Let's Get Unschooling Straight

When I signed up to this mailing list - supposedly a list for the support of other homeschoolers, I had no idea I'd feel put on the defensive (as if I didn't get enough of that from other sources) and end up attempting apologies for unschooling. Not that I'm the most qualified to do so - but I just can't let what you said stand uncorrected. As one of those "radical unschoolers" you so disparagingly refer to, I must say I have absolutely no clue as to how you got the totally mistaken idea that unschoolers believe or advocate that learning can only - or is best - done "by accident" or without any deliberate effort.

Last spring, I too was amazed at how vehemently unschooling was attacked - by other homeschoolers. I thought that the folks on this list, by virtue of having opted out of one-size-fits-all education, would be more accepting of alternative approaches to education.

Last spring, I too was amazed at the various notions of what it means to unschool. There was this prevailing idea that unschooling means that parents don't discipline children, that the children will grow up wild, uncivilized and ignorant. There were a lot of honest questions about whether unschooled children would ever choose to learn to read or do math. There was some confusion over the term child-led learning and the common misconception that child-led learning means that the parent takes a totally hands-off approach.

I think that many people believe that children will not learn unless they are coerced or bribed into learning. That academic skills have little value outside of the reward/punishment system.

Nothing could be more wrong. Unschoolers believe in and use deliberate, rigorous, disciplined, scientific methods as much as anyone else. But they do so under different circumstances and - probably most importantly - for different reasons.

Yes. My view of my role in unschooling is to provide a rich environment for learning and to be sensitive to my children's needs. Morganne has been spending a lot of time working on knots lately. I was getting exasperated at being unable to find the laces to shoes or hair ribbons. Morganne is working on knots. What she needs from me is simple - she needs a source of things to tie up and she occasionally needs my knot-untying skills.

I pore over educational catalogs looking for books and tools to add to our environment. I take time out from making frosting roses for Morganne's birthday to show her how to use a pastry bag. I scrape frosting off the floor, wipe paint from the table and bake Sculpey in my oven. I help Morganne prepare slides for her microscope. I do a lot of reading out loud. I try to keep my two-year-old distracted so Morganne and I can play games at the dining room table. I listen.

Learning anything seems to fall into one of the following four categories (at least, I've yet to come up with an exception, and I've thought about this a lot):

Your claim that unschoolers only see value in or do item three is absolutely absurd. Unschoolers use item one and item two enthusiastically, and only reject item four as an inferior and less desirable learning method. In fact, you simply can't define unschooling (that is, what unschooling really is, as opposed to your misstatement of it) without including items one and two. One and two are unschooling. Don't almost all (if not all) adults use #1 & #2 constantly as they grow and learn? Adults won't put up with #4. Unschoolers simply believe that what is readily rejected as inferior for adult learning may not be the optimum method for child learning either.

Can I use your statements above in the unFAQ?

Almost no one who has changed our world, has reached his or her new knowledge through method four.

To me, one of the most striking examples of this is Buckminster Fuller. Until he got glasses in elementary school, he was essentially blind. He developed his ideas about shape and structure playing with dried peas in kindergarten.