Pam Sorooshian

>>Because they didn't relax? Because they didnt' believe it was
going to work? Because they couldn't stop the background noise of their
relatives saying "When are you doing to TEACH them things"?)
<<

I think more often it is that their expectation was that unschooling would
"work" in the sense that kids would choose, on their own, to learn what
schooled kids are being taught - on approximately the same timetable.
Reality is that our unschooled kids do NOT do that - they sometimes learn
things WAY later or not at all - and that feels like "not working" and
they give up on unschooling. We who consider it an overwhelming success in
our families - see other "lessons" learned (how to direct ones own
learning/life, for example) as more significant than much of the content of
a school curriculum. Our criteria for success are different.

My niece is 16 and in public school where she gets mostly A's and is in the
gifted program. She said she'd been working on a project for her history
class - about the French revolution. I asked her what she thought was
important about it - why would they be studying about it? She had no clue,
but she could list the chapter headings in her textbook.

So - my kids know a lot about the French revolution - their interest comes
from their love of the musical, "Les Miserables." Roxana read the book
itself, several times (if you haven't read it - it includes a LOT of
political stuff). That background gave her the ability to pick up a lot
more just from stuff that appeared before her. She knows much more about it
than I do. So - just because I felt like it - I asked her why SHE thought
that it was important to study the French revolution. Her first answer was,
"Well - I could just talk about why history is important - as in how we
need to learn from it in order not to repeat it, but I guess you were
asking more specifically about this one part of history?" "Yes," I
answered. She went on to think aloud about what made this particular bit of
history especially important - she speculated on its impact on western
europe in general, on the spreading of ideas of democracy and freedom for
nonaristocrats, and perhaps influencing the eventual ideas of communism and
so on. What struck me was that she was THINKING about it - as opposed to
just trying to "remember and repeat" what she'd been told by her
teacher/textbook. That THINKING is one of the goals of unschooling, imo,
and so what I saw looked like "success" to me. Some people might have seen
her inability to list the major events of the French revolution, in correct
chronological order and naming exactly where they took place, as a failure.

I think some people DO think that unschooling is failing when their kids
don't "keep up" or learn the school content curriculum by their own choice.



Pam Sorooshian
National Home Education Network
www.NHEN.org
Changing the Way the World Sees Homeschooling

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

[email protected]

In a message dated 12/16/02 4:14:11 AM, pamsoroosh@... writes:

<< Some people might have seen
her inability to list the major events of the French revolution, in correct
chronological order and naming exactly where they took place, as a failure.

<<I think some people DO think that unschooling is failing when their kids
don't "keep up" or learn the school content curriculum by their own choice. >>

I think that's under the category of "didn't trust that it would work," but
Pam's right--there's a prior level of lack-of-understanding where the parents
might not even loosen up enough to realize that unschooling for fifteen years
will produce a child who knows fifteen years worth of stuff which will be a
larger body of knowledge than a kid who spent that time in school, but it
will not be the same body of knowledge. And ANYone who thinks learning (or
anything else) happens on a smooth curve hasn't charted many things!

Holly and I were watching Liberty's Kids the other day, and Benjamin Franklin
was in France, where there was talk of the unrest there. I told Holly they
had a revolution right after ours. She already knew.

Sandra

Betsy

**What struck me was that she was THINKING about it - as opposed to
just trying to "remember and repeat" what she'd been told by her
teacher/textbook. That THINKING is one of the goals of unschooling, imo,
and so what I saw looked like "success" to me. Some people might have
seen
her inability to list the major events of the French revolution, in
correct
chronological order and naming exactly where they took place, as a failure.**

As I was reading, and enjoying, my inner grump was muttering "Schools
don't encourage thinking."

Then I stopped and thought a few seconds more and realized that it's not
so much the *institution* of school but the *practice* of testing and
quantifying that REALLY discourages thinking.

"Right answers", bah, humbug.

Betsy

PS (My husband has only been teaching for two weeks so far this
semester, but I know from what he tells me that he's already referenced
Les Miserables AND the Santyana quote about repeating the past. Maybe
I've been spending so much time on the list that all you guys best ideas
are starting to ooze out of my pores. Creepy!<g>)