Re: [UnschoolingDiscussion] Unschooling groups.
[email protected]
In a message dated 9/2/2004 9:48:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
Do any of ya'll participate in an unschooling (not
homeschooling) group or association? There seem to be
numerous homeschooling organizations, but I have seen
few, if any unschooling organizations.
-Jennefer in Oregon
When my kids first came out of school, and we discovered unschooling, I
formed my own group, along with a few of the women in my (you guessed it) LLL
group. It's called Unschooling Family Connection (
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarylandUFC/ ). We strated out as 4-5 moms and the last time I checked we had
about 100 members. our group has or will be getting together for Unschoolers
Night Out (Coffee, no kids) park days, flat water tubing, Trail riding on
horses, pool days, tent camping, festivals, very casual kids book group, bowling,
treehouse camping, beach trip for a week, hiking, and we have a weeklong "camp"
that is a very relaxed, unstructured time.
I would say about 50% of the email list is composed of locals who are
somewhere on the unschooling continuum, who really use the list for Things To Do, yet
never show up at our events. There are probably a few who are much more
schooly in their educational thinking, but I try to ensure when people request to
join that we are a support group for UNschoolers and curriculum talk, etc. is
inappropriate. We are there to help people unschool. There are probably 40
local lists in our area (MD counties west of washington,DC) so there's plenty of
room for that elsewhere.
Of the remaining 50% subbed to the list probably half again are occasional
participants with the remainder being the core group.
The group is 4 years old. I've recently moved further west to the eastern
panhandle of WV and plan to start another Unschooling Family Connection here.
Why don't you start your own group? It can be done now in about 15 minutes,
all you do is start a yahoo group, and make a packet of flyers. We put ours up
at the health food stores, bookstores and other places like that, and we
searched the web for various general HS places that would put a little blurb about
our group. I think we had one at Jon's Homeschool page, probably NHEN, too. We
also talked it up alot on the local HS lists.
The Border's books and Music that we held our night out in, was very pleased
to host us, we received lots of coffee coupons and the person in charge of
events went out of her way to make sure that the hsing community was considered
during teacher week, and other events.
It's been very very worth it.
Elissa Jill
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you;
They're supposed to help you discover who you are.
~Bernice Johnson Reagon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[email protected] writes:
Do any of ya'll participate in an unschooling (not
homeschooling) group or association? There seem to be
numerous homeschooling organizations, but I have seen
few, if any unschooling organizations.
-Jennefer in Oregon
When my kids first came out of school, and we discovered unschooling, I
formed my own group, along with a few of the women in my (you guessed it) LLL
group. It's called Unschooling Family Connection (
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarylandUFC/ ). We strated out as 4-5 moms and the last time I checked we had
about 100 members. our group has or will be getting together for Unschoolers
Night Out (Coffee, no kids) park days, flat water tubing, Trail riding on
horses, pool days, tent camping, festivals, very casual kids book group, bowling,
treehouse camping, beach trip for a week, hiking, and we have a weeklong "camp"
that is a very relaxed, unstructured time.
I would say about 50% of the email list is composed of locals who are
somewhere on the unschooling continuum, who really use the list for Things To Do, yet
never show up at our events. There are probably a few who are much more
schooly in their educational thinking, but I try to ensure when people request to
join that we are a support group for UNschoolers and curriculum talk, etc. is
inappropriate. We are there to help people unschool. There are probably 40
local lists in our area (MD counties west of washington,DC) so there's plenty of
room for that elsewhere.
Of the remaining 50% subbed to the list probably half again are occasional
participants with the remainder being the core group.
The group is 4 years old. I've recently moved further west to the eastern
panhandle of WV and plan to start another Unschooling Family Connection here.
Why don't you start your own group? It can be done now in about 15 minutes,
all you do is start a yahoo group, and make a packet of flyers. We put ours up
at the health food stores, bookstores and other places like that, and we
searched the web for various general HS places that would put a little blurb about
our group. I think we had one at Jon's Homeschool page, probably NHEN, too. We
also talked it up alot on the local HS lists.
The Border's books and Music that we held our night out in, was very pleased
to host us, we received lots of coffee coupons and the person in charge of
events went out of her way to make sure that the hsing community was considered
during teacher week, and other events.
It's been very very worth it.
Elissa Jill
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you;
They're supposed to help you discover who you are.
~Bernice Johnson Reagon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Mary Gold
>> When my kids first came out of school, and we discoveredunschooling, I formed my own group, along with a few of the women in
my (you guessed it) LLL group. It's called Unschooling Family
Connection ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MarylandUFC/ ). >>
This is great Elissa! Would you mind if I started something like this
here in Oregon using your format? (IOW copying your desription word
for word.<g>)
Life is good.
~Mary, who hates to reinvent the wheel