[email protected]

My experience is more like Pam's, though it's hard to generalize
either way.

One big advantage that teachers do have when unschooling with our own
families -- complete confidence that there isn't some secret handshake or
other important key to a successful life that our children can only receive
through schooling. People tend to assume I must be running a rigorous little
academy, due to my public school background, and I just smile and say yes, because
of my background we are very comfortable that we are doing the right thing. :)
JJ


> On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 08:25 AM, spcparents@... wrote:
>
> > In my personal opinion, the large majority of persons who want "tests,
> > ect"
> > are ex-professional teachers who have taught in an actual "school"
> > environment,
> > such as a public school or a private school, or has gone through
> > "teaching
> > college" and earned teaching credentials to actually "teach".
>
> In my experience it is the opposite. Those who have taught are often
> ready and willing to embrace alternative ways - they KNOW what a wasted
> effort preparing for tests is.
>
> -pam
>
>



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

[email protected]

In a message dated 10/2/03 5:30:31 AM, jrossedd@... writes:

<< My experience is more like Pam's, though it's hard to generalize
either way.>>

Hard to generalize, but easy to refute a definite statement with lots of
exceptions! <g>

My experience is Pam's too.

<<One big advantage that teachers do have when unschooling with our own
families -- complete confidence that there isn't some secret handshake or
other important key to a successful life that our children can only receive
through schooling. >>

Just as with any group of the population, some teachers are analytical,
verbal, thoughtful and maybe perfectionist and anal. And some are robotic,
inflexible, dim, and maybe perfectionist and anal. Then there are all points of the
spectrum between.

Many times people have come saying "Well I'm a teacher, so it's going to be
difficult for me to get over my need to make lessons and charts and tests."
I've just said I was a teacher, and I never had that need.

Whether it helps them or not, I'm just not willing to let them generalize
their a-flitter insistence that teachers will find it hard to unschool. Some of
the best unschoolers I've known used to be teachers and are embarrassed or
ashamed of things they were forced to do, and of their contribution to "the
system." Another batch of the best unschoolers I've noticed are people who really
never liked school in the first place and stopped really cooperating when they
were twelve or so. Interesting that those two groups have produced lots of
great unschoolers. And lots of unschoolers report having been A students,
honors students, scholarship students, and then one day they looked back over
their shoulders and saw it for the facade it was, and didn't want to run their
kids on that course. For one thing, it's risky. One horse wins; the rest are
losers. And the winners? Do they get better food? Their owners and jockeys
get paid, they go back to the stall.

We've seen a rash of those bumper stickers lately about "my child was caught
being good" and "...honor student." A kid does well in school, gets a good
mark on a little piece of paper (an "A" or a "VG" or an "E" or something which
has no intrinsic value) and their parents might get a bumper sticker. I took
psychology classes in the operant-conditioning days, early 70's, and we
taught rats to "bar-press" for food pellets. Some of the pushed the bar five
times, then food came out. Some pressed ten. That kind of conditioning is out of
style among psychologists, but damned if they're not still doing it in
schools in Albuquerque, for A's and bumper stickers.

Sandra

Julie Bogart

--- In [email protected],
SandraDodd@a... wrote:

Some of
> the best unschoolers I've known used to be teachers and are
embarrassed or
> ashamed of things they were forced to do, and of their
contribution to "the
> system."

My husband supported the idea of unschooling *because* he
teaches at the university level and is tired of teaching
disinterested students who have the system licked but who don't
care to learn anything.

And lots of unschoolers report having been A students,
> honors students, scholarship students, and then one day they
looked back over
> their shoulders and saw it for the facade it was, and didn't want
to run their
> kids on that course.

And this would be me. Graduated in the top ten in my class.
Don't remember what I learned in history, but remembered
everything to the tee from my after school work in the theater. I
can teach theater as an adult but can't tell you almost anything
about history (what I now know is from historical fiction and good
movies). Unschooling seemed to make sesnse of my
experience—that learning isn't what school was about.
Performing is.


My grad school professor said something profound during week
one. He said school is designed to reward those who can get
through without ever making a mistake. We hold up the ones
who got perfect scores, who memorized facts and ideas that
someone else learned and taught. He said, "That's not learning.
That's surviving. That's holding back and never risking. But
learning doesn't happen until you risk and fail and discover
another way. And unfortunately, that can't happen in school since
each future component depends on near-perfect scores in the
previous segment."

Julie B