frozenandcold

I prefer to be a little more "in your face" about being an
unschooler; not that I am rude or anything, just bold. I love that
quote: Well behaved women never made history. I believe that I can
make the most change in the world by being outspoken about it, it
gives people food for thought. That is just my personality though,
more than anything. I also now have the back of my van COVERED with
bumper stickers that give people food for thought, at least some of
them probably go home and google unschooling! I have actually had a
lot of people move toward unschooling because I am so loud about it
and that is the greatest thing!!!!! One of my older friends (in her
70's), whose husband was a college professer, says that he used to
complain about how we coerce kids to "learn" when there is never
really any learning to be had, he would tell her how kids REALLY
learned and she said he was basically describing unschooling. She
is always telling me how lucky my kids are! I am also lucky because
I live in Alaska (for 7 more weeks anyway) and there are no
homeschool laws so no one really cares what you do, and there are
TONS of very relaxed homeschoolers so unschooling isn't too far of a
reach for most people. When I do get raised eyebrows I always have
a come-back and a fierce argument for the pros of unschooling so
most people give up fairly quickly. Last week, after a heated
unschooling v. public schooling debate, the conversation drifted
towards the school schedule and testing. The comment was made that
the schedule was changed so that all testing could be done before
Christmas so that the kids wouldn't forget what they had "learned"
before testing. I just piped up and said "Well that pretty much
cements my argument because they didn't really LEARN it in the first
place then, did they?" The entire room was REALLY quiet (you could
have heard crickets chirping if we had any around) and I kind of
think that they won't argue with me about unschooling anymore. I am
always very nice about it though, I just give people my
thoughts :) :) I have inspired a number of people to research
unschooling farther and a few have made the transition and those
that didn't are at least a little more open minded about it, those
are the greatest moments for me! I completely understand the closet
thing though because it can sometimes exhaust a person to explain,
every time, why you do things different; it is always a few hour
conversation, ya know!? Don't forget to set clocks back one hour!!

Heidi
Children aren't coloring books. You can't fill them with your
favorite colors. From The Kite Runner

[email protected]

In a message dated 10/30/2005 3:20:41 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fivefreebirds@... writes:

I prefer to be a little more "in your face" about being an
unschooler; not that I am rude or anything, just bold.


~~~~~~~~~~
LOL... I just had 2 old college friends email me and ask me, among other
"how are you's", how homeschooling was going. Now, everytime people ask this,
especially the ones I know that are a bit "ignorant" of it, I cringe. But, this
time, instead of answering a typical "fine", I went into a somewhat elaborate
discussion about "unschooling" (without calling it unschooling) and how I
was enjoying watching my son's reading ability flourish on it's own, and how my
daughter's artwork is becoming more and more detailed and how the baby is
picking up on vocabulary and learning her boundaries of herself....
DH was laughing at me doing that. One friend is a mother of one girl, that
is in between my oldest 2 in age, and thinks she is the ultimate "expert" on
parenting, and tries to "tsk tsk" me. My other friend is marrying a man with 2
pre-teen daughters and has suddenly become the biggest "mommy expert" as
well. Both are very structured people, so me homeschooling period, is "weird" to
them.
But, I had fun with my emails to them! LOL

Jenny
Homeschooling in Greenfield, MA
Danny (12-1-99), Kelsey (11-1-01) and Evelyn (5-19-04)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire. ~William Butler
Yeats



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

Rod Thomas

So what DO you say when someone asks what you do all day or how you
teach them, in a nutshell.
My bumper stickers: Schools are for fish
Grades are for eggs and meat.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
Homeschool bus


>>>>I prefer to be a little more "in your face" about being an
unschooler; not that I am rude or anything, just
>>it can sometimes exhaust a person to explain,
every time, why you do things different; it is always a few hour
conversation, ya know!? Don't forget to set clocks back one hour!!
Heidi<<<<<<<<<

frozenandcold

Well, I usually don't get questions quite that broad, usually they
will make a "schooly" comment and I will have a comeback to make
them think about their statement and then it seems to drift to the
unschooling philosophy.

I usually always start by telling them that kids naturally want to
learn about the world around them but when we force or coerce them
they lose that natural curiousity and desire to learn. They learned
how to crawl, walk, talk without coercing (in most cases), why
wouldn't they learn other things the same way?

I also ask people how much they remember from what they learned in
school? I usually get blank stares and "Not much" or they will only
remember the things they were interested in, that usually gets them
thinking. Sometimes with homeschoolers I will hear things about
them getting tutors for higher math and such and I will ask "Well,
if you learned it in school then why can't you teach them?" And I
will get a reply like "Well, I don't remember that stuff." Exactly
my point, thank you!

You can read the little blurb I have on my website about
unschooling, let me know what you think www.5freebirds.com , click
on about us tab. Most people I talk to want to learn more about
unschooling, which is really cool. I have only talked to a handful
of people that think I am just weird and ruining my kids. Anyone
that knows my kids though don't worry too much. I have almost all
of my unschooling books loaned out because so many people are
curious and I think that is wonderful!

Heidi

frozenandcold

Here in the next couple weeks I promise to post a picture of the back
of my van. Not all my bumper stickers are unschooling ones but they
mirror the philosophy in some way. I get lots of stares and people
pulling close to my van to read!

Heidi

Deb

--- In [email protected], "Rod Thomas" <flyerrod@d...>
wrote:
>
> So what DO you say when someone asks what you do all day or how you
> teach them, in a nutshell.
The other night we went to a local hair cut place because DS wanted a
trim. I was sitting nearby in case anything needed clarification (how
much to remove, etc). The beautician asked DS how old he was so he
answered 7. Then the obvious next question What grade are you in? He
said "we homeschool" as if that sums it all up. So she turned to me
(as we had been chatting here and there) and said "So you teach him?"
and I said (pleasant smile on my face, wicked grin in my mind) "Nope"
and she said "Oh" and went back to cutting hair (I could tell she was
confused). In other times and other places this usually leads to more
discussion but there just wasn't the time or interest this time.
--Deb

Rod Thomas

So what DO you say when someone asks what you do all day or how you
teach them, in a nutshell.
My bumper stickers: Schools are for fish
Grades are for eggs and meat.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
Homeschool bus


>>>>I prefer to be a little more "in your face" about being an
unschooler; not that I am rude or anything, just
>>it can sometimes exhaust a person to explain,
every time, why you do things different; it is always a few hour
conversation, ya know!? Don't forget to set clocks back one hour!!
Heidi<<<<<<<<<

frozenandcold

<So what DO you say when someone asks what you do all day or how you
teach them, in a nutshell.
My bumper stickers: Schools are for fish
Grades are for eggs and meat.
Imagination is more important than knowledge
Homeschool bus>

Rod, I wasn't sure if you posted this again because you didn't see my
response. Refer to post #7656 and 7657.

Heidi

Deb

--- In [email protected], "frozenandcold"
<fivefreebirds@m...> wrote:
>
> <So what DO you say when someone asks what you do all day or how you
> teach them, in a nutshell.
Along these lines, yesterday I went to get DS from his Bible class
and, as I got to the doorway, his teacher was telling another little
boy that DS is homeschooled and that his Daddy teaches him. DS
said "Well, that's not exactly what we do. I teach myself by doing
stuff." Then he noticed me and headed out of the room. As he dashed by
me to get downstairs to "our spot" I told his teacher He's exactly
right, we don't do schooltime or anything. And then headed down to sit
with DS. I told DS that he explained that quite well.

All in all, DS is probably a better spokesperson for unschooling than
us adults in some ways.

--Deb