Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Why I Unschool
[email protected]
Carol,
That is beautiful! Thanks for reminding me to love each and every moment
with my children, even if I am ready to pull my hair out. I do have a 3year
old, you know.
Julie
That is beautiful! Thanks for reminding me to love each and every moment
with my children, even if I am ready to pull my hair out. I do have a 3year
old, you know.
Julie
Billy or Nancy
Okay, I'm cheating. This is just cut and pasted from our web site, but it
does answer the question! ;-)
Having always been someone who plans ahead, Nancy started thinking about our
children's education while still pregnant with our first child. We started
with different perspectives about education. Nancy had lived practically all
her life in the same house in Northern Virginia and attended public school
where she was subjected to an "experimental program of the month" education
during the 60's and 70's. She remembers starting school as an outgoing child
who enjoyed reading to her classmates, but somewhere along the way becoming
more shy and developing a fear of speaking in public. She did well
academically, but just didn't enjoy going to school. Some of her strongest
memories include the year that "mainstreaming" put older kids with
developmental and behavioral problems in her class and one boy held her by
the wrists over a stairwell and threatened to drop her. She also remembers
the morning she felt sick and wanted to leave, but by the time the teacher
finally acknowledged her raised hand and called her to the front of the
room, it was too late and she threw-up on the teachers desk. Nancy just
didn't think much of her public school experience!
Billy grew up as a Navy brat and attended about a dozen different schools.
Like Nancy, he also did well academically, but unlike Nancy, he viewed his
public school experience fairly positively, and wasn't as inclined to opt
for private school for our children. Besides, he figured we were going to be
such supportive parents that the actual school environment wasn't very
important. Our involvement could supplement any of the shortcomings of the
school. We started out evaluating and visiting lots of private schools and
public schools. As we checked out the public schools, we found they weren't
the same as when we attended. Classes were larger, students did more poorly,
and weapons and drugs were much more commonplace. Billy's frugal nature
rebelled against the idea of stretching our finances to pay thousands of
dollars for a private school, but it seemed like our only option and so we
visited several private schools. We liked many of the philosophies and
approaches we came across, but we ended up feeling that there were major
shortcomings at each school. For us, the perfect program would involve
combining the best ideas from 2 or 3 different schools. We also realized
that most private schools were based on the same model of the public
schools, only "more" and "better." They had more computers, more hands-on
activities, better student/teacher ratios, better discipline, etc. We slowly
came to realize that we didn't just want a better version of a public school
education, we wanted something completely different.
We had heard about homeschooling from various sources and decided we wanted
to read more about it. We checked out a handful of books from the public
library, including ones written by John Holt and the Colfax's Homeschooling
for Excellence. Parental involvement and the ability to combine the best
aspects of several different educational approaches were important to us, so
home education seemed the natural choice. We were even more convinced when a
careful self-evaluation made us realize that our important life skills, the
activities we enjoyed doing for fun or as hobbies, and most of our job
skills had all been learned outside of school! By the time our firstborn was
a year old, we had decided to continue educating him at home. That was in
1989, and we haven't looked back since.
(from http://www.unschooling.org/hsfaq.htm )
Billy
Family Unschoolers Network
http://www.unschooling.org
fun@...
does answer the question! ;-)
Having always been someone who plans ahead, Nancy started thinking about our
children's education while still pregnant with our first child. We started
with different perspectives about education. Nancy had lived practically all
her life in the same house in Northern Virginia and attended public school
where she was subjected to an "experimental program of the month" education
during the 60's and 70's. She remembers starting school as an outgoing child
who enjoyed reading to her classmates, but somewhere along the way becoming
more shy and developing a fear of speaking in public. She did well
academically, but just didn't enjoy going to school. Some of her strongest
memories include the year that "mainstreaming" put older kids with
developmental and behavioral problems in her class and one boy held her by
the wrists over a stairwell and threatened to drop her. She also remembers
the morning she felt sick and wanted to leave, but by the time the teacher
finally acknowledged her raised hand and called her to the front of the
room, it was too late and she threw-up on the teachers desk. Nancy just
didn't think much of her public school experience!
Billy grew up as a Navy brat and attended about a dozen different schools.
Like Nancy, he also did well academically, but unlike Nancy, he viewed his
public school experience fairly positively, and wasn't as inclined to opt
for private school for our children. Besides, he figured we were going to be
such supportive parents that the actual school environment wasn't very
important. Our involvement could supplement any of the shortcomings of the
school. We started out evaluating and visiting lots of private schools and
public schools. As we checked out the public schools, we found they weren't
the same as when we attended. Classes were larger, students did more poorly,
and weapons and drugs were much more commonplace. Billy's frugal nature
rebelled against the idea of stretching our finances to pay thousands of
dollars for a private school, but it seemed like our only option and so we
visited several private schools. We liked many of the philosophies and
approaches we came across, but we ended up feeling that there were major
shortcomings at each school. For us, the perfect program would involve
combining the best ideas from 2 or 3 different schools. We also realized
that most private schools were based on the same model of the public
schools, only "more" and "better." They had more computers, more hands-on
activities, better student/teacher ratios, better discipline, etc. We slowly
came to realize that we didn't just want a better version of a public school
education, we wanted something completely different.
We had heard about homeschooling from various sources and decided we wanted
to read more about it. We checked out a handful of books from the public
library, including ones written by John Holt and the Colfax's Homeschooling
for Excellence. Parental involvement and the ability to combine the best
aspects of several different educational approaches were important to us, so
home education seemed the natural choice. We were even more convinced when a
careful self-evaluation made us realize that our important life skills, the
activities we enjoyed doing for fun or as hobbies, and most of our job
skills had all been learned outside of school! By the time our firstborn was
a year old, we had decided to continue educating him at home. That was in
1989, and we haven't looked back since.
(from http://www.unschooling.org/hsfaq.htm )
Billy
Family Unschoolers Network
http://www.unschooling.org
fun@...
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jaam1224@... [mailto:Jaam1224@...]
> Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 6:32 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Why I Unschool
>
>
> Carol,
> That is beautiful! Thanks for reminding me to love each and
> every moment
> with my children, even if I am ready to pull my hair out. I
> do have a 3year
> old, you know.
>
> Julie
>
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Amy
That was the most beautiful explanation of 'Why I Unschool' I've ever heard.
Amy
Amy
----- Original Message -----
From: <sognokids@...>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 7:42 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Why I Unschool
> When asked this question, I usually trot out what I've always thought
were
> the tried and true answers. Colton can learn better one-on-one with me, I
> can shield him from improper influences, etc. But thinking this through a
> little more carefully, I realize my reasons go a lot deeper. Here are
just a
> few of them.
>
> I unschool because I was there when my son first held a butterfly. I
> unschool because it given me time to sit with my son, sewing patches on
his
> Scout uniform, while he works on a Pokemon scrapbook and tells me stories.
I
> unschool because I introduced Colton to the wonderful book "Charlotte's
Web,"
> and we both cried when Charlotte died. I unschool because the moment I
found
> out that my father had to have brain surgery, Colton was there with me and
we
> could pray together. I unschool because when I battled cancer and
> chemotherapy, Colton and I could snuggle together in bed and read living
> books, and he would remind me that I had just eleven more treatments to
go.
> I unschool because I am head-over-heels in love with this tender soul who
> came into my life not quite ten years ago, and I don't want to miss a
minute
> of it.
>
> Blessings,
> Carol
>
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