Other "unschooling barrage" rescues from AOL days
Answers to the Most Repeated Unschooling Questions of All Time
Interviews of and by Sandra Dodd
some text, some sound, some video
These were from the bottom of the definitions chat. They seem more like the reassurances.Here's that page, in 2024, finally.Move them to another file and call it Q&A or something; add to barrage page.
| Boldface are the questions and concerns. Indentations are my responses (Sandra Dodd, in 1995). |
Make it interesting! If the parent is interested the child will probably find it interesting. Some parents present schoolwork the same way they do medicine. Instead of "take it and you can wash it down with water," they say "do it and you can wash it down with free time." Same distasteful situation.But suppose I have a block about, say, world history; if I let my child lead, and she never thinks to think about world history, and I never bring it up because it bores me to tears, might she not be missing out on something she might like?
Movies, historical novels, biographies, costumes, historical recipes, museums--it couldn't be that ALL those things would bore a parent to tears. Textbooks bore nearly EVERYONE to tears.Point being: isn't there a real value in introducing new ideas or areas of study or whatever you want to call them even if the child has shown no interest up to that point? Is that, in fact, the reason behind what you've called a kind of checklist in your mind?
Yes and yes. If I can't make the information interesting, the child cannot/will not learn anything. If I can't make the material interesting, maybe there's a book or video or computer game that can. Maybe there's a living history museum that can. Maybe there will be a period of history the child has no interest in whatsoever.Actually, it strikes me tonight that the only problem with unschooling is that we are a thoroughly schooled society, so that we have to strip away so many layers of myths to get to what really makes sense and rings true.
"History" as an outline of political boundaries throughout the years is deadly boring. What people wore and ate and what their houses were like and what games the children played and what sports they played and how they got from place to place--THAT is not deadly boring.
Rather than even CALL things "history" why not just present material about Greece, or England, or Japan, or Egypt--why lump all history together? Personally, I love the Middle Ages and hate the Civil War (I hate the whole 19th Century, pretty much, actually). So what? The human hasn't been born who loves all things equally, and you don't need to try to be that person nor do your kids need to be.
I think we are so thoroughly conditioned by school we can't even see the depth of it. I still feel a little joy inside when I see an analog clock showing 3:00--time to go home--and I'm 42 years old....all the energy I am spending to justify to myself what I believe must be true would certainly be better spent in countless other pursuits.
And double that--the energy parents spend to try to get kids to do things NO kid in his right mind would want to do, and the unhappiness, distrust and sorrow it adds to the family unit is very, very sad. We can make learning joyful, humorous, delightful!You must get sick of explaining unschooling all the time--and sick of the fact that it has to be explained and defended *ad nauseum.
No, I don't get sick of it because each person is new and different. I enjoyed teaching English composition to Jr. High kids--the spark in their eyes when they GOT IT! was wonderful. I explained quotation marks and semi-colons over and over, but the opportunity to help raise someone's writing ability from rudimentary to fluid was cool!Because I have had long term exposure to unschoolers I have seen some things that concern me that I would like to discuss with you. First I want to clearly state that I do NOT believe in recreating any of the school experience in one's home. I think people who are enslaved to text books are in a trap and that my heart sits closer to the unschooler's position than any other. But I find that homeschooling is growing at a tremendous rate and some of the people I get calls from (I am a contact person in my homeschool group) and meet at our homeschool meetings are not well educated themselves.
If you haven't seen that spark of joy in your kids lately, tape or glue up a mobius strip, draw a line down the middle, and have one of your kids cut it in two. Don't tell them what's going to happen or what it's called... just do it. Or for an older kid, just make the strip and ask him to color it on one side. A HUGE light will come on.
Maybe it's just me. I don't mind teaching beginning calligraphy or beginning recorder, either. I'd rather hear squeaks and squawks and people saying "How do I use this pen?" and know I could get people off to a good start, from which they could learn the rest on their own than to discuss the finer points of Carolingian descenders (yuck) or Renaissance trills vs. Baroque trills. Puhlease!!! Learning should be fun, fun, fun.
This will happen, even with teachers. There are very many poorly educated elementary and secondary teachers. I know you're probably talking about a lower level yet than that, but don't think too highly of people just because they have college degrees.They did not assimilate the info crammed into them at school...
NOBODY assimilates info crammed in at school....and they have NO idea of how to provide an environment that will allow their children to ask the questions that lead to a learning experience. Maybe you think it sounds pompous but I don't mean it to. The parents were turned off to learning early and don't read to their kids or provide them with the raw materials to allow for constructive play and are at a disadvantage.
I worry about homeschooling families with no computers (and so no input or debate like we're all used to), no magazine subscriptions AND no support groups. At least your crowd has a support group! There are always houses in which there are zero books, zero magazines. In those cases homeschool-in-a-box would be a good thing. Kids from such an environment as you're describing are unlikely to do well in public school anyway, so if they weren't kept home they could have "school failure" and peer abuse added to the mix.There will be more of these parents as the schools get worse.
There will also be better information about homeschooling more easily available.Most of these people did not come to the decision to homeschool intellectually, but were forced into it to preserve their child's self esteem or to keep their child from having the negative schooling experience they did.
Not the worst reason I've ever heard! A child with a happy childhood and self esteem can learn history and math after he's grown.These are good parents who are going to bat with strikes against them and I feel they need some type of a framework to launch from. For me to try to sell them on unschooling is premature. Their need is how to provide resources and enrichment in their homes and to gain confidence in themselves as a learner so they can model that for their child.
Okay, but wouldn't a checklist and a library card do it as well as a curriculum?I encourage people who are usually into textbooks to make textbooks their servants not their masters.
Good point. I like it.Maybe you don't find families like that where you are and I guess they are not online but I meet more all the time and I don't feel right casting them off from all moorings without giving them some ideas to fall back on.
Isn't the support group itself a fall-back? If they TRY to strike out for a few months and it's not working, the curriculum salesmen will certainly be eager to "save" them.Over the years as I have observed unschooling families the most successful ones are the ones where the mother is holding a running curriculum in her head and the father is a man of many talents. The framework is in place for the children to learn from their father and the mother to provide opportunities to guide the children's interest in areas that are common knowledge (math, science, language, history,etc.)
What you might be saying, and this is a very scary thought so brace yourself, is that a lot of children's ability to learn independently might be genetic.Some of the unschooling parents I have met have become "powerless" parents, meaning their children are completely in control of all facets of their life and education.
I've never met anyone like that. The nature of "power" and "powerlessness" is very emotional, so go easy on thinking of interpersonal relationships in terms of "power." The healthiest marriages (in my opinion) are those with a fair balance of power. Same with parent/child relationships. If you make the child completely powerless he will be out of your house before he's grown, either as a runaway, a castout, early marriage (and if it takes getting a girl pregnant, small price to pay for an identity) or a suicide.This spring when I did a workshop on writer's workshops at NJ Unschooler's Curriculum Fair (a misnomer) the overwhelming response of the mothers was that they would love to have a workshop in their support groups and have their kids participate but that they could not get their kids to write at all. I do mean at all; one mother of a twelve year old told me he would not learn how to write his name in cursive and so could not get a library card.
Each human being needs some empowerment for mental health. Nobody—not husband, wife, child, dog—can be totally powerless without getting mean, or worse.
The only way to "get a kid to write" is for the kid to want to write, or to be threatened with hunger or physical punishment. Maybe the methods they had been using to "get their kids to write" were turning the kids off. No exercise of power will get kids to want to write.I talked to other mothers of adolescents there and they were caught in a position of not being able to lead their children toward any needed bodies of knowledge because their childen believed only those things that sparked their interest were worth knowing.
As to the cursive/library card: If the library requires cursive writing I bet the librarian is an old woman who was never married. Cursive indeed; what a waste of energy. But aside from that, if the child knows how magical and wonderful the library is, he might be willing to learn his name in braille to get to those books. Each family is different and we can't take on the burden of other people's traditions, beliefs, genetics, or school-trauma.
Their children were right. It's the parents' job to spark their interest.Manfred Smith (do you know who he is?) was a main speaker (John Gatto was there, too) Manfred Smith presented unschooling much the same way you did but then when pressed by questions like: what would you do if your child was older and showing no interest in learning to read? mentioned that he finally had to tell one son that the authorities would come for him (Manfred) if he wasn't really schooling his children and that he (the son) had to learn to read.
Oh, I've done that too twice in four years.. I've said, "I would hate for the county to come and say you HAD to go to school, wouldn't you?" A cheap shot, but occasionally effective against major whining.Even the Colfaxes in their book Homeschooling for Excellence while claiming to be unschoolers present quite an extensive curriculum.
After the fact I will be able to show an extensive curriculum, but it is formed of and around what we have done that the kids accepted and learned. I didn't build the frame first and then cram the kids in.I have thus concluded that there are not many true unschoolers- parents who will not intervene in their child's life to ensure that the basics of educated life such as "reading, writing and arithmetic" are mastered by their child.
I don't know where you got your definition of "true unschoolers." I've never heard of ANY parent who would "not intervene in their child's life." There's a difference in following a child's interest and ability without suggesting any paths or ideas and in showing him some paths he might want to follow. I've never known anyone to just ignore their kids and say, "Well he never was interested in anything!"As a parent I have found that while one child will naturally explore and learn the basics will not mean that all my children will.
True at home and at school.When I said during the conference that I had 5 children older than yours, what I wanted to convey was that what I felt neccessary to their education at 9 has multiplied greatly as they grew.
And when they're older they're even MORE able to read and learn on their own. Little kids have to be read to, have things cut out for them, glue bottles opened, paints set up, and tapes turned on. Older kids can do all those things on their own, and read instructions and build things and drive themselves to the library.And my experience as a parent has shown me that some of their natural interests will lead them to and through those basics, often it takes salting the oats to have that "happen."
I will drench oats in chocolate syrup if need be. I just will not tell the children that oats will be eaten in a certain way at a certain table at 8:00 M-F.Just as the example of children learning to walk and talk on their own is incorrect. Children left on their own (such as in institutions) do NOT learn to walk and talk. Walking and talking takes considerable amounts of interaction with someone working toward a goal. (Say Mommy, Baby. Come to Mommy, Baby.) I think an educated child does not just happen, either.
A baby left in a crib and deprived of touch and attention will probably not walk at one year old. He will not grow, either. That's a proven—neglected children can have their growth severely stunted. If he lives and isn't physically crippled by malnutrition and muscle atrophy, he will walk when he's out of the crib.When I mentioned my space cadet son I was not trying to belittle him. I appreciate his unique personality but at the same time I know that things like writing and spelling are things that never cross his mind. He has a terrific imagination but if I don't teach him spelling he will not be able to express himself in a way that others can understand. He is 10, closer to 11 and I do not do a formal curriculum in those areas but have found that because he has no interest in those areas (spelling, writing) if he has me present definite information and direction in those areas he can grasp it and not have to spend energy trying to figure it out. But he doesn't ASK me for that info. I know he will need it so we work on it.
A healthy baby who has freedom of movement WILL walk. It's instinctive.
A healthy baby who hears human speech will decode it and imitate it. The people who are speaking do not need to be "working toward a goal." It may amuse them to do so, and if they're racing their relatives or neighbors to get their child to say "dog" at 13 months instead of 14 months, parroting sessions might help, but it doesn't improve the child's ability to speak in the long run.
Given interesting materials and supplies and experiences that cover a large spectrum of activities, adults (not necessarily parents) who will answer children's questions carefully and respectfully, and love and encouragement, it is possible for a child to gain more knowledge ("education" if you will, although I prefer other words) than he would or could in the public schools.
WHEN he needs it then you should work on it. He can learn it later as well as (or better than) now.I also should say that if he were in school I know he would be classified as learning disabled. He is very intelligent and I will do everything in my power to keep him feeling that way about himself.
Consider that making him work on spelling if he's not ready might not make him feel very intelligent. Do you remember what spelling words you were working on in fifth grade? I recall "they're, there, their" and "Saturday." "Holy" and "holly"—nothing really very difficult. Serious vocabulary lessons started in 7th and 8th grade. In 6th grade the words our school's champions missed at the regional spelling bee were "lightning" and "committee". Too hard for the best of 6th graders.The point of this is that your children may all get all the information they will ever need through unschooling but I think parents and children are individuals and it will not just happen for everyone.
I think you're right, but I don't think that's any reason to have a class system in homeschooling and say that intelligent, educated people can unschool and the rest should buy a curriculum. Perhaps if people begin to expect more of their children the children will rise to the occasion. Perhaps if we expect more of parents they, too, can shake off some of the school-induced fog, some of the "you are not worthy" messages they got if they didn't go to college, and we can raise the confidence and consciousness of entire families!But everyone can benefit from banishing the schoolroom from their home and being sensitive to what true learning is.
ABSOLUTELY.
My friend in PA told me that there is a book written for unschoolers in the Pennsylvania area. She couldn't remember the title, but it was written by Diane Baseman. I thought you might want to pass this on to the potential PA unschoolers from Wednesday’s class.
I put out a call for more info but haven't received it yet. You'll be the first 35 to know. 🙂You can put an idea in his head, but it will fall right back out if he's not interested in keeping it there.
I can't put an idea in anybody's head. I can dangle it out in front, and they either put it in themselves or not.Did your husband always share your views?
No, but he didn't resist. [Resistance was futile. He was assimilated.]How then, do you inspire without using information and ideas?
My life is an information-and-ideas STORM. There's just no avalanche of workbooks and textbooks.Should I worry about my 6th grader who does not read very well?
No. (I don't know what "does not read very well" means exactly, but I think parents should continue to read to children even after they're older. If he can't read novels to himself, read them to him! If he can read novels, read harder ones. Lord of the Rings, Treasure Island—HARD stuff, good stuff, and when he loves books, and when he is more mature, he will read. If he can't read well when he's sixteen, I'll send you $20. In fourth grade I was the best reader in my class. I could read Reader's Digest. Reader's Digest is not very hard going; it's not a big deal. Boys are often a year or two (or more) behind girls of the same age. If he can't read Reader's Digest, don't worry about it. If he CAN read it, then REALLY don't worry.Do you use textbooks as a reference for yourself?
I use everything I can find as a reference for myself. Not graded textbooks year by year, though, because I'm not breaking my kids' learning into "school years."I think I've found my problem.....I have no car to go places.....and I HATE reading.... 🙂
Parents who hate reading should try to fake it, try to read in front of and to their children, because the children will imitate the parents bigtime.Are games a large part of your learning?
Yes. Word games, songs, puzzles, board games, computer games, Nintendo games, running games in the park (great way for children to practice social interaction skills—solving disagreements over hide-and-seek and tag), etc.but how do you know what they do need or should learn at a given time?
They don't need to learn things in the order the schools present them.
There is nothing, in my opinion, that they do need or should learn at any given time. They need to see that they are capable of learning what they want to know when they want to know it, and that that capability will extend for the rest of their lives (barring Alzheimers or nerve diseases).So unschooling doesn't mean never introducing new stuff, never handing out challenges?
Oh gosh, no—it just means introducing new stuff in whatever order it happens to arise, not just during school hours during 180 pre-chosen days, nor just in the school year in which the curriculum recommends it. It means learning all the time.Sandra-what if one of yours always chooses to watch t.v.?
I'll let them, unless we need to go somewhere, or they have other things they have to do (and it wouldn't be "schoolwork"). I'm as confident that they would never choose to watch TV all the time as I'm confident that they would never eat cookies all day every day (nor even for one day), nor eat hot dogs for every meal. Humans crave variety, and given freedom they will strike a balance. Deprived of freedom (or of TV or cookies) they will crave more of it than they would if it were available and left to their own judgment.I pretty much let them watch as much as they want, but not violence.
I want to amend this statement. I let them watch some violence (after a fashion). Ninja Turtles and Power Rangers they watch. They've seen Terminator, but with my husband watching too. If he's watching movies that are too rough for kids, we distract them during the scary scenes. It's happened a very few times. We ourselves don't watch shoot-em-up stuff, nor movies with scary soundtracks and terrified screaming. We don't watch the news, and when photos from bombings in Oklahoma or wars come through in the mail we keep them discreetly out of view. If they come across them we answer their questions without adding sensationalism, tales of revenge, and without making a big deal about it, but we don't seek to expose them to those things.Sandra, do your kids ever ASK to watch T.V., or do they really not like it because it is punishment?
They do watch it, but they're very likely to turn it off because they're not interested in sitting still for the next show. They rarely watch longer than about two hours. It might be on three hours on a Saturday morning, with kids coming and going. When I was a kid, we had it on from the time we woke up on a Saturday til after a Tarzan movie or Shirley Temple or horror flick or whatever--like until golf or bowling came on at 3:00. That was, in my opinion, a stark escape from the school week, and also since we had no VCR the broadcast kid-TV was more "valuable." My kids know that if they have the urge to watch cartoons or Bill Nye or whatever at some odd hour we have it on tape.