naturalchildproject

Hi everyone,

I've written an article for parents new to unschooling:

"Ten Tips for New Unschoolers"
http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/ten_tips_unschooling.html

I've also listed it in links/articles.

If I've left out any important points, please let me know - I may write a sequel.

Thanks!

Jan

Jan Hunt, M.Sc., Director
Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.org
Follow me on Twitter: @janbaronhunt

The Unschooling Unmanual
http://www.naturalchild.org/unmanual

"Change the world - nurture a child."

Schuyler

1. Let the Child Lead
Parents new to unschooling often feel overwhelmed by the
assumption that everything is in their hands. They believe that it
is up to them to choose the topics for each day. If that
assumption were true, most unschooling parents would burn out
quickly and send their children to school! Fortunately, the truth
is just the opposite. The best way to help a child learn is to let
him have the reins - he will naturally know what is of most
interest to him at every moment, and will make that clear to you.
All the parent needs to do is to trust that the child knows best
what he is ready and eager to learn, and then help him to find
whatever materials or information he needs. The best analogy is to
a reference librarian, who waits until he knows what the library
patron is looking for, and then helps him to find it. No reference
librarian tells the patron what to learn. Relax and let the child
take the lead. Once this truth is fully understood, unschooling
becomes easy and joyous.
----------
I have a problem with this first one. Simon and Linnaea sometimes, much more
than they were younger, but still now, need input. Their experience with the
world is much less than mine and their knowledge of what is available is much
less as well. It is and was my job to give them opportunities to explore unknown
things. It was and is my job to strew their path with interesting and engaging
things to explore. Starting with the idea that a child knows what to learn may
keep people from offering interesting things for children to do.


Schuyler

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

naturalchildproject

Oh, I agree with you completely. I didn't mean to imply that parents have no input.

Of course unschooling parents should bring in materials that they think the child would enjoy - we did lots of that, and I doubt that there are any unschooling parents who don't. The challenge is to have no expectations and to use no pressure - otherwise it's really just parent-set curriculum, not strewing.

Thanks for catching this. I'll add this point to the article soon.

Jan

plaidpanties666

"naturalchildproject" <jan@...> wrote:
>I didn't mean to imply that parents have no input.

The one thing that really jumped out at me, overall, was that statements weren't terribly nuanced. Now, for a lot of parents, that's not a crisis; what they need to hear is "stop micromanaging your kids' lives" so strong statements to let children lead could help them move forward. The trouble - and it comes up periodically on the unschooling lists, too - is that parents are coming to unschooling from very different places; either moms who don't have good boundaries to begin with and tend to fall into letting kids run the show when told to let their kids lead, or moms who are... hmmm a bit too inclined to think that learning is some kind of magic trick and you really don't have to do Anything to help out.

So I'd say the hardest part of laying out any kind of "tips for new unschoolers" is that unschoolers aren't a homogenous group. Maybe rather than making your specific statements more nuanced, though, you could include and introductory paragraph indicating that these particular tips are for parents coming from a very strong educational background - that was how I read the piece, for sure, but it wouldn't hurt to be totally upfront with that bit of information as a kind of caveat. Those tips don't apply to parents who come to unschooling after already questioning/rejecting the current educational paradigm.

---Meredith

naturalchildproject

Thank you for this suggestion. I guess I thought the word "new" would let the reader know that I was writing to those who are new to the concept. And most parents do come from a strong educational background, since nearly all of today's parents went to school. I'll give this some thought!

Thanks,

Jan



--- In [email protected], "plaidpanties666" <plaidpanties666@...> wrote:
>
> "naturalchildproject" <jan@> wrote:
> >I didn't mean to imply that parents have no input.
>
> The one thing that really jumped out at me, overall, was that statements weren't terribly nuanced. Now, for a lot of parents, that's not a crisis; what they need to hear is "stop micromanaging your kids' lives" so strong statements to let children lead could help them move forward. The trouble - and it comes up periodically on the unschooling lists, too - is that parents are coming to unschooling from very different places; either moms who don't have good boundaries to begin with and tend to fall into letting kids run the show when told to let their kids lead, or moms who are... hmmm a bit too inclined to think that learning is some kind of magic trick and you really don't have to do Anything to help out.
>
> So I'd say the hardest part of laying out any kind of "tips for new unschoolers" is that unschoolers aren't a homogenous group. Maybe rather than making your specific statements more nuanced, though, you could include and introductory paragraph indicating that these particular tips are for parents coming from a very strong educational background - that was how I read the piece, for sure, but it wouldn't hurt to be totally upfront with that bit of information as a kind of caveat. Those tips don't apply to parents who come to unschooling after already questioning/rejecting the current educational paradigm.
>
> ---Meredith
>