Morganne and I made a trip to our homeschooling program's resource library today. Two of the program's teachers were there and I brought up the issue of unschoolers learning math.
Both Tom and Fred (the two teachers) seemed to think it was a non-issue.
"How could they not learn math?" asked Tom.
I went on to ask about college and "real life" and to describe the discussion on this list.
Fred's 23 year old daughter will be graduating from the University of California this spring with a BA in some sort of psychology. She was unschooled until age 14, didn't learn to read until she was 11 and never did much math. When she entered the local high school, she received straight A's in pre-algebra, algebra and trigonometry with, as Fred said, "no trouble at all". She completed calculus, analytical geometry and statistics at the university.
Fred has been involved in homeschooling for the past 18 years and was instrumental in setting up the school district's local program. He said that unschoolers tend to do better on the various achievement tests than their public-schooled counterparts.
As Fred was talking about how well local unschoolers do on the SATs, Tom mentioned that his 11 year old unschooled daughter had just taken a math placement test (she's involved in an experimental school that she attends part-time) and had scored in the 85th percentile for her age group. "She never did much math, either." said Tom.
The resource library contains a lot of math games and manipulatives as well as workbooks and textbooks. I picked up a book today called Family Math by Stenmark, Thompson and Cossey. Designed for children ages 5-18, it includes activities that help teach word problems, logic, measurement, geometry, spatial thinking, probability, statistics, estimation, arithmetic and lots of other math concepts. Some of the activities look like a lot of fun.
Fred mentioned that unschooling is a different kind of education. It's not based on the product of a child who knows certain facts and can perform certain feats. Instead, it is based on the process of learning, on nurturing the child so s/he can become a lifelong learner.
Fred mentioned that many people become anxious when their children don't learn as fast as other children. He was concerned, himself, that his daughter was a late reader. He said that his fears were needless; his daughter now reads as well as anyone else.
Fred suggested the standard unschooling references as well as the book Real Lives, which is about unschooling teenagers.
About half of the families in our program unschool and there is great local support for unschooling. We have several resource people with grown children who have been involved in homeschooling for 20 or so years and it is really reassuring to go talk with them about concerns. I have met some of their children and they are as bright and well- educated as their parents (which is saying a lot).
Certainly, unschooling is not everyone's cup of tea. For those of you who were concerned about my poor, to-be-math-illiterate children (grin), I think you can relax now. Unschooled children seem to learn math just fine.
Copyright © 1994-7 by
Heather Madrone. All rights reserved.