Growing up, one thing I heard from my Mom, which she reports hearing from her grandfather was “Talk to kids from the moment they’re born, and talk to them like they’re people.” (Which goes far to explain why we’re such a family of talkers.) My Mom did talk to us a lot. Too often, though, her words left us feeling inadequate, misunderstood, sometimes even threatened. She, too, had an agenda. Later I learned her agenda was one of fear; fear that manifested as a requirement that we obey, so she could be sure we’d listen to her as she tried to keep us safe in a world she found dangerous.

I realize now, 26 years into my own journey of talking to my kids, that culturally we are programmed to be afraid as parents. We’re told we need to fear that our kids will have sex in dangerous ways, drink, smoke or use drugs. We’re told to expect that they will lie to us to cover their misdeeds. We’re told those are the things kids do, especially when peer pressure kicks in during the school years, becoming worse once they’re teenagers.

There’s a general expectation that talking to your kids is full of “hard” conversations. When I hear a news story about talking to your kid about drugs or sex or some other scary topic, my first thought is always “Why is it such a hard conversation?” Why is any conversation hard to have with your kids? I think it’s because so much of the parenting advice we hear tells us we need to control our kids, that we are “their parent, not their friend”. How can you as a parent have a true conversation, one in which you hope to impart what matters to you, when you’ve been told you shouldn’t be your child’s friend? Why would a child listen to his parents when he’s afraid of the reaction to his heartfelt words and desires, should he share them with Mom or Dad?

As a mom, I talk about so many things with my kids, and yes some of them might surprise me or be a little uncomfortable initially, but why really should any one topic be more difficult than another? Is it true for everyone, that the same topics are hard to discuss with a child or teen? In some families, it’s hard to talk to your kids about sex, in others it may be smoking, drinking, drug use, responsible driving, healthy eating habits, relationships, dating choices, friends, social behavior. It seems parenting throws at us most of our own personal bugaboos, and often we find that the very topics we may be uncomfortable with are the ones our kids bring to us. I’ve come to view these as learning moments; or maybe they’re just regular reminders that the universe has a sense of humor.

I think part of the difficulty we have in talking with our kids starts in how we talk about our kids. Our larger culture — schools, news stories, grandparents, friends and neighbors — seems intent on pointing out the harder parts of being a parent. Stories of parents who have good relationships with their kids don’t make good fodder for the evening news, so we don’t often hear about them. Quick conversations with neighbors seem more often to be a recitation of the latest woes with the kids; how poorly one is doing in school, the latest argument that baffled the parent, the call from the school reporting of a fight or rule-breaking. I find in casual conversation with other parents, at sporting events, around the neighborhood and the like, that it’s rare anyone says how wonderfully their kids are doing, and when they do, they often follow up with a disclaimer of sorts, as if they’re uncomfortable singing their child’s praises.

Maybe it’s simply that many people are struggling and they want to feel some kinship by sharing war stories. I have to ask, though, does it really serve our kids, or us, to share only our war stories? Would I want to hear Gary sharing a recitation of all the things I’d failed to do right in the past week? How many times I hadn’t folded the laundry, or had lost my temper?

I want my kids to hear me talking about the cool, exciting, happy stuff they’re doing. When others share their woes, I offer some sympathy, then try to find something positive to say about their child, or offer encouragement and ideas that I think might help.

It really does make a difference to talk to and about our kids the same way we’d talk about our friends or partners, to use words that say we love them, we empathize with their struggles, and we know their worth.

Written with love, by Sylvia Toyama

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Taking Children Seriously (1)
• 50 Ways To Bring Out Your Child’s Best (10)
• Why Whole Life Unschooling? (5)
• What Is, And Isn’t Unschooling (18)

For many of us that went to school, we learned that “learning” required a time, a place, and a ton of homework. For me it was a negative experience and I loathed the weekly ritual. Our “free-time” was either scheduled, earned, or usually from some form of a reward either for our good behavior or for selling boxes of candy to raise money for the facility. Never a time chosen by ourselves when we wanted this break or rest. Fortunately, both of my children, Autumn and Chloe, are natural- learners. Over the years, they both have taught themselves most of what they know, either from library books, websites, weekly field trips, and living life NOT behind a fence for 35 hours a week. They even have their own ebay business just for kicks. While living side by side with the girls, and by allowing them to pick and choose their activities, my old “schooling ideas” thankfully have become a part of my past.

Being able to seek what is enjoyable for us to learn about is so important. Watching and evolving with my children as an unschooling parent has been such a rewarding and educational experience and continues to be a way of life for myself. By allowing myself to let go of my old institutionalized methods that I attained from attending a private school and a public school, and by having very disciplinary type parents, I have rediscovered that learning is a fun part of life, not a required activity to achieve a grade. While Autumn and Chloe are such different human beings with completely different likes and interest, unschooling has allowed each of them to evolve into such interesting and happy people. Thankfully by researching and learning about deschooling, my participation in this phenomenom called unschooling would never have been attained if I hadn’t deschooled along with my children.

I would like to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite unschooling pioneers. John Taylor Gatto, from “How public education cripples our kids and why.”

“After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”

written by Kimberly Sharpe Slage

Related posts

• Deschooling For Parents (16)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (14)
• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Unschooling Is Not… (0)

ASK… LISTEN… AND LISTEN DEEPER

ASK….
Ask your child to make a list of all the things she wants to know more about. You may be very surprised. Follow through on this information and provider her with materials, books, teachers if appropriate, and opportunities to explore her interests. Encouraging your child’s natural inquisitiveness about all things nourishes her soul.

LISTEN…
Often a child will talk to a neighbor or friend instead of directly to you. Are there enough of these removed listeners in your child’s life? Can you be a receiving adult for a child other than your own?

LISTEN DEEPER…
Perhaps you are open and available to listen to your child but feel there is more that you need to know. Try talking directly to your child’s soul, guardian angel, or spirit. Get quiet and mentally ask if there is something you need to be aware of. You can ask for a picture or message that will help you parent in a deeper way. Listen to the thoughts that come.

PARENTS’ INSIGHT-BUILDING EXERCISE

Think of a time when you were heard as a child.

- Who listened?
- How did it feel to be heard?
- What did you say that was acknowledged?
- How does that experience live with you today?

Now think back to a time when you were there to listen to your child.

- What was that like?
- Why were you available to listen? Had you made time? Was your child demanding you stop and listen?
- What did you hear?
- How did your child react when you listened?

Ask for guidance this week on how to best hear your children’s needs. Ask for divine insight into ways you can help give your child’s feelings a voice.

Now let go and remain open to receiving insight and guidance. Listen to the subtle ways your inner wisdom is revealed.

Trust your ideas and insights; YOU are wise.

*Mimi Doe is the founder of Spiritual Parenting.com and the award-winning author of “Nurturing Your Teenager’s Soul”, “Busy But Balanced”, “10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting”, and co-author of “Don’t’ Worry Get In”. Mimi’s free newsletter, Spiritual Parenting, has more than 30m000 subscribers from around the world. Sign up on the website: www.SpiritualParenting.com.

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Deschooling For Parents (16)
• 45 Things I’ve Learned in 45 Years (22)
• Unschooling In The News (3)
• Unschooling In The News (4)

Elizabeth and Teddy Dean are learning about the Italian scientist Galileo, so they troop into the kitchen, where their mother Lisa starts by reviewing some facts about the Renaissance. Elizabeth, 11, and Teddy, 8, have never gone to school.
Their teachers are primarily their parents, which puts them into what is believed to be the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. education system — the homeschool movement.
For their science lesson, Teddy and Elizabeth are joined by three other homeschooled children and their mother, who live down the street in their suburb midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Before the lesson starts, all five kids change into Renaissance costumes — long dresses and bonnets for the girls, tunics and swords for the boys. “We definitely have a lot more fun than kids who go to school,” Elizabeth said.

Nobody is quite sure exactly how many American children are being taught at home. The National Center for Education Statistics, in a 2003 survey, put the number that year at 1.1 million. The Home School Legal Defense Association, which represents some 80,000 member families, says the figure now is quite a bit higher — between 1.7 and 2.1 million.
But there is no disagreement about the explosive growth of the movement — 29 percent from 1999 to 2003 according to the NCES study, or 7 to 15 percent a year according to HSLDA.

This growth has spawned an estimated $750 million a year market supplying parents with teaching aids and lesson plans to fit every religious and political philosophy. Homeschooled children regularly show up in the finals of national spelling competitions, generating publicity for the movement.

Parents cite many reasons for deciding to opt out of formal education and teach their children at home. In the NCES study, 31 percent said they were concerned about drugs, safety or negative peer pressure in schools; 30 percent wanted to provide religious or moral instruction while 16 percent said they were dissatisfied with academic standards in their local schools.

“I wasn’t sold on the idea of institutionalized education. It’s a factory approach — one size fits all,” said Isabel Lyman, author of “The Homeschooling Revolution,” who taught both of her now-grown sons at home.
“The schools take all the joy out of learning. They don’t take account of a particular child’s interests, needs and development. The whole system is anti-child,” she said.

Regulation, instruction varyDifferent states take widely varying approaches to homeschooling. Some, like New York and Pennsylvania, require that the parents submit lesson plans four times a year and regularly test the children.

Others, like Texas, basically leave them alone. So there is little reliable data on how they are doing, said University of Colorado education professor Kevin Welner.

“There are popular myths that homeschooled children are socially inept, cloistered kids and that they are either illiterate or academic wunderkinds. Anecdotes aside, we simply don’t have the data to make such generalizations,” he said.

“Some children will get top-notch instruction. Others will get poor or minimal instruction. Obviously it will vary by parent,” he said.

Even the cliche that the majority of homeschooled children are evangelical Christians is outdated, if it was ever true.

The movement remains overwhelmingly white and middle class but it is growing fast among black and Hispanic families and becoming more politically and religiously diverse as well.

Some parents follow an educational philosophy known as “unschooling,” where the children are encouraged to follow their own interests rather than adhering to a fixed curriculum.

Laura Derrick, president of the National Home Education Network, has followed this philosophy with her 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter. “My son learned to read before he was 3 and I realized then we were working better than any school program ever designed,” she said. “Children are born wanting to learn.”

Lisa Dean, who was a lawyer before she became a mother, said homeschooling her children was tremendously rewarding but also very exhausting. “It’s a long day with the kids. I look forward to when my husband comes home,” she said.

She also has backup from a local group of 70 homeschooling families who organize group field trips and extracurricular activities. Her children both take lessons in Celtic music on the fiddle, play soccer and basketball and have tried classes in art, hip-hop dancing and kick boxing.

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Deschooling For Parents (16)
• Unschooling Interview (13)
• Unschooling In The News (4)

But we, as a society, rarely take children seriously the way they take *themselves* seriously. To children, *play* is serious business — channeling enormous creative energies and making huge discoveries. But to adult society, it’s “just” play, so interrupting or limiting it is not a big deal.

To children, *feelings* are extremely important, not “just” feelings.

If you want to take your child more seriously, don’t do it the conventional adult way, which is to assign *weight* to the child’s concerns. That only teaches heaviness.

Children take *lightness* seriously. And when you take their lightness seriously, *you* benefit by learning to take yourself *less* seriously!

http://dailygroove.net/seriously Feel free to forward this message to your friends!
(Please include this paragraph and everything above.)
Copyright (c) 2007 by Scott Noelle

Related posts

• Valerie Fitzenreiter And Laurie Chancey Interview (2)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling In The News (3)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• The Unprocessed Child: Living Without School (12)

Woman #1: Hi. My name is Maggie. My kids are the three in red shirts — helps me keep track of them.
Woman #2: (Smiles) I’m Terri. Mine are in the pink and yellow shirts. Do you come here a lot?
W1: Usually two or three times a week, after we go to the library.
W2: Wow. Where do you find the time?
W1:: We home school, so we do it during the day most of the time.
W2: Some of my neighbors home school, but I send my kids to public school.
W1:: Wow – how do you do it?
W2: It’s not easy. I go to all the PTO meetings and work with the kids every day after school and stay real involved.
W1: But what about socialization? Aren’t you worried about them being cooped up all day with kids their own ages, never getting the opportunity for natural relationships?
W2: Well, yes. But I work hard to balance that. They have some friends who’re home schooled, and we visit their grandparents almost every month.
W1: Sounds like you’re a very dedicated mom. But don’t you worry about all the opportunities they’re missing out on? I mean they’re so isolated from real life — how will they know what the world is like — what people do to make a living — how to get along with all different kinds of people?
W2: Oh, we discussed that at PTO, and we started a fund to bring real people into the classrooms. Last month, we had a policeman and a doctor come in to talk to every class. And next month, we’re having a woman from Japan and a man from Kenya come to speak.
W1: Oh, we met a man from Japan in the grocery store the other week, and he got to talking about his childhood in Tokyo. My kids were absolutely fascinated. We invited him to dinner and got to meet his wife and their three children.
W2: That’s nice. Hmm. Maybe we should plan some Japanese food for the lunchroom on Multicultural Day.
W1: Maybe your Japanese guest could eat with the children.
W2: Oh, no. She’s on a very tight schedule. She has two other schools to visit that day. It’s a system-wide thing we’re doing.
W1: Oh, I’m sorry. Well, maybe you’ll meet someone interesting in the grocery store sometime and you’ll end up having them over for dinner.
W2: I don’t think so. I never talk to people in the store – certainly not people who might not even speak my language. What if that Japanese man hadn’t spoken English?
W1: To tell you the truth, I never had time to think about it. Before I even saw him, my six-year-old had asked him what he was going to do with all the oranges he was buying.
W2: Your child talks to strangers?
W1: I was right there with him. He knows that as long as he’s with me, he can talk to anyone he wishes.
W2: My children never talk to strangers.
W1: Not even when they’re with you?
W2: They’re never with me, except at home after school. So you see why it’s so important for them to understand that talking to strangers is a big no-no.
W1: Yes, I do. But if they were with you, they could get to meet interesting people and still be safe. They’d get a taste of the real world, in real settings. They’d also get a real feel for how to tell when a situation is dangerous or suspicious.
W2: They’ll get that in the third and fifth grades in their health courses.
W1: Well, I can tell you’re a very caring mom. Let me give you my number — if you ever want to talk, give me call. It was good to meet you.

Related posts

• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Deschooling For Parents (16)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling Interview (13)
• Unschooling In The News (3)

For those who’ve never heard of deschooling, it’s the process one goes through after leaving an institutionalized schooling environment. Your child has probably their natural desire to learn squashed and will need time to recover from that. With a parent’s help, they can gain back most, if not all of what they lost and begin to see the world as a place where learning is enjoyable and all around us.

So, what can the parent do to help? We have to work on changing our own preconceived notions about education, learning and school. I hear about many parents taking their kids out of school, recreating the same forced learning environment at home, only to have it come to a crashing halt with the mom feeling like a failure and the kids being miserable. Maybe, if they would have given themselves, and their children, some time to deschool, it would have turned out different for all of them.

My husband Billy & I started reading John Taylor Gatto even before removing our children from school. That was the start of my deschooling. I started to become aware of my thoughts on public school, real learning and education. And I started to question those thoughts. Thoughts that I had always accepted, without question because “that’s the way it’s always been done.”

I had been a “good” student (except in high school when all hell broke loose), meaning I did what I was told and made good grades. I wasn’t picked on, I had friends and got along with the teachers. But it was the thoughts about real life and real learning that I got from school that did the most damage.

I remember having to take a cooking class in junior high school. I hated it and got a very low grade on my report card. There it was, in black & white…I failed at cooking. Surprise, surprise…today, I hate cooking and have no confidence in my ability to cook something edible. (Although this serves me well because Billy does 99% of the cooking-lol). Someone, who never met me, decided it was time for me to learn to cook, and because I wasn’t interested at that time and found it boring, I was labeled “poor” in cooking. I never gave it any thought until I started deschooling. It wasn’t like it crushed me when I got my report card. Rather it confirmed that the reason I must have found the class boring was because I wasn’t good at it.

I began questioning why we, as parents, allow the school system to continue having control over our children when the school day ends. I’ve had teachers give me weekly lists of things for my children to do at home. I’ve heard many parents tell their kids “You can’t go out (or play) until you do your homework”. Suppose I want to do something with my family and homework is interfering with that? Why are they telling my children what to do when they’re in their own home?

I questioned why we’re expected to live by school policy at home. There had been many times when my children come home, the day before the standardized tests, and let me know that the teacher told the class to tell their parents that they need to eat a good breakfast the next morning. And then hand me a list of what exactly the school’s version of a good breakfast consists of. Why does the school system think they can dictate what parents and children do at home? Because we let them do it. Yes, WE LET THEM.

Once these thoughts started swirling around in my mind, there was no going back to my old way of thinking. I also started to become aware of other people’s thoughts about learning and education. Soon after I removed my kids from school, we ran into a friend and her son. It was close to the end of the school year and the mother asked if we “take a break for the summer”. I explained that we learn all the time and that learning is all around us. I went on to say that it would be like taking a break from breathing. As they walked away I heard her say to her son , “See, they have to do school work every single day, even in summer!”.

*sigh*

I recall a parent, of a schooled child, asking me how my kids do P.E. being they’re not in school. Who in their right mind would depend on the public school system for physical activity? It’s as if physical activity is only a subject, to be taken just at times that the school dictates. Ridiculous!

I also did a lot of reading during that first year of deschooling. My two main sources were the message board at unschooling.com which are now closed and Sandra Dodd‘s site. I read almost everything on both sites and I could feel my thoughts and perspective changing as I read more and more.

Although that was back in 2004, I feel like my deschooling is a work in progress. I’ve learned so much about myself that it became more of a spiritual awakening than anything related to school. School-speak seems like a foreign language to me now. I see what REAL learning is everyday with my children.

It looks nothing like school.

*originally written in 2004: updated in 2008*

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Letting Go – Deschooling For Parents (2)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• CNN Article On Homeschooling (5)

Customer Review:
You won’t find this book on a school library shelf–it’s pure teenage anarchy. With the exception of a forwarding note to parents, this book is written entirely for teenagers, and the first 75 pages explain why school is a waste of time. Grace Llewellyn insists that people learn better when they are self-motivated and not confined by school walls. Instead of homeschooling, which connotes setting up a school at home, Llewellyn prefers “unschooling,” a learning method with no structure or formal curriculum. There are tips here you won’t hear from a school guidance counselor. Llewellyn urges kids to take a vacation–at least for a week–after quitting school to purge its influence. “Throw darts at a picture of your school” or “Make a bonfire of old worksheets,” she advises. She spends an entire chapter on the gentle art of persuading parents that this is a good idea. Then she gets serious. Llewellyn urges teens to turn off the TV, get outside, and turn to their local libraries, museums, the Internet, and other resources for information. She devotes many chapters to books and suggestions for teaching yourself science, math, social sciences, English, foreign languages, and the arts. She also includes advice on jobs and getting into college, assuring teens that, contrary to what they’ve been told in school, they won’t be flipping burgers for the rest of their days if they drop out.

Llewellyn is a former middle-school English teacher, and she knows her audience well. Her formula for making the transition from traditional school to unschooling is accompanied by quotes on freedom and free thought from radical thinkers such as Steve Biko and Ralph Waldo Emerson. And Llewellyn is not above using slang. She capitalizes words to add emphasis, as in the “Mainstream American Suburbia-Think” she blames most schools for perpetuating. Some of her attempts to appeal to young minds ring a bit corny. She weaves through several chapters an allegory about a baby whose enthusiasm is squashed by a sterile, unnatural environment, and tells readers to “learn to be a human bean and not a mashed potato.” But her underlying theme–think for yourself–should appeal to many teenagers.

Click here to purchase

Related posts

• How Unschooling Is Changing How We Think Of Learning (11)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• Unschooling Interview (13)
• Post Tribune Unschooling Article (0)

Imagine waking up on a Monday and driving up to Berkeley to check out a new art gallery opening. That night you play some video games and crack open a book before hitting the hay. Think this sounds like a day off for a college student? It’s actually the school day of a 9-year-old. No, it’s not a fantasy Ferris Bueller-style: It’s a daily reality for thousands of young learners who call themselves “unschoolers.”

Unschooling. Some call it a counter-culture, but others just call it natural learning. It’s an offshoot of homeschooling coined by educational philosopher John Holt, but it varies from traditional homeschooling in the sense that there is no curriculum. None. No math, no English, no science, no history. You just live.

It’s the freedom to express yourself in any way at any time,” said Kevin Greene, a 15-year-old unschooler. “If you’re an artist you can paint, you can let your mind wander.” It may sound difficult to wrap one’s head around — to just live and fill a life with knowledge? This is shocking to most Americans who have attended school their entire lives. But for those who practice unschooling, it’s not that crazy. The idea is that people have a natural curiosity and can learn from living, and this is what will fill up children’s days. “It doesn’t really seem necessary to have people be in an institution to learn,” said Pam Tellew, mother of two unschoolers. “I think libraries are about a zillion times more important than schools.” The Internet is a tool that is especially supportive to unschoolers, Tellew added.

So what does one do all day if there’s no school? The question may be flawed. “You sound like you’re talking about learning about one specific thing… That’s not really what we do,” said Jesse Boss, an 11-year-old radical unschooler. Radical unschoolers like Boss often have no limits on what they study, how much dessert they get and no bedtimes. “There is no typical day,” said Annie Twist Lubke, a mother of two unschooled boys, Cortland and Caedan. “[One day] we’re traveling up to the city, San Francisco and Berkeley, to get together with other unschoolers. Another day we’re over chopping wood at [the boys’] grandparents house so we have fire. Our days really go wherever the interest is and whatever’s on our schedule.”

Another idea behind unschooling is that all information is interconnected. It’s not that the children aren’t learning, parents say; it’s just that information is not divided up into a curriculum. “The thing is that we don’t create it as this big subject,” Lubke said. “It’s not this big scary thing — it’s just part of our day.”

She explained that her sons, for example, learned multiplication figuring out the square footage of a shed. Unschoolers and parents insist that this sort of learning will make education pleasurable, as opposed to creating fears of inadequacy. “It’s been really interesting because it just confirms what I’ve felt all along — anything is an avenue to learning, anything that engages you teaches you something,” Tellew said. This can be anything from soccer to the video games which one of her sons plays avidly. And for television fans everywhere, 11-year-old Boss had this to say: “I’m pretty sure my little brother learned math watching television.”

The theme of interconnectedness does not stop at pedagogy. Unschooling expands to breed an idea of jointness throughout life, information and social systems. It’s simply about knowing how to live. “So much of the focus on schooling is academic information. I’ve come to understand that, yes, all that’s good, but the critical thing is that you know how to learn, how to think, how to communicate,” said Mike Boss, Jesse’s father. Boss considers unschooling more of a form of parenting than just an educational philosophy.

Parents play multiple roles in unschooling. They are not just teachers, but facilitators in a system foreign to most of them, since almost all attended school. At a large gathering of unschoolers in Boulder Creek, only one parent had been unschooled. The revival of this movement is just now seeing its oldest off to college. For parents, it’s a struggle at times to maintain an open mind. “Every once in awhile I get a bug in my head saying, ‘Gosh, I don’t think I know that this is out there in the world,’” Tellew said. “I started telling them about math and they didn’t really care.

Pushing that kind of stuff is what gives people that resistance.” She would rather her children follow something that excites them. In this case, parents act as the school themselves — many families often register with the state of California as a private school in order for their children to receive credit for their education. Others work with the local school board or with the HomeSchool Association of California (HSC) in order to get their requirements squared away with the state. Studies have shown that this type of learning as a family dynamic has proven effective. Dr. Doris Ash is an assistant professor in UC Santa Cruz’s education department and has researched science learning in informal settings like aquariums and zoos.

“The family for me is a stand-in of a social unit that can collaborate together,” said Ash, who watches families as they interact and learn from their environment. “Some kind of exquisite mix happens between what people already know and the activity they’re learning. What kind of knowledge does [the family] build collaboratively? It’s always the case that they know more together than alone.”

Unschooling and home schooling have been growing in popularity during the last few decades. An average conference of unschoolers can pull in as many as 700 to 800 individuals. Other alternative educational systems have gained popularity as well — notably Montessori Schools, which emphasize self-directed child activity, and Waldorf Schools, which stress interdisciplinary learning. These schools, and unschooling, are an antidote to what some see as the rigid standards surrounding education and evaluation. Dr. Ron Glass is a philosopher and an associate professor in UCSC’s education department. Much of his research focuses on the moral and political philosophy of education and the ideology of education.

“The notion that learning should somehow follow human nature has been around since the time of Rousseau,” Glass said. But the schooling we’re all now familiar with, he explained, is relatively new. “The school system that we have now was invented in the late 19th century and had very explicit models: factories, railroads and the army,” Glass said. “So they took features from each of those areas and created a school system. The school was designed to basically rank and sort people into the economic, social, ideological order.” But the 21st century is a very different time than the Industrial Revolution, with few remaining factories. “Before there was all this standardized curriculum and testing — all that began in the late 19th century — there was no such thing as school failure,” Glass said. “People just went to school or they didn’t.” Now that the curriculum has become more rigid, it has begun to create problems. Glass said, “It’s the system that produces winners, losers, those who pass, those who fail, those who count as somebody and those who count as nobody.

”Many are beginning to react against the current schooling system. The change, however, is slow. “I think schools have become so tightly connected to economic, political and social opportunities, and because of that people aren’t willing to abandon the standard model,” Glass said. Still, he continued, people are beginning to push back. Unschooling and the revival of home schooling are two examples of such a change. “[People are] trying to find a way to have schools be of good quality and give people real opportunities, but without hurting people along the way,” he said.While these new options are helpful, Glass pointed out that for the time being they are mostly available to families of solid socio-economic ranking. Children with two working parents must attend school.

While questions about lower education are soothed, many still worry about college. How will children transition into the real world? How will they go about applying to college? The reality is that it’s not so difficult. Many unschoolers begin to attend community colleges around the age of 15 or 16, and others have specialized in areas of interest, something looked upon favorably by many private schools. Much also depends on personal goals. “If [the kids] decide that they want to go to college, they’ll get themselves ready for it,” Tellew said. “What I’ve also seen is people growing up this way and saying, ‘You know, this isn’t what I want.’ It’s more about finding something that’s meaningful to them and meaningful to the world. They don’t care as much about the trappings of [societal definitions of] success.”

But the unschoolers themselves aren’t worried. In fact, they see things a little bit differently. A group of unschoolers met last week for a campout in Boulder Creek sponsored by the Homeschool Association of California (HSC) for all homeschoolers in California, where they found good luck with weather — they camped out under the first week of sun in almost a month. When asked about the perks of unschooling the kids counted friendliness, ease in communication and vivacious curiosity among the benefits.

“Not getting caught up with everything,” said 16-year-old Teamo (pronounced “te amo”) Gregori. “You can just learn and figure things out your own way.” “Another advantage is getting up a little later,” Jason Ramos said. What time did he wake up that day? 2 p.m.Ramos stood among a group of boys aged 8 through 16, all of whom were enthusiastic, well-spoken and appeared to be having a great time. Inside, children and adults were walking around together, playing outside or sitting engrossed in card games. A man playing cards wore a blue shirt proclaiming the famous Mark Twain quotation “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

It’s clear that something has begun, and the kids know it too.

Related posts

• Unschooling In The News (4)
• Unschooling Math (7)
• The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education (14)
• Post Tribune Unschooling Article (0)
• Anne Ohman: Making Connections (4)

*~~ Today is my birthday and I’m 45 years old. ~~*
I’ve always enjoyed gaining another year under my belt. Even the supposed hard ones, like turning 30 or 40, were welcomed with open arms. I wore each year proudly, almost like a badge of honor.

This is the first year that it’s difficult, but not because of the number 45. Difficult because it’s my first time having a birthday without my mother here with me. (Actually, it’s my first birthday without either of my parents, my father passed away 20 years ago).

Throughout my life, my mother I always had a very strong and close connection. She was my mother and my friend and I miss her so much. I always shared my birthday with her because it was “our” day. I always bought flowers for her on my birthday, as a thank you for having me. This year I’ll buy them and place them near her urn. I think that will make me feel better than not buying them at all.

I’ve learned some valuable life lessons so far and I look forward to learning more in the next 45 years.

45 things I’ve learned in the first 45 years of my life.

1. Time may heal most wounds, but not all.
2. Love is not always the answer
3. Life is what you make it.
4. Real friends come through for you when you need them the most.
5. The public school system in this country sucks and is getting worse every day.
6. Unschooling rocks!
7. Hurt people hurt others.
8. We are all connected
9. Religion can sometimes do more to separate people than bring them together.
10. Hard rock is best served LOUD.
11. Biology doesn’t make a family.
12. Chocolate does make things better
13. My mother was right when she said “This too shall pass”
14. People may try to hang their baggage on you…don’t let them.
15. When people come together, in the wake of a tragedy, it’s a beautiful thing to be part of. (RIP to all the souls killed on September 11, 2001)
16. Change is growth
17. Dogs are great friends
18. Don’t listen to the attendant – lift those hands up when you’re on a roller coaster!
19. Al Sharpton truly is a jackass.
20. There are times in our life when we just have to move on.
21. Always, always listen to your gut instinct.
22. Take responsibility for what you say
23. Take responsibility for your actions.
24. Sometimes revenge feels good
25. It’s a good idea to take a deep breathe before saying something you might regret
26. Some people come in to your life for a short time but you remember them forever.
27. Never gossip about someone in a public restroom.
28. Doctors do not always know what their talking about.
29. DCF/CPS/DSS does not always have the best interest of the child at heart.
30. Learning is everywhere
31. Being the white parent of two brown skinned children, I’ve found racism in places I wouldn’t expect.
32. I am a REAL parent. If you ask me where my kids real parents are, I’m going to slap you.
33. My kids are my REAL kids. If you ask me why I don’t have kids “of my own”, I’m going to slap you again.
34. People who say #32 and #33 are misinformed about adoption and have no idea what they’re talking about.
35. I’ve never been mainstream or traditional
36. I have met some really cool people through the internet.
37. I will never be a follower.
38. New York City is the best place on earth
39. My husband will always be a 16 year old at heart
40. Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission (thanks Elenore Roosevelt)
41. Just because you’ve always done something a certain way, doesn’t mean it’s the right way
42. If I don’t write it down, I’ll forget it.
43. Animals deserve to be treated with respect
44. I feel at home in a book store
45. Life is short – make the most of it

Related posts

• Unschooling Math (7)
• Deschooling For Parents (16)
• Unschooling In The News (3)
• Unschooling In The News (4)
• Transitioning from Unschooling to College (3)