...

Joan

************************
"I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than
live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it." ... Harry
Emerson Fosdick


-----Original Message-----
From: Valerie [mailto:valerie@...]
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 5:08 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] math (Daniel) again


My Growing Up:
An Unschooler's Reflections
By Laurie Chancey

Valerie

Joan,

You're welcome and thank you. I got my support from John Holt and
the GWS newsletters. Everyone thought I was nuts (shup Rue) so I was
pretty much on my own. I trusted her and I trusted my decision to
trust her. ;-)

love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com

--- In [email protected], "Joan Labbe & Salvatore
Genovese" <salgenovese@w...> wrote:
> Valerie,
>
> I wanted to say thanks so much to you and Laurie for sharing
this. It is so
> intersting and wonderful to read things from her perspective, all
grown up
> and thinking back on everything. I'm amazed at her and at you for
being so
> supportive of her when things weren't going well. Where the heck
did you
> get your support from? You are both amazing... I'm keeping this
post
> possibly forever.
>
> Hey, maybe Laurie should write a book too...
>
> Joan
>
> ************************
> "I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by
mystery than
> live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it." ...
Harry
> Emerson Fosdick
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Valerie [mailto:valerie@u...]
> Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 5:08 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [unschoolingbasics] math (Daniel) again
>
>
> My Growing Up:
> An Unschooler's Reflections
> By Laurie Chancey

Denise Deeves

--- In [email protected], "Valerie" <valerie@u...>
wrote:
> My Growing Up:
> An Unschooler's Reflections
> By Laurie Chancey
>
> I had a faint idea that I would try to go to college, so my
> parents arranged for me to take the California Achievement Test
> (CAT), a preliminary to the General Educational Development Test
> (GED), so I could have a high school equivalent to help admit me to
> the local university. My English and reading scores, said the CAT
> administrator, were the highest that she had ever seen. However,
my
> math scores were below acceptable levels and I could take adult
> education at the high school to bring me up to speed before I
retook
> the CAT.
> So I tried it, and hated it. I sat in the school cafeteria for a
> few hours every Wednesday night, frowning at a math book that Mom
> had bought for me, slowly working through it but not wanting to go
> to the instructor for help. Adult education was not a class, but
> many people scattered throughout the cafeteria working on their
own,
> with the option of individual help. I felt stupid, a new feeling
to
> me. I should know this stuff already. Why hadn't Mom stuck to it
> and made me learn math? Of course, I remembered resisting any of
> her efforts at instruction. What was the solution? I was 17 and
> the most advanced math concept I had under my belt was
> multiplication.
> I cried to my parents that I hated adult education but felt like it
> was my only shot at succeeding in life. Dad told me that if I
hated
> it so much, I shouldn't go. Mom assured me that I would find a
> passion and a way to achieve it. I didn't really believe her, but
I
> had been raised following my own pleasure so I stopped going to
> adult education, feeling like a quitter.
> I was restless and anxious, about to turn 18 with no direction in
> life. With encouragement from my parents, I began applying at a
few
> businesses and shortly thereafter became employed at a local video
> store. I loved my new job, and my self-confidence rose as I was
> praised for doing well. But an uneasiness that had been lurking
> finally surfaced when I was being trained to make the nightly
> deposit at the store. My supervisor, a 30-something woman with a
> husband and two children, counted money and stacked checks and
wrote
> notes with the expert lightning speed that comes with much
> practice. I saw my future in her, and knew I wanted more. But
what
> could I do?
*EXCERPT*
> So, I must write down what I believe my parents did wrong.
> The first thing that they did wrong was staying in Louisiana when I
> was born. My uncertainty stemmed from the lack of a sympathetic
> community.
> The second thing they did wrong was not explaining to me what
> unschooling was. I'll have to hand this one to Mom, because the
> whole alternative education thing was her idea. As I reached my
> teens and became embarrassed of the fact that I didn't know the
> multiplication tables, I took her to task for being lazy and not
> making me do schoolwork. Mom said that she believed that I would
> learn what I needed to know when I needed to know it. She threw me
> a couple of concepts from John Holt and A.S. Neill that temporarily
> pacified me, but I only understood a few years later when I read
> Summerhill for myself.
> Back to the first item on the list: lack of community. I loved and
> trusted my mother, but when I started growing out of childhood I
had
> to seriously reconsider her position, because nobody else in my
> world agreed with her. Even Dad had pleaded with me to try school
a
> few times a year since I was 8 or so. I believe I considered his
> suggestion once for about ten minutes. I certainly didn't want to
> go to school, but everyone (except Mom) was telling me that I was
> missing out, that my future was uncertain. I was torn; I didn't
> know what to believe. I thought we were just homescholers who were
doing it all wrong.


*****
As the mother of a 5 year old unschooled daughter IN LOUISIANA, where
there is a severe shortage of unschoolers (no one in her age range
that I know of)...this has always been a concern of mine. We're
surrounded by lots of homeschoolers, but they are constantly talking
of curriculums, etc. I'm afraid that eventually it seems likely that
my Emma will be facing the same delimma that Lauri experienced.

Hearing Lauri's feelings about her unschooled childhood in Louisiana
and the lack of like-minded people, makes me wonder if I maybe
shouldn't begin to lobby for a move??

Valerie, if you had to do it all over...in THIS day and times, would
you move to an area where there were more unschoolers around?

Do others of you with older kids have this concern...lack of local
unschooling community for the kids? Or has the internet and things
like the Live and Learn Conventions given your children ways to
connect and made this not as important?

Thanks,
Denise

Valerie

> Valerie, if you had to do it all over...in THIS day and times,
would you move to an area where there were more unschoolers around?
> Thanks,
> Denise

****** I pushed consistently for us to move until Laurie was in her
teens. Her father had the ability to transfer, but he didn't take
the offer when he got it. There are many times I considered taking
her and moving, but that's another story.

In hindsight, it's fine with me (and Laurie) that we stayed here. I
think we've enjoyed being the rebels in the area. <g> We were pretty
much forced to be out-spoken about our beliefs because of all the
times we were backed into corners. She and I both value our alone
time over time with others, so I'm not really sure we would have
been different if we had been around like minds.

She moved into her new apartment (2 hours away) this past weekend
and she told me she felt a little weird about the fact that I was
the only person she was really going to miss. Her friends were
crying and hugging her and she was hugging back and consoling them,
telling them she'd be back for visits. But she didn't really feel a
loss.

I still want to move because of the climate and narrow minds in this
area and it's a real possibility next year. Time will tell. I tend
to be content no matter where I am these days.

love, Valerie
www.ubpub.com