[email protected]

Put up a few free web sites and send emails to group moderators requesting
permission to post to their lists. Not all say no.
At the end of every email you write place your business information and web
address if you have one.
Get a list of new businesses and contract them about your product. Have them
pre pay only and with a minimum order. Send out some free ones to places that
others would view, be sure there is ample ads on the tapes and you should be
able to grow your name that way also.

When you have something together I would be interested. I have a son who is
wanting to learn Spanish in a non traditional way.


Laura
<<<Does anyone out there have resources for working out of the home? I am
completely bilingual(Spanish/English). I am a former elementary school teacher, I
am in final stages of production of a natural language learning video but
without the cash to market it, a LLL leader, quick learner, versatile

Any ideas? Feel free to contact me offline at wanderfree@...

Thanks from a desperate mom, Christine


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

nellebelle

<<<Does anyone out there have resources for working out of the home? I am
completely bilingual(Spanish/English).>>>>>>

A woman in my community teaches Spanish to children in her home. We took one session a year ago in preparation for a trip to Mexico. It was definitely too schoolish for me, but there are lots of people out there who want that sort of experience. She started out with one class, word spread, and she is not quite busy. The thing I liked best about her class is that she wanted the parents to stay. Not all did though, as it wasn't required. She used Risas and Sonrisas. The program incorporates lots of games.

Mary Ellen

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

cathy

I'm new and trying to decide on the various methods of home schooling.
I'm not sold on any idea at present.

This is our situation. I am a single mother and will work outside the
home. However, I can afford to hire someone to teach w/in the home.
We will live overseas by the time she's 6 years old. I don't know which
country we will live in, but it could be anywhere around the world.
They may or may not have great schools in the country we will be in.

My daughter is in preschool now and loves being w/ children. She
wouldn't like being at home if she didn't get lots of involvement with
other children. She's very smart and is very precocious for her age.

Some of my goals for her education include reading the classics and
mathematics. We are currently reading about Sinbad now. The book is
for a much older child- but she enjoys it. We read and talk about it
nightly. I believe that math teaches logicalness and helps w/ all
functions of life. W/out math, I am condemning my child to poor wages.
No matter what I end up choosing for school, I will hire a math
teacher.

Can someone explain a bit more about unschooling? I've been reading the
group- but I'm not getting a feel for it.

How do you ensure the child is meeting the criteria for a given year?
What happens if your weak in a subject? Does the unschooling method
result in children being accepted at top universities? What does a
typical day look like for you? What is being taught at home that isn't
being done in the school? Are the children learning more at home? I
read about the family where the son was tanning hides to learn how the
pioneers did it. I thought that was great.
Why did you choose this method? Have any of you put your kids back into
public/private school after doing this for a while? If so, why?

Cathy

Fetteroll

on 9/30/03 12:16 PM, cathy at cdgni@... wrote:

> Some of my goals for her education include reading the classics and
> mathematics.

The goals of unschooling are different than those of school or academic
leaning forms of homeschooling.

Our goal is for our children to be happy and pursue what they enjoy. Most
people have that goal too, but they believe children need prepared to do
what they enjoy. We know that people will do what they need to do to do what
they enjoy when given the freedom to do it.

Your life could look like unschooling if your daughter loved the classics
and math. But if she didn't then the options in reaching your goal could
include some unhappiness on her part, doing things she didn't enjoy as much
as others, in order to get where you wanted her to go.

> I believe that math teaches logicalness and helps w/ all
> functions of life. W/out math, I am condemning my child to poor wages.
> No matter what I end up choosing for school, I will hire a math
> teacher.

And unschoolers know that math exists in life and that a better foundation
than years of teaching is using math and understanding it conceptually. It's
far easier to absorb what percentages are and what and how they're used and
*then* tackle formal math than to tackle formal math while also trying to
absorb the concepts divorced from actually using them for real personally
meaningful reasons.

(That is a word problem about buying a $5.74 toy with $10 isn't the same as
actually having $10 and weighing all the factors involved in what to spend
it on or even maybe to save it for something more costly.)

> How do you ensure the child is meeting the criteria for a given year?

There are no school criteria for unschooling. Our children learn what they
need to as they need it.

There are state requirements. The message boards at Unschooling.com have
folders where unschoolers share how they unschooling and meet requirements.

What criteria did you set up for you daughter acquiring English as a
toddler? How did you ensure she was meeting the criteria?

If you had no criteria, how did she learn to speak?

> What happens if your weak in a subject?

What happens if you don't know about something that you want to know about?
Do you find a way to learn it?

People who are not a natural in subject and really need it for something
they love will learn what they need. Or they will learn it if they haven't
experienced years of having it forced on them which gives them the idea that
it's hard and boring. People who aren't a natural at something they don't
need don't need to waste their time learning it. When people are honest with
themselves, they realize all the stuff that they learned that they've never
used.

What people fear, though, is the things they've needed that they assume
they'd never have learned on their own because they were hard and boring.
But they're looking at learning from the point of view of someone who has
been forced to learn abstract things in dull ways. The point of view of
someone who hasn't had that -- who has instead learned by using -- is very
different. It isn't useful to extrapolate what an unschooled child would do
from our own school experiences.

> Does the unschooling method
> result in children being accepted at top universities?

There was a woman who spoke at the Live and Learn unschooling conference in
SC whose daughter got into Harvard. But Harvard isn't the goal of
unschooling.

Unschooling children will take the paths that will get where *they* want to
go, which might be through a top universtiy. But the unschooling path
doesn't lead to top universities. If you can see the distinction.

The goal of airlines is to get people where they want to go. If you want to
get to California, an airline can get you there. But getting people to
California isn't the focus of the airlines.

> What does a
> typical day look like for you?

A typical day is much like a weekend day. (Except with more shopping ;-) No
reason to torture myself fighting weekend shopping crowds.) My daughter
follows whatever she enjoys. I run things by her that she might enjoy.

People often post their days here. If you go back in the archives you should
be able to find them.

> What is being taught at home that isn't
> being done in the school?

No teaching involved. It's all learning. Unschooled kids are learning by
doing real things that they enjoy. My daughter spends a lot of time doing
things that support her love of telling stories about interesting people and
creatures in words and pictures: reading and drawing comics, watching
cartoons, playing video games and so on.

It's the freedom to explore is the big defining factor between unschooling
and school rather than what is or isn't "taught".

> Are the children learning more at home?

Depends how you define it. The traditional definition of learning has to do
with how much testable type of information kids can spit back onto a test.

The way unschooled kids learn is very different. It's based more on the
connections kids can make with other things in the world rather than what
they can memorize. It's how your child learned to speak as opposed to how we
all (didn't) learn a foreign language in school. It's all *real* learning
because it's being put to use as opposed to memorizing abstract stuff that
might be useful for the future.

> I
> read about the family where the son was tanning hides to learn how the
> pioneers did it. I thought that was great.

You might be more interested in eclectic homeschooling or relaxed
homeschooling or unit studies. Obviously I don't think they're as good for
the goal I want to reach or I'd be using them, but if you aren't willing to
put joy, freedom and happiness before academic goals, you'll be frustrated
by unschooling.

> Why did you choose this method?

Because the unschoolers on the message board were having a whole lot more
fun than those practicing any other methods. :-) And of my goals was for
learning to be fun. The other methods often involved finding fun ways to get
information into my daughter, which involved a huge amount of combing
through products and spending money on things that it's possible she'd turn
her nose up at.

It's lots easier (and we can spend money on things she actually wants to
use) to support her interests rather than support finding ways to get her
interested in the things I felt were important.

It's okay if you don't believe what I say or don't think it's for you.
Unschooling works for others whether you believe it does or not. But for it
to work for you, you'll need to want what it offers and understand how it
will get you there.

Joyce

Julie Bogart

Fantastic post Joyce. Glad you're moderator. :)

--- In [email protected], Fetteroll
<fetteroll@e...> wrote:
> on 9/30/03 12:16 PM, cathy at cdgni@y... wrote:

but if you aren't willing to
> put joy, freedom and happiness before academic goals, you'll
be frustrated
> by unschooling.

What a great summary.

One thing I've noticed about my kids is that they don't have the
same reaction to rote learning that we schooled adults do. They
don't see the point of it. In fact, my two very moral kids explained
that they could see cheating as a viable way to get through
"school" since kids were being forced to study what they don't
want to learn. Cheating is one way to avoid spending precious
life time studying what you don't care about so that the time could
be better spent on personal interests. Jaw dropped at this one.

We then had a discussion about what to do when you feel
coerced or oppressed (ways that preserve your integrity but
minimize compliance with coercion). It was enlightening.

The revelatory moment for me, however, was realizing how much
I was still controlled by the belief that someone else (system,
authority) could be in charge of what I learn and how I spend my
time. My kids don't hold that belief. Amazing.

Julie B

Robyn Coburn

<<We will live overseas by the time she's 6 years old. I don't know
which country we will live in, but it could be anywhere around the
world.
They may or may not have great schools in the country we will be in.>>



Every country has different statutes about schooling and what is school
age. It may be worth checking these first, if you have a choice about
where you will be living.



<<My daughter is in preschool now and loves being w/ children. She
wouldn't like being at home if she didn't get lots of involvement with
other children. She's very smart and is very precocious for her age.>>



My daughter is almost 4, and constantly surprises me. When people have
come here as beginning Unschoolers, they often make statements about
what *would* happen, or what their child *would* do - especially along
the lines of "if I let him, he would play video games/eat nothing but
candy/lie on the sofa watching TV all day long". If they are later able
to embrace Unschooling freedoms, they find that these negative future
predictions are not fulfilled. Perhaps you would find that your
daughter's social needs *would* be filled easily by playgroups,
homeschool support groups, neighborhood children, children she meets up
with by chance at the park, playdates at your house, teens that babysit,
other adults that are your neighbors and friends, teachers and class
mates that she meets in the course of things like dance or music
classes, her favorite librarian at the library, the kind cashier at the
local grocery store, and last but by no means least, you yourself.
Unschoolers assume that our children will interact with a wide variety
of people of all ages, without the added burden of having their time
circumscribed by the dictates of the preschool curriculum.



<<Some of my goals for her education include reading the classics and
mathematics. >>



Unschooling is about the child's goals for their life, right now and in
the future. "Reading the classics" is not a goal or endpoint, but
certainly a process, and perhaps a symbol of attainment for you.
Personally I return to classics I like many times - I am just now
re-reading all of my Jane Austen's. The best way to inspire a love of
the classics is for her to see you reading and enjoying them yourself.
Many have been made into movies and mini-series. Watching and comparing
the different interpretations from book to screen is something I love
doing for myself.



<<I believe that math teaches logicalness and helps w/ all
functions of life. W/out math, I am condemning my child to poor wages.
No matter what I end up choosing for school, I will hire a math
teacher.>>



The amount of resources available to someone seeking to learn math for
interest to themselves are immense - books, internet, computer assisted
programs and computer games, and of course, tutors or teachers. However
a teacher is as useless for a disinterested homeschooler as they are for
a disinterested regular school student - without interest there will be
no real understanding. The key difference is interest and need for math.
How many people in general society can't balance their checkbook, or
have a fuzzy notion of how the interest on their credit cards works? (I
fit both those sorry categories). This is the result of "teaching" math
for 12+ years to people who are not interested in or ready for learning
it, or have become phobic due to undue pressure, or have just forgotten
after the test was over. It is just not true that without knowing math
you can't earn a good wage, nor does knowing it assure you of one. The
very success of authors like Suze Orman attests to the general confusion
about money and math. Someone else mentioned using money for real
transactions, instead of false transactions as in the problems in text
books. Jayn loves handing money to the cashier when buying something,
and receiving change. In fact she gets irate if I try to get to near her
in line.

<<Can someone explain a bit more about unschooling? I've been reading
the
group- but I'm not getting a feel for it. >>



The list is currently discussing certain issues. Others come up at
regular intervals. The archives can be searched by subject. The Message
Board archives have been further organized into broad topics and can
furnish endless hours of pleasurable research. I sometimes go there,
just because I want a shot of pure joy in children.

<<How do you ensure the child is meeting the criteria for a given year?
What happens if your weak in a subject?>>



This is schoolish jargon. Read about deschooling for your child and
yourself. Part of it is letting go of the language of "education".
Often merely making all-or-nothing statements in posting to the list is
likely to get a good long discussion started.



<<Does the unschooling method result in children being accepted at top
universities?>>



It is not a "method". It is a philosophy of life. Others have already
answered "yes" you can get into colleges. One new book - "The
Unprocessed Child".



<<Are the children learning more at home? >>



This is a question that bears examining. Most of us here believe that
everyone is learning all the time - including unconsciously. Children
*are* learning all day in classrooms. Children are still learning when
they leave the classroom each day - but what are they learning? Some of
the critiques of school point out that may be learning how to stifle
their energy, or how to fit in with a crowd, or how to fool the teachers
(see John Holt), or how to get away with the least amount of effort, or
how to pass a test without true understanding, or how to look
interested, but allow the mind to wander. Or they may learn that their
parents are afraid of being seen as different from their neighbors, or
that their parents only approve of them according to their grades, or
that people should be categorized according to their superficial
abilities in certain areas and that these categories are immutable and
eternal. (Now you see why I generally avoid getting drawn in to school
conversations).

The answer is not learn "more", but learn different and real stuff in
very different ways.



<<I read about the family where the son was tanning hides to learn how
the
pioneers did it. I thought that was great.>>



I think it is great *if* the son was interested in learning how to tan
hides at the time, or had a passion for Pioneer history, or was hoping
to be on the next PBS Pioneer House series. I also think that there are
other ways to learn about the pioneer methods than actually recreating
them, and it would depend on the need of the learner.

I further think that learning to tan hides could have its own value,
rather than necessarily being part of any history Unit Study, or being
turned into a "teachable moment". One thing that Unschoolers are able to
simply renounce is the need to deconstruct every experience into
academic study terms. (eg Chemistry for the tanning chemicals, Math for
the measuring, History, Anthropology, Biology of the animal). I know
that some States require everyone to go through these exercises in
labeling. I'm glad to live in California.

For some reason I keep thinking of Sandra's essay about "Moving the
Puddle", and how if you then spend all your time seeking a puddle that
needs moving, you could miss some other equally rewarding experience.


<<Why did you choose this method?>>



(See earlier comment - not method, philosophy) My husband and I
initially were interested in homeschooling from the negative point of
view - we were dubious about the state of Public Schools in CA, and
unable to afford private schools. Then the research started. I felt that
I was being led on a path through John Holt, Gatto, various e-lists and
message boards into believing that home education was good for its own
sake. Holt says that home is better than even the best school. I
followed another list member to this list at her recommendation, Pam S.
to whom I owe eternal gratitude. I have been mentally and emotionally
challenged, and am so happy with our choice. I feel like I have nothing
but bliss ahead of us in our journey as a family. Not to say there won't
be challenges - but they will not be of some schoolteacher's making. I
was the head of my grade from 6th grade through 12th (dux of the school
- I think that is the same as Valedictorean in USA) at one of the finest
private girls' schools in Australia. I have had my own deschooling
process to go through, including realizing that my pride in my education
has been in no way justified my dissipated professional life. Must have
been a low wage earner because I was only second in my class in Math. ;)
Oh no wait - it was because I chose to work until the last 10 years in
the fringes of radical theater.



Robyn Coburn










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