How can unschooling prepare them for college and a job?
Fetteroll
Someone asked me to repost this from the Unschooling.com message boards. I
changed the questions a bit so they make more sense out of the context of
the thread (and got to clean up a couple of my own sentences ;-) -- Joyce
=================
By Jfetteroll (Jfetteroll) on Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 06:29 am:
**Maybe it's just simple fear holding me back from unschooling.**
Let's say you're certain that the only way to keep from drowning is to strap
on as many swimmies as you can and hold onto the side of the pool. If
someone says they've taken off their swimmies and has let go of the side,
the only apparent outcome for them it seems is drowning.
If we take away school, it seems like we're left with nothing between birth
and college or job.
This site is about what fills that hole left by school.
The amazing thing is that once you get school out of life, you realize that
school wasn't a natural part of life and didn't leave a hole.
School is like a stack of dry books on ³all the stuff it¹s important to
know² in a windowless room. When people first hear of unschooling, it sounds
like we're removing the dry books and leaving kids in a windowless room. But
we're removing the windowless room to let kids see they're in the middle of
a vast library full of wonderful media to explore. They could look at the
dry books, but they probably won't because they have much more interesting
ways of exploring the same things.
**I just fear they won't learn enough to get by.**
School is like a grocery store. It's everything you might need to cook with.
And what schools do is spend 12 years cramming the entire grocery store into
kids so they can be prepared to cook anything they want.
But how much of the grocery store do you ever use?
Unschooling is about browsing the grocery store, learning about what's
available, having access to recipes and cookbooks and cooking shows, but
taking home just the stuff that you'll actually use and eat.
An unschooling life is about browsing the world, seeking out things that
look intriguing. Looking closer at what interests them. And delving into
what they find themselves passionate about.
No one needs the whole grocery store. They just need to be able to find what
they need when they need it.
**Colleges are very picky now, and employers only want to hire the best.**
Standard American dream is success leads to happiness. Success is usually
defined as a high paying job that allows someone to purchase the "good life"
for their families. And to get that high paying job you need to go to a
really good college. And to get into that really good college you need to
get good grades in high school.
Unschooling is about replacing that with something *better*.
**My oldest son who is in high school would think I was nuts if I said let's
just learn through life and not worry about college or the future.**
Yes, he would. As would most people who¹ve been through school or are in
school.
Everyone can see every single day that the sun obviously goes around the
earth. Anyone who says otherwise is nuts. So if someone thinks they already
know what is true, anything outside that truth is going to sound false.
When someone knows there are only two options: stay in school or be a drop
out, then anything other than school sounds nuts.
**I was always taught to train them for a higher goal including reaching for
the best financially or otherwise.**
Again, standard American dream. But how does it turn out in truth?
Standard thought is that school prepares kids for life. But how many kids is
that true for? We *want* to believe it¹s true. We focus on the kids who
appear to be models of success. We find ways of explaining the failures of
school -- with reasons that point to causes other than school like
unmotivated kids and uncaring parents and bad environment that school can¹t
compensate for.
But in general -- not in every case, but in general -- people find success
to be an elusive goal and the happiness that was promised with it never
quite there.
If pursuing the American Dream led to happiness, then everyone who set out
on the path to pursue it would be happy. But they aren¹t. And some people
who reject the American Dream are happy.
Since pursuing the American Dream isn¹t a guarantee and some people find
happiness without pursuing the American Dream, there¹s some other factor
involved.
That other factor is what unschooling is about. It dispenses with the false
hopes dangled by the American Dream and focuses on joy being the goal.
**My oldest son has always been free to explore life but he has always had
rules to live by. Not too strict, but still rules.**
If your son is in school, his freedom to explore life is severely limited.
If he can¹t do whatever he wants whenever he wants for as long as he wants
-- free from messages that what he¹s choosing isn¹t as good as what¹s done
in school -- then he isn¹t truly free.
If he¹s convinced that school is the best path to be on and that doing
homework is better than reading the ³fluff² he enjoys, then he doesn¹t have
true freedom. He is confined by false beliefs that are as secure as iron
bars. But they¹re invisible so he doesn¹t even realize he¹s confined.
My daughter has had true freedom and no rules and she¹s a great kid. So
there¹s some factor other than rules that creates great kids.
**I just can't wrap my mind around how they will be prepared for college and
employment.**
You can¹t imagine it because it isn¹t in your experience. Reading here will
help you fill the vacuum that¹s left behind by school.
Just as finding out about the structure of the solar system will help
someone reconcile what they they see with what is really true.
**I guess part of me is still trained to feel that doing well in school is
the only way to get ahead in life.**
Well, yeah. If someone could get to a similar place that school takes them
just by living life, why would anyone stay in school?
**I want my boys to have the best of both worlds, free to explore life but
still having all the education they need to get ahead in life. Did you ever
feel so torn about your decision or did you just know it was right?**
It wasn¹t until I realized that unschooling offered something *better* than
the standard path to (supposed) success that I finally understood what
unschooling was all about.
I could tell you that unschooling is about happiness and joy and pursuing
passions, but at this point I suspect you¹d dismiss it as pie in the sky. I
would have.
What made me stick with investigating unschooling was the belief that there
had to be more interesting ways to learn than how school went about it. Life
was interesting to me and I wanted to know more. But school only offered
dull ways of learning about interesting things. I did well in school, but it
felt unsatisfying.
When I first started out investigating homeschooling, I read posts from
people all along the spectrum of homeschooling. All the homeschoolers
pursuing more schoolish methods were rarely having fun. Most of their posts
were about how to get their kids to do their work, or how to handle more
grades than one, or what are the best resources. But the unschoolers were
living joyful lives while they learned. And since my daughter was only 4,
any concerns I had about algebra could wait for several years.
Before I got unschooling, I thought the best I could offer my daughter was
to prepare her so she could go to MIT if she wanted. But sticking with
unschooling for the early years allowed me time to realize that it's better
to help her be who she is so that if she were someone who wanted what MIT
offered, she¹d naturally be heading in that direction pursuing interesting
things that would make MIT a viable option for her. (As it is, she¹s
pursuing writing and drawing with a passion.)
Joyce
changed the questions a bit so they make more sense out of the context of
the thread (and got to clean up a couple of my own sentences ;-) -- Joyce
=================
By Jfetteroll (Jfetteroll) on Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 06:29 am:
**Maybe it's just simple fear holding me back from unschooling.**
Let's say you're certain that the only way to keep from drowning is to strap
on as many swimmies as you can and hold onto the side of the pool. If
someone says they've taken off their swimmies and has let go of the side,
the only apparent outcome for them it seems is drowning.
If we take away school, it seems like we're left with nothing between birth
and college or job.
This site is about what fills that hole left by school.
The amazing thing is that once you get school out of life, you realize that
school wasn't a natural part of life and didn't leave a hole.
School is like a stack of dry books on ³all the stuff it¹s important to
know² in a windowless room. When people first hear of unschooling, it sounds
like we're removing the dry books and leaving kids in a windowless room. But
we're removing the windowless room to let kids see they're in the middle of
a vast library full of wonderful media to explore. They could look at the
dry books, but they probably won't because they have much more interesting
ways of exploring the same things.
**I just fear they won't learn enough to get by.**
School is like a grocery store. It's everything you might need to cook with.
And what schools do is spend 12 years cramming the entire grocery store into
kids so they can be prepared to cook anything they want.
But how much of the grocery store do you ever use?
Unschooling is about browsing the grocery store, learning about what's
available, having access to recipes and cookbooks and cooking shows, but
taking home just the stuff that you'll actually use and eat.
An unschooling life is about browsing the world, seeking out things that
look intriguing. Looking closer at what interests them. And delving into
what they find themselves passionate about.
No one needs the whole grocery store. They just need to be able to find what
they need when they need it.
**Colleges are very picky now, and employers only want to hire the best.**
Standard American dream is success leads to happiness. Success is usually
defined as a high paying job that allows someone to purchase the "good life"
for their families. And to get that high paying job you need to go to a
really good college. And to get into that really good college you need to
get good grades in high school.
Unschooling is about replacing that with something *better*.
**My oldest son who is in high school would think I was nuts if I said let's
just learn through life and not worry about college or the future.**
Yes, he would. As would most people who¹ve been through school or are in
school.
Everyone can see every single day that the sun obviously goes around the
earth. Anyone who says otherwise is nuts. So if someone thinks they already
know what is true, anything outside that truth is going to sound false.
When someone knows there are only two options: stay in school or be a drop
out, then anything other than school sounds nuts.
**I was always taught to train them for a higher goal including reaching for
the best financially or otherwise.**
Again, standard American dream. But how does it turn out in truth?
Standard thought is that school prepares kids for life. But how many kids is
that true for? We *want* to believe it¹s true. We focus on the kids who
appear to be models of success. We find ways of explaining the failures of
school -- with reasons that point to causes other than school like
unmotivated kids and uncaring parents and bad environment that school can¹t
compensate for.
But in general -- not in every case, but in general -- people find success
to be an elusive goal and the happiness that was promised with it never
quite there.
If pursuing the American Dream led to happiness, then everyone who set out
on the path to pursue it would be happy. But they aren¹t. And some people
who reject the American Dream are happy.
Since pursuing the American Dream isn¹t a guarantee and some people find
happiness without pursuing the American Dream, there¹s some other factor
involved.
That other factor is what unschooling is about. It dispenses with the false
hopes dangled by the American Dream and focuses on joy being the goal.
**My oldest son has always been free to explore life but he has always had
rules to live by. Not too strict, but still rules.**
If your son is in school, his freedom to explore life is severely limited.
If he can¹t do whatever he wants whenever he wants for as long as he wants
-- free from messages that what he¹s choosing isn¹t as good as what¹s done
in school -- then he isn¹t truly free.
If he¹s convinced that school is the best path to be on and that doing
homework is better than reading the ³fluff² he enjoys, then he doesn¹t have
true freedom. He is confined by false beliefs that are as secure as iron
bars. But they¹re invisible so he doesn¹t even realize he¹s confined.
My daughter has had true freedom and no rules and she¹s a great kid. So
there¹s some factor other than rules that creates great kids.
**I just can't wrap my mind around how they will be prepared for college and
employment.**
You can¹t imagine it because it isn¹t in your experience. Reading here will
help you fill the vacuum that¹s left behind by school.
Just as finding out about the structure of the solar system will help
someone reconcile what they they see with what is really true.
**I guess part of me is still trained to feel that doing well in school is
the only way to get ahead in life.**
Well, yeah. If someone could get to a similar place that school takes them
just by living life, why would anyone stay in school?
**I want my boys to have the best of both worlds, free to explore life but
still having all the education they need to get ahead in life. Did you ever
feel so torn about your decision or did you just know it was right?**
It wasn¹t until I realized that unschooling offered something *better* than
the standard path to (supposed) success that I finally understood what
unschooling was all about.
I could tell you that unschooling is about happiness and joy and pursuing
passions, but at this point I suspect you¹d dismiss it as pie in the sky. I
would have.
What made me stick with investigating unschooling was the belief that there
had to be more interesting ways to learn than how school went about it. Life
was interesting to me and I wanted to know more. But school only offered
dull ways of learning about interesting things. I did well in school, but it
felt unsatisfying.
When I first started out investigating homeschooling, I read posts from
people all along the spectrum of homeschooling. All the homeschoolers
pursuing more schoolish methods were rarely having fun. Most of their posts
were about how to get their kids to do their work, or how to handle more
grades than one, or what are the best resources. But the unschoolers were
living joyful lives while they learned. And since my daughter was only 4,
any concerns I had about algebra could wait for several years.
Before I got unschooling, I thought the best I could offer my daughter was
to prepare her so she could go to MIT if she wanted. But sticking with
unschooling for the early years allowed me time to realize that it's better
to help her be who she is so that if she were someone who wanted what MIT
offered, she¹d naturally be heading in that direction pursuing interesting
things that would make MIT a viable option for her. (As it is, she¹s
pursuing writing and drawing with a passion.)
Joyce
Elizabeth Hill
** **Maybe it's just simple fear holding me back from unschooling.**
Let's say you're certain that the only way to keep from drowning is to strap
on as many swimmies as you can and hold onto the side of the pool. If
someone says they've taken off their swimmies and has let go of the side,
the only apparent outcome for them it seems is drowning.**
I love this! I think analogies are great for expressing emotional truths.
Betsy
Let's say you're certain that the only way to keep from drowning is to strap
on as many swimmies as you can and hold onto the side of the pool. If
someone says they've taken off their swimmies and has let go of the side,
the only apparent outcome for them it seems is drowning.**
I love this! I think analogies are great for expressing emotional truths.
Betsy