unschooling versus relaxed schooling
[email protected]
I see a huge difference between recognizing that kids can KEEP learning
during their breaks from being schooled versus unschooling, letting go of all
school-style imposed curriculum.
We don't unschool just because we know kids can learn without the schooling
-- we unschool because we believe the schooling can actually be harmful,
because it entails risks we aren't willing to accept. THAT is the message
that Kate wasn't seeming to hear. I don't blame her - I think we are
sometimes sort of too reticent to say it - out of a sense of courtesy,
believe it or not <G> - not wanting to tell other people that we think that
what they are doing could be harmful.
I do think people here were hearing perfectly well what she was saying - that
she allows a lot of freedom and child-determined time and pays attention to
whether her kids are wanting to continue the lessons, etc. That's nice. It
beats the heck out of making the kids sit at the table in tears until they
finish their math curriculum every day.
As I think I said in another post, I have a friend who uses Calvert
Curriculum and calls herself an unschooler. I don't correct her, much less
berate her - not ever. But if SHE wanted to talk about unschooling, I'd tell
her what I thought, that what she was doing was absolutely contrary to what I
believe is the whole POINT of unschooling. I'd tell her what Kate was hearing
here - that if you do school stuff that it isn't unschooling just because you
do it flexibly and nicely and because the kids have lots of other free time
to learn stuff their own way in between the lessons. It is nice - nicer than
rigid, meanspirited schooling - way nicer. But unschoolers STILL see it as
potentially harmful. Why?
To me, it is absolutely CRITICAL that no "lessons" are being imposed on the
kids. To me, the whole point of unschooling is to avoid the unintended
consequences of schoolish, adult-imposed lessons.
When my oldest was still in school, 7 years ago, she was in a WONDERFUL
school. They had no testing, no grades, a LOT of freedom, and an exciting,
interesting, stimulating environment where all subjects in the curriculum
were integrated into what homeschoolers would call unit studies. She loved
it.
BUT - I started to see the signs of a "hidden curriculum" taking place. And
even though my child was absolutely happy there, I wanted her out before more
harm was done.
Maybe this is what needs to be said more openly. Unschoolers see potential
harm coming from imposed schooling.
Unschoolers are challenging people to think something that can be pretty darn
uncomfortable or VERY scary. Or even dangerous. I can understand why people
often don't like hearing it.
Some years ago, Sandra gave a talk and said something like, "Be brave - think
dangerous thoughts. If you're too scared, duct-tape yourself to a chair and
get someone to watch you. <g> When you're done thinking dangerous thoughts,
you'll still be there and you can just go right back to whatever you were
doing before - nothing has to change."
The dangerous thoughts I needed to be brave enough to ponder were: how
schooling had harmed ME and how I was potentially harming my own kids by
imposing any kind of schooling on them. It profoundly affected me to simply
hear the suggestion that it is SAFE to carry out such "what if" scenarios in
my head. It was a challenge and I couldn't stop myself from doing it, if I'd
wanted to <G>.
What IF my kids can learn all the basic literacy stuff, that will make them
able to fully self-educate, in 50 hours total (which is what John Taylor
Gatto claims)? What if what an imposed curriculum teaches is mostly
dependency? What if, by requiring my kids to just "do math," I'm teaching
them that they can't really trust themelves, that they should rely on someone
else to tell them what they should learn? What if what they are learning is,
as John Gatto says, "...the most important lesson of all, that we must wait
for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our
lives." What if I'm teaching them that their worth depends on someone else's
evaluation of how well they've learned what someone else decided they should
learn? What if I'm undermining their self-trust? What if what if what if what
if?
--pamS
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
during their breaks from being schooled versus unschooling, letting go of all
school-style imposed curriculum.
We don't unschool just because we know kids can learn without the schooling
-- we unschool because we believe the schooling can actually be harmful,
because it entails risks we aren't willing to accept. THAT is the message
that Kate wasn't seeming to hear. I don't blame her - I think we are
sometimes sort of too reticent to say it - out of a sense of courtesy,
believe it or not <G> - not wanting to tell other people that we think that
what they are doing could be harmful.
I do think people here were hearing perfectly well what she was saying - that
she allows a lot of freedom and child-determined time and pays attention to
whether her kids are wanting to continue the lessons, etc. That's nice. It
beats the heck out of making the kids sit at the table in tears until they
finish their math curriculum every day.
As I think I said in another post, I have a friend who uses Calvert
Curriculum and calls herself an unschooler. I don't correct her, much less
berate her - not ever. But if SHE wanted to talk about unschooling, I'd tell
her what I thought, that what she was doing was absolutely contrary to what I
believe is the whole POINT of unschooling. I'd tell her what Kate was hearing
here - that if you do school stuff that it isn't unschooling just because you
do it flexibly and nicely and because the kids have lots of other free time
to learn stuff their own way in between the lessons. It is nice - nicer than
rigid, meanspirited schooling - way nicer. But unschoolers STILL see it as
potentially harmful. Why?
To me, it is absolutely CRITICAL that no "lessons" are being imposed on the
kids. To me, the whole point of unschooling is to avoid the unintended
consequences of schoolish, adult-imposed lessons.
When my oldest was still in school, 7 years ago, she was in a WONDERFUL
school. They had no testing, no grades, a LOT of freedom, and an exciting,
interesting, stimulating environment where all subjects in the curriculum
were integrated into what homeschoolers would call unit studies. She loved
it.
BUT - I started to see the signs of a "hidden curriculum" taking place. And
even though my child was absolutely happy there, I wanted her out before more
harm was done.
Maybe this is what needs to be said more openly. Unschoolers see potential
harm coming from imposed schooling.
Unschoolers are challenging people to think something that can be pretty darn
uncomfortable or VERY scary. Or even dangerous. I can understand why people
often don't like hearing it.
Some years ago, Sandra gave a talk and said something like, "Be brave - think
dangerous thoughts. If you're too scared, duct-tape yourself to a chair and
get someone to watch you. <g> When you're done thinking dangerous thoughts,
you'll still be there and you can just go right back to whatever you were
doing before - nothing has to change."
The dangerous thoughts I needed to be brave enough to ponder were: how
schooling had harmed ME and how I was potentially harming my own kids by
imposing any kind of schooling on them. It profoundly affected me to simply
hear the suggestion that it is SAFE to carry out such "what if" scenarios in
my head. It was a challenge and I couldn't stop myself from doing it, if I'd
wanted to <G>.
What IF my kids can learn all the basic literacy stuff, that will make them
able to fully self-educate, in 50 hours total (which is what John Taylor
Gatto claims)? What if what an imposed curriculum teaches is mostly
dependency? What if, by requiring my kids to just "do math," I'm teaching
them that they can't really trust themelves, that they should rely on someone
else to tell them what they should learn? What if what they are learning is,
as John Gatto says, "...the most important lesson of all, that we must wait
for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our
lives." What if I'm teaching them that their worth depends on someone else's
evaluation of how well they've learned what someone else decided they should
learn? What if I'm undermining their self-trust? What if what if what if what
if?
--pamS
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Fetteroll
on 4/8/02 2:19 PM, PSoroosh@... at PSoroosh@... wrote:
unschooling and free learning between lessons. And I'm not suggesting anyone
here stretch the unschooling definition to encompass this.
What I'm saying is that it isn't fair to jump on the people coming to this
list for not understanding that unschooling has a more specific definition
than they've been led to believe *BECAUSE* the pathways in here don't have
adequate markers.
They're seeing the Tea Room signs hanging outside, they come in sit down,
order some tea and get jumped all over because the people inside have a
different definition of what Tea Room means.
That Unschooling sign with the self-referential description as far as they
can tell means what they think unschooling means.
*Hopefully* once we get the description changed and the welcome letters
changed and put adequate signs at all the gateways into the list, people
will understand -- or at least we'll have something we can show them should
it be obvious they entered without reading the signs! -- what *the list*
(and Unschooling.com) means by unschooling before they sign up.
I'm just asking for some understanding of their unintended ignorance of what
this list means by unschooling until we can help them be more informed.
Joyce
> To me, it is absolutely CRITICAL that no "lessons" are being imposed on thePam, I do know this. I know this in spades. I'm not at all equating
> kids. To me, the whole point of unschooling is to avoid the unintended
> consequences of schoolish, adult-imposed lessons.
unschooling and free learning between lessons. And I'm not suggesting anyone
here stretch the unschooling definition to encompass this.
What I'm saying is that it isn't fair to jump on the people coming to this
list for not understanding that unschooling has a more specific definition
than they've been led to believe *BECAUSE* the pathways in here don't have
adequate markers.
They're seeing the Tea Room signs hanging outside, they come in sit down,
order some tea and get jumped all over because the people inside have a
different definition of what Tea Room means.
That Unschooling sign with the self-referential description as far as they
can tell means what they think unschooling means.
*Hopefully* once we get the description changed and the welcome letters
changed and put adequate signs at all the gateways into the list, people
will understand -- or at least we'll have something we can show them should
it be obvious they entered without reading the signs! -- what *the list*
(and Unschooling.com) means by unschooling before they sign up.
I'm just asking for some understanding of their unintended ignorance of what
this list means by unschooling until we can help them be more informed.
Joyce
[email protected]
In a message dated 4/8/2002 12:01:21 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
fetteroll@... writes:
My point was that we can't even TALK about unschooling without talking about
the idea that unschoolers believe imposed school-type lessons are harmful and
contradictory to unschooling philosophy and THAT is what always seems to get
people all heated up and defensive. I'm just not sure there is anything that
can be done about that. It is an incomfortable and scary idea and people
have strong reactions to it and sometimes that is expressed in anger. But
other people are liberated by it, too, and some people come back years later
and say thank you - that they'd thought more and they "got it."
Also, I don't get it - but there are people who don't really want to unschool
but really get attached to the label anyway. So they get mad just because
people want to talk about unschooling and they are focused on whether or not
THEY get to use that term. The term itself isn't important - it is the ideas
behind it that matter.
We don't even use the word "unschooling" except in these kinds of discussions
- I doubt many people do. We don't think of ourselves as "doing unschooling"
- which always sounds like bad grammar to me <G>.
--pam
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
fetteroll@... writes:
> > To me, it is absolutely CRITICAL that no "lessons" are being imposed onI know you know <BEG>.
> the
> > kids. To me, the whole point of unschooling is to avoid the unintended
> > consequences of schoolish, adult-imposed lessons.
>
> Pam, I do know this. I know this in spades. I'm not at all equating
> unschooling and free learning between lessons. And I'm not suggesting
> anyone
> here stretch the unschooling definition to encompass this.
My point was that we can't even TALK about unschooling without talking about
the idea that unschoolers believe imposed school-type lessons are harmful and
contradictory to unschooling philosophy and THAT is what always seems to get
people all heated up and defensive. I'm just not sure there is anything that
can be done about that. It is an incomfortable and scary idea and people
have strong reactions to it and sometimes that is expressed in anger. But
other people are liberated by it, too, and some people come back years later
and say thank you - that they'd thought more and they "got it."
Also, I don't get it - but there are people who don't really want to unschool
but really get attached to the label anyway. So they get mad just because
people want to talk about unschooling and they are focused on whether or not
THEY get to use that term. The term itself isn't important - it is the ideas
behind it that matter.
We don't even use the word "unschooling" except in these kinds of discussions
- I doubt many people do. We don't think of ourselves as "doing unschooling"
- which always sounds like bad grammar to me <G>.
--pam
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]