Bill and Diane

I've been thinking this over for a while. I think some people (including
me when I fall into this mode of thinking) expect that unschooling will
cure all the ills of humanity. On another list I'm on, there was some
discussion about a family who homeschooled, respected their kids, and
still had serious problems. It was presented as if it were a problem
with homeschooling.

But when I get into this mode of thinking, I ask myself what people were
like before schooling became widespread. The answer is that many people
were good, generous, hardworking and upstanding. But there have always
been people in every age that were shiftless, lazy, irresponsible,
drunk, selfish people. It's not only about schooling. I think schooling
and the attitudes that go with it make these things worse. And I think
unschooling and the attitudes that go with it decrease the probabilities
of that, but I also think it's not a panacea for all the ills of the world.

This message is a result of my own thoughts and is not a response to any
previous post or any specific poster.

:-) Diane

[email protected]

In a message dated 8/12/03 4:30:43 AM, cen46624@... writes:

<< This message is a result of my own thoughts and is not a response to any
previous post or any specific poster. >>

Nice disclaimer! <g>


I agree that unschooling won't solve everything, but going with the flow that
says treat your children badly and force them into school is pretty well
showing itself not to solve much of ANYthing (except that pesky "how do we break
this parental bond?").


What bothers me sometimes is when someone blames unschooling for not working
when they didn't really relax into it and LET it work, HELP it work, when the
parents themselves never exhaled and began rebuilding their own model of the
way learning works. Then they say unschooling might work for OTHER families,
but it didn't work for theirs.

I have a story about Marty watching Othello on video, but I have to go to the
dentist.

Later,

Sandra