Maisha Khalfani

Hello (and sorry for the cross posts) - I'm still lurking but I'm talking with my husband about the idea of radical unschooling and he has some issues with it. He wants to know what some of your adult children do for a living. He's a big skeptic about the whole radical unschooling thing and wants to know if your children have gone on to make a living in the "real world". Thanks.

Maisha
"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and dance with the Earth in all her glorious colors." ~ Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

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squeaky biscuit

Here's a website of an adult unschooler. I'm not sure what she does for a
living, but she went to college and did very well.

http://www.chancey.info/unschooling.html



Erin


On 3/25/06, Maisha Khalfani <earthspirit393@...> wrote:
>
> Hello (and sorry for the cross posts) - I'm still lurking but I'm talking
> with my husband about the idea of radical unschooling and he has some issues
> with it. He wants to know what some of your adult children do for a
> living. He's a big skeptic about the whole radical unschooling thing and
> wants to know if your children have gone on to make a living in the "real
> world". Thanks.
>
> Maisha
> "Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste
> the fruit, and dance with the Earth in all her glorious colors." ~ Henry
> David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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>
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vicki a. dennis

My oldest is a software engineer with a "good" salary.



#2 son is still in college and only has paid employment for about 12 hours
a week. However, he is not a minimum wage burger bagger. He earns a bit
more than $10 an hour working in a community college tutoring lab. This is
the child who "rose out" of Montessori school at age 3 and did not attend
any institutional school classes until he enrolled in college.



Meanwhile most of the "honor" students in the neighborhood or on their
youth soccer teams are struggling. "Unsuccessful" at "higher
education" (some even losing academic scholarships when unable to adjust to
college work) . Maybe one step above minimum wage if they even have a
job.



vicki



-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Maisha Khalfani
Sent: Saturday, March 25, 2006 12:00 AM
To: AlwaysLearning; AlwaysUnschooled; Unschooling_Basics;
UnschoolingDiscussion
Subject: [UnschoolingDiscussion] adult unschoolers



[

He wants to know what some of your adult children do for a living. He's a
big skeptic about the whole radical unschooling thing and wants to know if
your children have gone on to make a living in the "real world". Thanks.






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

nellebelle

=-=-=-=-==He's a big skeptic about the whole radical unschooling thing and
wants to know if your children have gone on to make a living in the "real
world".-=-=-=-=-=

You could ask him to tell you about grown up schoolers and how going to
school guarantees that you will be able to make a living (not).

Mary Ellen

Cindy White

>>>>Meanwhile most of the "honor" students in the neighborhood or on their
youth soccer teams are struggling. "Unsuccessful" at "higher
education" (some even losing academic scholarships when unable to adjust to
college work) . Maybe one step above minimum wage if they even have a
job.


This reminds me of a conversation I had with my husband last night. The company he works for gives a small, but significant in this rural area, scholarship every year to a graduate from the local high school. He is involved in the process of choosing the recipient this year & was commenting on how dismal all of the candidates are and mostly was surprised that although most of them had 3.4+ averages at school, they only scored about 650 on the SATs.

This sparked a great conversation about success & how public school's idea of success is all about numbers (including $$'s) and the process of "teaching" kids and testing them only keeps them from learning how to think for themselves. That's why they have trouble in college, no one is babysitting them thru an assignment. No one offers a list of ideas when a paper is due. Suddenly, they are required to think for themselves and without a parent on hand to make sure they make it to class. LOTS of kids change majors many times, spend 5 or more years trying to get a degree all the while having a great time spending their parent's money. It's no wonder they don't know what kind of job interests them, or what kind of classes might be fun. And it's no wonder that they get upset when their first job is one that makes them unhappy, because they're working where their friends work and still following the crowd rather than their own interests.

Most kids raising in schools don't really know what they are interested in without someone telling them, even if that someone is the crowd.....

Cindy

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

[email protected]

> From: "Maisha Khalfani" <earthspirit393@...>
> Subject: adult unschoolers
>
>He wants to know what some of your adult children do for a living. He's a big skeptic about the >whole radical unschooling thing and wants to know if your children have gone on to make a living in >the "real world". Thanks.
>

Unschooling has changed me in so many ways! Since we became "unschoolers," my husband and I have examined what our children must do for us to approve of them. Will we love our children more if they grow up to do a job that carries a lot of social clout? We think it's more important for them to find work that brings them joy. But that isn't something we are shooting for "when they grow up." It's what our lives are based on right now. What others see as their play, we see as their work.

My husband is a lawyer with successful side businesses. Is he a better person, or more important, than our friend who is a welder? Or is my husband more important than I am--because I am not employed anywhere? What do your children need to do to be "good enough" for you and your husband?

I enjoyed reading Barbara Sher's book "I Could Do Anything: If only I Knew What it Was.'' It really opened my eyes about how our expectations can affect our kids.
Deirdre

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 26, 2006, at 5:11 PM, <aycock@...>
<aycock@...> wrote:

> Will we love our children more if they grow up to do a job that
> carries a lot of social clout? We think it's more important for
> them to find work that brings them joy.


Marty packs groceries and carries them out to people's cars. He
cheers up little kids who are sitting in the baby seats of carts,
bored and tired of the store. He runs to get things people have
forgotten or couldn't find. He helps the clerks, and brings in the
carts. It's good exercise, he sees all kinds of people, and he's
doing things that are directly and immediately helpful to other
people who have chosen to be there and who appreciate someone
friendly and useful.

Things like that should pay better. <g>

Sandra

Pamela Sorooshian

>> From: "Maisha Khalfani" <earthspirit393@...>
>> Subject: adult unschoolers
>>
>> He wants to know what some of your adult children do for a
>> living. He's a big skeptic about the >whole radical unschooling
>> thing and wants to know if your children have gone on to make a
>> living in >the "real world". Thanks.

My 21 year old daughter goes to a university full time and works half
time. She's a senior and is majoring in Recreation and Leisure
Studies. Her goal is to run her own fine arts camp for adults and
kids. She is president of the Recreation Students Association and is
earning certificates in "Outdoor Education," "Event Planning," and
"Environment and Land Management," along with her bachelor degree.
Last weekend, she was the honored guest at the California State Parks
and Recreation Association annual conference. They gave a breakfast
in her honor and she was also honored at a dinner banquet. They gave
her a check for $1,500 - the largest scholarship offered by the state
association. She brought me a copy of the speech someone gave about
her and it ended with, "If any of you have job openings in your
cities or organizations, I have three words of advice: Hire this girl!"

She works 20 hours per week at an after-school child care program
where she was originally hired as a teacher's aide and was soon
advanced to be an actual teacher.

She lives at home because she can and because she is fine with living
with her family - not in a big rush to get away. She's paying for a
lot of her own college expenses and for all of her own personal
expenses, like clothing and gas for her car. We never really
discussed that - but when she had her own money, she just started
handling those things herself. We pay for her car insurance. She's
saved several thousand dollars and intends to use that when she does
move out. She's planning to go to graduate school, so she might live
at home for a couple of more years. Or, she might go to grad school
somewhere else and move out then. No hurry.

-pam




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

Sandra Dodd

On Mar 26, 2006, at 6:06 PM, Pamela Sorooshian wrote:

> She brought me a copy of the speech someone gave about
> her and it ended with, "If any of you have job openings in your
> cities or organizations, I have three words of advice: Hire this
> girl!"


Way to go, Roya!!!!

And (for those reading AlwaysLearning), Roya is one of the three
quoted in the lame little ElleGirl article which was used as fodder
for a negative bit on FOX news yesterday. What a loss for them, not
to have done a big, good story.

Sandra

hsmamaca

You can look at www.grownwithoutschooling.com can't say they were all
radically unschooled but they are grown homeschooling types. Wendy
Priesnitz's daughter I beleive was what we might call 'raddicaly'
unschooled. I couldn't find info specifically on her -quickly- but
you could follow this link http://www.lifemedia.ca/wendy/bio.html to
find the information I'm sure. Her daughter was an author or
journalist -I think- I know that somewhere there is a write up on her
on either the Life Learning or Natural Life magazine websites.

Also in all the reading I've done the thing that stands out for me is
not the 'impresiveness' of the ocupations these unschooled children
have chosen but the 'rightness' of the ocupations for them. The
satisfaction of acheiving what they desire. The fact that most have
seemed to, well not allways 'known' exactlly what they want, but at
least have the ability to recognise what doen't work and move on to
something different. None of the stories have expressed regret at a
large block of wasted time -like a year or ten- while the person tried
to live up to the expectations of others.

Teresa - Public school survivor who still doesn't know what she wants
to do "When she grows up" at thirty something years old.

--- In [email protected], "Maisha Khalfani"
<earthspirit393@...> wrote:
>
> Hello (and sorry for the cross posts) - I'm still lurking but I'm
talking with my husband about the idea of radical unschooling and he
has some issues with it. He wants to know what some of your adult
children do for a living. He's a big skeptic about the whole radical
unschooling thing and wants to know if your children have gone on to
make a living in the "real world". Thanks.
>
> Maisha
> "Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink,
taste the fruit, and dance with the Earth in all her glorious colors."
~ Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

sandy lubert

My kids are still small, but we have a friend who's a 19 yr-old
unschooler.

She travels a lot and works wherever she can. Recently, she backpacked
through Europe, then lived in British Columbia for a while, worked as
a waitress, etc.

Now, she's teaching dance in a studio and she's considering applying
to university.

Hope that helps.

Sandy