[email protected]

-=-=-=-I see the danger in defining unschooling too narrowly, as well. But EVERYONE is unschooling is far, far to broad, and I don't find a single thing that rings true in the statement.-=-=-=-


We're asked all the time to define unschooling---then get blasted when we DO! <g>

The problem comes in when one thinks of unschooling AS learning, which it IS. But learning isn't necessarily unschooling. But when you read Ned's statement that "Unschooling is living your life as if school didn't exist," is becomes more clear. Unschooling happens ONLY without the presence of school and that which imitates school.

If you're testing and grading and teaching, that's NOT unschooling. Even if you're learning outSIDE that environment.

Yes, EVERYONE learns. Even WITH school. In spite of school. But it's the ABSENCE of school that makes it unschooling.

When I first read Sue's post, I had two immediate and simultaneous reactions:

YES!
and
NO WAY!!!!!

Yes! in that I know that all people learn---even while in school. It's what we DO. But that's not necessarily unschooling (we'd have to do away with the schooled portion).

No way! in that....well, because unschooling means no school. Unschooling ---the term and its definition---wouldn't even exist without the presence of school: if there were no school, we wouldn't have unschooling. Kind of like the first few zillion (or is it just 6,000? <g>) years that man's been learning.

As soon as we get rid of all the schools, we won't need the term "unschooling" anymore. Until then, unschoolers are those people who do their learning without schools. Schooled children get to learn outside of schools in their free time.

~Kelly

diana jenner

kbcdlovejo@... wrote:

>When I first read Sue's post, I had two immediate and simultaneous reactions:
>
>YES!
>and
>NO WAY!!!!!
>
>Yes! in that I know that all people learn---even while in school. It's what we DO. But that's not necessarily unschooling (we'd have to do away with the schooled portion).
>
>No way! in that....well, because unschooling means no school. Unschooling ---the term and its definition---wouldn't even exist without the presence of school: if there were no school, we wouldn't have unschooling. Kind of like the first few zillion (or is it just 6,000? <g>) years that man's been learning.
>
Me, too :)
I think it would be more accurate if it asserted that everyone is an
unschooler - as in, we're all capable of learning without school -
and some of us are lucky enough to appreciate that fact and do it full
time.

:) diana


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

jimpetersonl

I've been looking for the person who would disprove my assertion: the
person who has never learned something without school.

If anyone knows of this person, please point me in that direction.

~Sue


>>>EVERYONE unschools.
>>>Some people get to do it full time.

> kbcdlovejo@a... wrote:
>
> >When I first read Sue's post, I had two immediate and simultaneous
reactions:
> >
> >YES!
> >and
> >NO WAY!!!!!
> >
> >Yes! in that I know that all people learn---even while in school.
It's what we DO. But that's not necessarily unschooling (we'd have to
do away with the schooled portion).
> >
> >No way! in that....well, because unschooling means no school.
Unschooling ---the term and its definition---wouldn't even exist
without the presence of school: if there were no school, we wouldn't
have unschooling. Kind of like the first few zillion (or is it just
6,000? <g>) years that man's been learning.
> >
> Me, too :)
> I think it would be more accurate if it asserted that everyone is an
> unschooler - as in, we're all capable of learning without school -
> and some of us are lucky enough to appreciate that fact and do it full
> time.
>
> :) diana
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pam Sorooshian

On Mar 15, 2005, at 9:10 PM, jimpetersonl wrote:

> I've been looking for the person who would disprove my assertion: the
> person who has never learned something without school.

Everybody knows that every person on earth has learned something
without school.

According to you, that makes every person on earth an unschooler.

It doesn't help people understand unschooling to define unschooling as
including everybody on earth.

-pam

David & Annelise Pierce

Aimee wrote:

I do believe that unschooling *is* simply honoring the
natural instinct to learn, plus time. 

And I add:

As a brand new unschooler who just discovered the concept about two months
ago (it felt like coming home) I really loved Aimee's definition. It seems
to me, after learning all I know about unschooling from Sandra's site, you
all, and the various links, books, etc. that you all have recommended as I
lurked; that unschooling is "a lifestyle of learning, free from compulsion."
Unschooling CAN mean being taught - as in a gardening class, guitar lessons,
or organized sports. It can even mean being taught things that are
kid-specific (T-ball). It can mean being taught by a mom or dad (when the
teaching is not compulsory (done regardless of interest or responsiveness).
It can include choosing not to be taught by anyone else. Unschooling is not
the absence of being taught - it is the presence of TRUE freedom and choice
in the matter. I think this is why so many unschoolers wish for a better
term for what they do (life learning?). Does this mean that an unschooler
can choose to be schooled and still be an unschooler?? I'd say giving up
the choice over what one will learn and even more so, giving up the time
(see Aimee's quote above) would negate the idea of unschooling. Entering a
specific sort of school (such as cosmetology) seems different. You're
choosing to devote more of your time to this specific kind of learning about
this specific subject.

Hope this is helpful. It got a bit muddy at the end. :)

annelise





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

Joyce Fetteroll

On Mar 16, 2005, at 12:10 AM, jimpetersonl wrote:

> I've been looking for the person who would disprove my assertion: the
> person who has never learned something without school.

That wasn't your assertion.

But no one disagrees that everyone learns outside of school.

Your assertion is that learning outside of school = unschooling.

That's what people are disagreeing with.

This new statement further muddies your trying to make for unschooling
by suggesting that someone can be in school and fit the category
"without school" when they are learning something other than what the
teachers are teaching them. If that were true then there would be no
need for deschooling. There would be no difference between
unschooled-all-their-lives kids and kids who attend school for 11 years
and unschool for their "senior" year. There would be no need for this
list to help people get past the conditioning they've picked up in
school (and society) about how it's necessary to learn.

School affects schooled kids whether they're physically in the building
or physically doing school work or not.

Joyce

Julie Bogart

--- In [email protected], David & Annelise Pierce
<ddpierce@e...> wrote:

<<unschooling is "a lifestyle of learning, free from compulsion.">>

Ding, ding, ding! You win. Much more concise definition that gets at the essence of what
my wordier one meant to convey.

Thank you! Love that.

Julie

P.S. Your comments about unschooling and choosing to use school ring true. My daughter
is technically unschooled (she is free to self-educate as she chooses) but she chose to
attend school part time for three subjects she wanted in school. Like Sandra suggested, I
don't make her "do" anything, she can skip if she likes, I don't care about her grades, yada,
yada.

The problem with "choosing" school, even part time, is that the school itself is an
environment that is highly coercive and demeaning to learners. So you "pay a price" for
that kind of "teaching" whereas in other places we've taken lessons (like acting school, sax
lessons, learning to shoot rifles, vintage dance) we have not felt that same kind of coercive
and condescending context that overbears, like it does in the public school.

So I support what you said. There is a problem with *school* itself. Choosing to use it,
even part time, still means "fighting off" a kind of schoolish mentality and that takes daily
energy away from interest led learning, as I have witnessed in my own home.

Pam Sorooshian

On Mar 16, 2005, at 12:04 AM, David & Annelise Pierce wrote:

> Unschooling CAN mean being taught - as in a gardening class, guitar
> lessons,
> or organized sports. It can even mean being taught things that are
> kid-specific (T-ball). It can mean being taught by a mom or dad
> (when the
> teaching is not compulsory (done regardless of interest or
> responsiveness).
> It can include choosing not to be taught by anyone else.

This is all fine and good - but, especially for people new to
unschooling, it is REALLY helpful to not even talk about "teaching" or
"being taught" as if that equates to "learning."

It is important to deeply know that "teaching" and "learning" are very
very different things - and there is a WHOLE lot of teaching going on
in this world which doesn't correspond to any learning and, vice versa,
a whole lot of learning going on in the world that doesn't correspond
to any teaching.

When I took guitar lessons, I had a teacher. But my LEARNING didn't
come from the teacher. The teacher could have "taught" until she was
blue in the face - there was absolutely no way that her teaching
"caused" my learning. The learning happened inside me - inside my brain
and my finger muscles and so on.

Because teachers take so much credit for children's learning, this
society equates "teaching" with "learning" and it is actually hard to
get out of that mindset. So - some of us recommend changing the
language used, whenever possible.

So - just for the purpose of understanding learning better, I don't say
my guitar teacher "taught" me to play guitar. She explained to me how
to read chord charts, she showed me how to hold my fingers, she
listened to me and gave suggestions, and so on. It is much more
specific and clear and less "magical" sounding when we say what the
"teacher" really did instead of using the words "teach" or "taught."
Makes it far more clear that the learning is under the control of the
learner.

My daughter just asked me how to do something in Microsoft Word. I
could say I am "teaching" her Microsoft Word. But better to say she's
learning to use it and that I showed her how to do some of it. It is
more accurate. And the SAME is true for any of those kinds of lessons
or courses - just a matter of organizational difference, not any
different when it comes to the learning part.


-pam

[email protected]

In a message dated 3/16/2005 4:43:15 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fetteroll@... writes:

But no one disagrees that everyone learns outside of school.

Your assertion is that learning outside of school = unschooling.

That's what people are disagreeing with<<<<<<<


I have been reading bits and pieces of this thread. I know for myself, I
was schooled, never even homeschooled, and I did have interests outside of
school and do think that I did learn outside of school.

For me the difference is that I didn't place any value on the things I
learned outside of school. I thought the only place to learn anything valuable
was in school, so that was the important stuff. Anything else was unimportant
and I was not encouraged to pursue those outside interests. I was encouraged
and rewarded for good grades and school work. And that is how my life went.
I chose a profession, nursing, because that was valued.

I remember having passing interests in gardening, sewing, and cooking. But
was not encouraged to pursue these interests. Horticulture class and Home EC
were not on my list of classes even, as I was on the college bound track, no
time for those trivial classes. Those were not the classes that someone
headed for college took. And college was the place to be. So I lost interest in
those things for a while, and am only now getting back to what really
interests me.

For my boys, they will never feel that. They are able to explore whatever
they want. They so not see anything in terms of college bound or not. It is
an interest that may lead to more or maybe not. They decide what is
important or not. Their life will be different. It won't take them almost 40 years
to find their interests and be able to "go for it". They will not see school
as where the "important information is".

For me it is what school does to your spirit. Not if you learned anything
outside of school. It is the importance you place on it. School conditions
you to place little value on what you learn outside of school.

Just a couple of my disorganized thoughts this morning,
gotta run,
Pam G




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

[email protected]

In a message dated 3/16/2005 8:10:01 AM Mountain Standard Time,
pamsoroosh@... writes:

It is important to deeply know that "teaching" and "learning" are very
very different things - and there is a WHOLE lot of teaching going on
in this world which doesn't correspond to any learning and, vice versa,
a whole lot of learning going on in the world that doesn't correspond
to any teaching.



----------------------

If anyone thinks that sounds nitpicky, please read some of this:

_http://sandradodd.com/wordswords_ (http://sandradodd.com/wordswords)

Not only is it NOT nitpicking, it's the line between unschooling and
schoolishness.
Anyone who never understands that will be wading in the school water
forever.

Still the winner for saddest thing I ever heard about homeschooling was
someone who gushed that if you homeschool you'll be your child's only teacher!!
The idea that my child would learn nothing from anyone but me, that ALL he
knew would have come from me, is horrifying. What a life-stunting wish that
was, to be one's child's only teacher.

Better, I think, to provide a child a life without teachers, a life full of
learning and resources and people to answer HIS questions and to respond to
HIS needs, where he is the learner and the options are his.

Sandra




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

[email protected]

In a message dated 3/16/2005 8:25:53 AM Mountain Standard Time,
Genant2@... writes:

I thought the only place to learn anything valuable
was in school, so that was the important stuff. Anything else was
unimportant



I figured out by the time I was 11 or 12 that the teachers were taking
credit for things I learned in years before, or learned on my own outside of
school. What made it different for me than some kids whose interests were horses
or cars or bottle cap collection was that my interests were history and
geography and the history of words, and of clothes and music. So in school, I
knew more and could do better in class because of what I learned for fun
outside. And the teachers just BEAMED and patted themselves on the head about how
much work they had done to make me so "smart."

But as I also had wanted to be a teacher since I was six and had Miss
Tomlinson who was so much nicer to me than my mom was, it didn't bother me to see
teacher-foibles. It was something I learned from. And other teachers KNEW
they weren't "my teacher" in one way or another, and gave me space and resources
to learn more on my own, because they DID see it and were helpful to me
about it.

School gave me an identity outside my family which was great for me. They
gave me chances for success in a grades-and-test-scores way, and that was
helpful for me. Not until years later did I reflect deeply on the effect of my
"winning" on so many other kids who might've liked to have been first or best
more often, but school created that competitive field, I didn't. And when I
did try to throw the curve (as a community service, at the request of others
in my 9th grade science class) I got in trouble.

So when I was in the midst of much "teaching" I was clinically observing to
see what kind of teacher I did and didn't want to be, and that goal of "finish
this and come back and teach" lasted through college and some years more.
I'm glad some college education professor told me that there's no such action
as 'teaching,' the most you can do is facilitate learning. And that seems as
true as anything I've ever heard, seen, tasted or felt.

Sandra



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

Kerrin or Ralph

>
> I figured out by the time I was 11 or 12 that the teachers were taking
> credit for things I learned in years before, or learned on my own outside
of
> school.


How about this: Here in NZ home educated kids can choose to do the exams
that relate to the national curriculum. If they do, they have to link to a
school. Well, I just found out that the school takes the credit for their
results. I expect that kids who've chosen the exam themselves would have a
pretty good pass rate. Even the homeschooled ones who's parent's have chosen
for them.

Kerrin.