Published by
Joanne on
September 16, 2009
“We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that child is someone today.”
- Stacia Tauscher
**originally posted in 2006 **
We were hanging out with our homeschooling friends one afternoon and my daughter Jacqueline was sitting on one of the picnic tables, finishing a story (Princess Barbie) she had started a few days before.
I was having a conversation with another homeschooling mom and she asked what Jacqueline was doing. When I told her she said
something to the effect of “Maybe she’ll be a writer when she grows up”. To which I replied, “She already is a writer”. She paused (and you could see the light bulb going off) as she thought about that, and said “Yes! She is a writer”.
That little shift in thinking has been very helpful to me in unschooling my kids. What she’s doing now is valid and important, not because it may help her when she becomes an adult, not because she may choose that as her career, but because it brings her joy and makes her happy now, right now. She is not an “adult in the making”. She’s exactly where she should be.
So without further ado, here is Jacqueline’s story. She is already working on her second one, which I’ll post when she’d done.
Princess Barbie
by Jacqueline Anne (a 7 year old unschooler)
2006
I love being a princess.” Said Barbie.
Barbie’s tutor came in and said “Princess the queen sent for you”. “Where is she?” said Barbie. “In the throne room” said Ken. Barbie went to the Throne room.
There the queen sat. “Come my dear” said the queen. Barbie hugged the queen. Barbie was surprise to see royal page.
Soon Barbie was heading back to her room when she heard a cry. It was the royal page yelling invader!
“Invader?” asked the princess.
“Yes” said the royal page. “We must hide” said royal page.
So they hid. The invaders lost. They were safe.
The Royal page was nice.
The End.
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Published by
Joanne on
September 6, 2009
*Originally posted 2007*
Kids Take School Into Their Own Hands:
Some Home-School Families Are Opting for a New Approach to Curriculum; Unschooling
BY Claire Scheumann
From stock whips to ballet, Dungeons and Dragons to NASA, some Berkeley students say they are studying subjects they would not have access to in a traditional setting by pursuing a new kind of education called “unschooling.”
Teaching children at home has a long history, but in the past decade, families have been engaging in a learning philosophy which allows students to dictate the curriculum.
Sam Fuller, 12, joined the 10 percent of home-schooled students participating in unschooling nationally when he began his education seven years ago.
“We kind of have phases of learning,” said Sam, who lives with his family on the border between Albany and Berkeley. “We learn what we are interested in.”
Sam’s mother, Pam Tellew, was a teacher before she got the idea of unschooling at a teaching retreat shortly after Sam was born. Sam’s 7-year-old brother Nicky has also begun unschooling.
Unschooled students do not engage in traditional classroom learning, instead pursuing a hands-on approach in museums and outdoor settings.
Skeptics say unschooling may not expose students to necessary subject matter because they follow no required curriculum.
“I want educators to make decisions about what kids need to learn,” said school board member Shirley Issel. “If you only open the doors that interest them at first, they may have a limited range of options available to them when they want to go on to higher education and employment.”
In California, there are approximately 10,000 families a year that file requests declaring themselves as a private school, which allows them to specialize curriculum.
Parents of home-schooled students in Berkeley say their choice was not determined by the quality of the city’s public schools. Rather, an interest in a variety of cultural and learning resources contributed to their choice.
In the Berkeley Unified School District, 129 students participate in the independent study program, which allows them to meet with teachers for only 30 minutes per week, pursuing other interests in the meantime.
District officials say they do not know the number of students in the city who opt for home schooling.
Advocates for unschooling insist the approach creates greater student engagement, leading to deeper learning than traditional methods.
“Personally, my sons outgrew what the public schools could offer them,” said Livermore parent Cyndy McClay, a representative of the California Homeschool Network. “I loved my neighborhood schools, but my kids didn’t always fit there.”
Results of studies examining homeschooled students show, on average, they score 15 to 30 percentile points above public school students, said home education researcher Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute.
There is limited research on the long-term success of home-schooled adults, but studies have shown that the students tend to earn their college degrees at a slightly accelerated rate and become more engaged in leadership throughout their adult life than their public school counterparts, Ray said.
One study showed that achievement did not differ between home-schooled students who learn in a traditional setting and unschooled students, Ray said.
In addition, home-schooling typically does not impair students’ social skills, he said.
Sam Fuller has become involved in the Junior Ranger program, which provides outdoor education for children ages 9 to 12, and a fair organized by families with home-schooled students to raise money for charity.
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