Not Another Homeschool Blog

I have always been intrigued by unschooling though I have never embraced it.  I have admired it, and have also feared it.  I have found it intriguing and misguided all at once. My personal fears towards unschooling are my own.  I come from a highly motivated background where measurements and getting into college are of utmost importance... never mind if college is the child's actual goal... that is the benchmark as to whether I have done a good job or not.  Reasonable or unreasonable as it may seem, I have never felt that unschooling was a good road to my intended goal. Still, I have admired the freedom from stress, from the measurements, from society's guidelines that occur with unschooling.  In many cases, unschooling has led to success beyond what can be achieved with rules and restrictions.  Other times, it can go no-where... that is my fear.  I fear that if I were to allow unschooling (past elementary years), that some serious slug-ness would ...

Yesterday's post stuck with me all  day, so I wanted to clarify a few things. 1.  I really do admire unschooling... to a certain degree. 2.  I was mostly referring to the type of unschooling/ unparenting described on Good Morning America 3.  I think I had a bigger problem with the unparenting that the unschooling. With that said, I still feel that for my family, unschooling and many others, it is not a good idea.  I think that it takes a special kind of faith to unschool completely. I need to make sure my kids understand alot of the basic things in life so that I am not putting ignorant, naive,  and/or  unprepared people out in the world. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit My Education Column at Examiner.com Check out FREE HOME EDUCATION WEBSITE for free homeschool links and resources

If you don't know what unschooling is, check out this Good Morning America story from this morning.   Imagine... no expensive textbooks, no prodding and pleading to get chores done, no constant harassing for that essay you asked them to write over a week ago.  Oh, the dreams of a homeschooling mother.  But at what cost? The Biegler children have the freedom of unschooling, and allow their children to do as they please without putting rules on restrictions on their lives... this includes not learning if they don't wish to learn.  Believe it or not, I do see some value in it. For example, my son is quite knowledgeable about internet design.  My husband is an IT exec, and so this may have spurred his interest in computers in general.  I have had to write in CSS Style pages and HTML for a few writing assignments, and he asked me to teach it to him.  That is the only formal instruction he has had in web design. He learned Javascript and the othe...

I had a convesation today with another mom whose kid was a little stressed du e to all of the activities (read socialization ), plus academic homeschooling.  The child is in a play along with one of mine, and I suggested that they take a break of teaching until the play was over... the thought of this stressed the mom out, but she did see how taking a short break would cause more peace. This is why we homeschool isn't it?  We want to provude more opportunities for our kids as well as allow them to learn at their own pace.  In our desire to do it all, and do it all right, we tend to get a little carried away.  There is a time to work and a time to play and a time for enrichment.  We don't need to do them all at the same time. What does this have to do with unschooling?  Unschoolers seem to handle letting education follow the rhythm of life than us Academically focussed homeschoolers.  They don't worry about checking off everything from a list...