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In a message dated 8/24/02 10:30:13 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
zenmomma@... writes:
> This is an
> international list meant to share unschooling philosopy and ideas.

Since this is an international list I'd like to ask a rather basic
question...(I know the answer somewhat for here in AZ (which BTW seems to be
very easy to unschool
given what I've read of the laws here but I'd like to get that international
flavor.)...

What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
practical for you? To me it seems so logical but my children aren't "school
age" yet. I'm always interested in what has inspired others to do the things
they do...and I know I have so much to learn in order to "let" them unschool.
I especially like books...I've collected quite the collection of web
addresses on unschooling but books are easier for me to read.

I know this may seem like such a simple easy question -- the ultimate basic
question really. But it would help me out as I learn best from hearing other
people's experiences and also help me understand this list a bit more as I'm
a bit confused about this recent thread (and I think that's probably for the
best from what I'm reading :)

Tanya
mom to Andrew Jordan 4/1/00 and Eli Hunter 10/29/01
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within
himself
--Galileo


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On Sat, 24 Aug 2002 18:40:14 EDT winnierfm@... writes:
> What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
> practical for you?

What do you mean by "work"?

To me, "working" meant that my daughter would be living and growing
joyfully in the world, and she is. I'm not sure how practical that is -
we started unschooling with absolutely no idea how we could even survive
financially (I'm a single mom with no outside sources of financial help)
but believing that this was the only way she could be truly happy. We
tried school, charter and private, developmental and funky as it comes,
and she was so miserable. By the end I was begging them to just leave her
alone and let her do what she wanted...

Dar

P.S. And yes, Arizona is a very easy state in which to unschool, at least
as far as laws go

Tia Leschke

>
>What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
>practical for you?

For me, it was knowing a family here in our town that was unschooling
before most people had ever heard of it. They're all grown up now and
doing very well, but they were doing well long before they were grown
up. I've gradually met and heard about quite a few more. As far as
reading goes, I started with John Holt and GWS.
Tia


No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island

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In a message dated 8/24/02 8:16:06 PM, leschke@... writes:

-=-What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
>practical for you?

-=-For me, it was knowing a family here in our town that was unschooling
before most people had ever heard of it. They're all grown up now and
doing very well, but they were doing well long before they were grown
up. I've gradually met and heard about quite a few more. As far as
reading goes, I started with John Holt and GWS. -=-


Ditto me, all of it, only two unschooling families and SOME of the kids are
grown.

But after the first few months, I could tell it was working because it was
working with Kirby himownself.

Sandra

Cmkerin

-=-What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
>practical for you?

I had to see my child learn the things other kids do in school to believe
it. For though I'd had to let go and have faith which at the beginning was
extremely hard even though I'd read about adult unschoolers. Unschooling
was practical initially because I couldn't seem to homeschool my oldest any
other way. Letting go, after about 6 months, tremendously improved our
relationship and helped my understanding of unschooling and all it's
benefits over 'homeschooling'. I realize now that my way of parenting
didn't/doesn't mesh with any of the other homeschooling styles.

Joy

Fetteroll

on 8/24/02 6:40 PM, winnierfm@... at winnierfm@... wrote:

> What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
> practical for you?

I've always enjoyed learning but couldn't figure out why it needed to be so
dull in school. But I'm also very much drawn to learning that provides
satisfactory feedback that learning is taking place. So in college and later
I very casually looked into Montessori and John Holt and various programs
that provide a microcosm of the world for kids to explore. I thought
homeschooling sounded interesting.

When Kathryn was 3 I stumbled onto AOL's old homeschooling forums. I read
*everything* from unschooling to fundamentalist Christian school at home.
Even though I was drawn to the systematic use of great resources, the
unschoolers seemed to be having so much fun with life. I thought what they
were doing was pretty iffy and didn't provide enough satisfaction in the
form of feedback that progress was taking place. But there was no denying
that they were *enjoying* life. :-) So I enjoyed hanging around with them
much more than any of the other groups.

Eventually I started to get what they were saying. And I was definitely
seeing that if my daughter didn't eagerly devour the programs I was mentally
trying out that the only option was to make her. (I couldn't waste it after
all!)

So, unschooling is sort of by default for me. ;-) It was the only way of
learning that guaranteed fun and avoided forcing (which would be unfun!) It
didn't give me anything else I was looking for. In fact, quite the opposite.
;-)

So I'm not an natural unschooler. Though I *know* it's natural and can
explain how it's natural, it doesn't come naturally to my personality or my
mental mindset created by society. Quite the opposite, in fact! (And anyone
who comes to the South Carolina conference can come see me work through that
internal war in my "Why you can't let go" talk :-)

Joyce

Tia Leschke

>
>I've always enjoyed learning but couldn't figure out why it needed to be so
>dull in school. But I'm also very much drawn to learning that provides
>satisfactory feedback that learning is taking place. So in college and later
>I very casually looked into Montessori and John Holt and various programs
>that provide a microcosm of the world for kids to explore. I thought
>homeschooling sounded interesting.

I forgot to mention in my previous answer to this that I read Summerhill
when I was 14, lasted a couple more years in school, then "rose up" (called
it dropping out at the time) and spent a couple of years learning what
interested me before going on to a community college. Even while there, I
learned only what interested me and dropped classes that didn't. So in a
sense, I was unschooling all of that time even though there was no word for
it then. When I finally decided on a major and got serious about getting a
degree, I found the whole thing much less appealing and never finished. So
I had that background already when I met the unschooling family.
Tia

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Eleanor Roosevelt
*********************************************
Tia Leschke
leschke@...
On Vancouver Island

Bill and Diane

>
>
>>What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
>>practical for you?
>>

I went to school. I remember it. Makework, hurry up and finish doing
this mind-numbing nonsense. Get beat up on.

>P.S. And yes, Arizona is a very easy state in which to unschool, at least
>as far as laws go
>

Also socially. Homeschooling is very accepted there (at least in Tucson,
where I lived). Here in KY, people seem very worried more about social
issues (will the neighbors or people at Wal-Mart call social
dis-services) than about legal homeschooling issues.

:-) Diane

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On Sun, 25 Aug 2002 11:53:25 -0400 Bill and Diane <cen46624@...>
writes:
> >P.S. And yes, Arizona is a very easy state in which to unschool, at
least
> >as far as laws go
> >
>
> Also socially. Homeschooling is very accepted there (at least in
Tucson,
> where I lived).

I found homeschooling to be accepted in Tucson, but not unschooling so
much. There was *one* inclusive (i.e. non-religious) group in a city of
almost a million people, and most of the members were pretty schooly,
although there were a few other unschoolers... but when we lived in the
bay area, there was *one* religious group in the east bay (that I knew
of, anyway) and at least 6 inclusive ones, each of which included a lot
of unschoolers.

Dar

kayb85

Cool! My brother also "dropped out". My parents couldn't get him to
go to school and eventually allowed him to become an emancipated
minor so he could legally not go to school. They hadn't been able to
get him to go to school regularly and the fines were getting to be
too much. This was very upsetting for them to have a "drop out" for
a son--they were both teachers.

He is an extremely intelligent guy. After dropping out and spending
a year "wasting his life away doing nothing but playing his guitar",
he had taught himself how to play guitar well enough to get accepted
into Berkley college of music.

I was talking about my mom about parenting in general the other day,
and she now acknowledges that homeschooling would have been better
for him than trying to force him to go to school every day. BUT, she
says, it would have been tough because he wouldn't have listened to
her and done his homeschool schoolwork. I told her he should have
been unschooled, not homeschooled (and she knows we're unschooling).
And she said no, because unschooling means no school at all. I said
it means no school at all, but not no education at all and she
disagreed.

I told her all of the things my daughter does in one day that are
educational but I don't think she gets it yet. Maybe she will
eventually...

Sheila

> I forgot to mention in my previous answer to this that I read
Summerhill
> when I was 14, lasted a couple more years in school, then "rose up"
(called
> it dropping out at the time) and spent a couple of years learning
what
> interested me before going on to a community college. Even while
there, I
> learned only what interested me and dropped classes that didn't.
So in a
> sense, I was unschooling all of that time even though there was no
word for
> it then. When I finally decided on a major and got serious about
getting a
> degree, I found the whole thing much less appealing and never
finished. So
> I had that background already when I met the unschooling family.
> Tia
>
> No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
> Eleanor Roosevelt
> *********************************************
> Tia Leschke
> leschke@i...
> On Vancouver Island

zenmomma *

>>What has proven to you that unschooling would work and/or is would be
>>practical for you?>>

Three things for me actually:

1. My husband-He dropped out of high school and every college and trade
school since. He is also the most educated person I know. He writes, makes
beautiful candles, reads voraciously, and is a working computer programmer,
all without a diploma.

2. My son-His short ps career showed me the faults of schooling on an
assembly line, especially for that poor square peg being shoved in the round
hole. He has thrived in an unschooling setting.

3. My daughter-she has demonstrated time and again how a child can just
blossom in freedom. She knows nothing but an unschooling life and constantly
amazes us with the things she chooses to do, the questions she asks and the
excitement for learning she maintains.

Life is good.
~Mary


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In a message dated 8/25/02 8:47:40 AM US Mountain Standard Time,
cen46624@... writes:
>
> I went to school. I remember it. Makework, hurry up and finish doing
> this mind-numbing nonsense. Get beat up on.

I had bad socialization problems...got beat up so many times in 6th grade I
finally had to change schools. Probably had something to do with the fact
that I told them all the world would end soon and they were all going to die
:) Kind makes you unpopular.

But other than that I LOVED school. But I had lots of homeschooled friends
and always wanted to be homeschooled. Its hard for me to see school in a
negative way although it really was for my brother.

I guess for me homeschooling, and unschooling in particular, just seem more
natural and that's why we want to raise our children that way.
Tanya
mom to Andrew Jordan 4/1/00 and Eli Hunter 10/29/01
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to find it within
himself
--Galileo


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