Hi there, new follower! Found this link via a search for unschooling via Pinterest. This is SO helpful. Thanks for posting. So glad I found your website. This article is so encouraging and just what I needed today. But when I allow them freedom to embrace and pursue their natural interests, they are so full of life and creativity and I am so much happier and peaceful too! But When I read through your list of ways we learn.
I am interested in unschooling. I just recently started homeschooling my 3 oldest children. I have a second, third and fourth grader as well as a baby and they get so frustrated with the structure of school. I want them to learn and enjoy it. Really good ideas about unschooling, and homeschooling in general. I do have to disagree with one point you made though-as an artist and a writer I highly value the art of self-expression. You wrote that handwriting was not necessary.
Think of it like this; reading is all of the information and ideas coming in, and writing is one concrete and quantifiable way of getting ideas, thoughts and creations out. Without writing I think most children will be quite limited in how to express their individuality and unique ideas. If ever they are not able to, or cannot afford to, type on a computer-having an instrument for marking and a form of paper will be a canvas for their words.
Just a thought from someone who scribbled notes in my books, on my test papers, inside my jacket, on my arm, etc. A good poem, when it flows is too rich, too long to remember as it is being created.
It is often lessens or lost completely if I am unable to wrote it down!! I really enjoyed reading your article, looking forward to more.
Thank you! How does a child learn geometry or calculus unschooling? How does a child learn all about literature from the literary terms and ideas such as allusions to writing poetry through unschooling? I used to ask the same questions. What is the point of forcing your child to learn something they will likely forget as soon as they regurgitate it back to you and you are satisfied with their apparent grasp of the content? Some even choose to go to traditional schools later on down the line if that works for the individual child.
I started with what looked like regular school. I learned about unschooling and switched immediately. My oldest son recently passed went to college one year for computers and got a job with on the job training. He left that first company as a VP. He learned everything he knew from books and online.
My second son hardly studyed. He has an incredible gift of retaining knowledge. He started working at 15 installing hardwood floors and finally decided at 18 to take the GED. He scored 98 percentile. He joined the Air Force and then decided to get his Bachelors Degree. He clepped out of most his classes and it took him 2 years to earn the degree — all on line- and most of it deployed. He is now working on a masters in counter terrorism.
He and his wife homeschool their 3 children. My daughter took the GED and 16 and scored 94 percentile. She was a figure skater and spent most of her time at the ice arena. She began teaching the learn to skate program. As she advanced herself she also became a private coach by The ten year old is labeled a slow learner. I enjoyed reading your article about that, she fit the description of Devin to a T. We have 3 dogs, 4 cats, a parrot, 2 angora bunnies, chickens, ducks and 3 horses.
I absolutely LOVE your story! What an amazing testimony to what unschooling can do! Our children will naturally learn and be successful in life, but more importantly, they will be lifelong learners! This is much like saying kids need to be in school so they can learn to wait in line. In fact, what is taught in school quite often was originally added to the curriculum for very arbitrary reasons.
For instance, my oldest child is currently seeking a degree in computer engineering. He is successfully navigating calculus. Guess what? I never taught him geometry ;. His college pre-cal teacher was amazed at that fact. But then I began to question my own logic. Why, if math was supposed to be so useful and essential to life, was everyone so afraid of it?
Why does no one remember what they learned in high school math class? I mean, ask the average American citizen if they enjoy math. But most will answer negatively. But why? Math is part of the very core of the universe.
It is just as poetic and beautiful as language. But when I let go of my school training and started really looking for ways to learn math in everyday life, I saw it everywhere. Not only do you have to learn to play the game, you also need to build a deck from thousands of card choices — and this experience has led to lots of learning:.
And staunch unschoolers will no doubt stick to their guns. I, however, propose a keyhole solution. Simple: Impose a single parental mandate on unschooled children. Every day, like it or not, you have to do hours of math.
And if you postpone the study of math for long, it will be too late to start later on. We should have a strong presumption against paternalism — even the literal paternalism of a parent for his own child.
The value of math, however, is great enough to overcome this presumption. What I mean, rather, is that homeschoolers should require their kids to learn math.
The class was intended for students who had gone to terrible schools all their life and wanted to catch up before the entrance exams. It was amazing how much those students learned in only a couple of months. I think teenagers learn math so much faster than children that it might be worth it to delay math education even after taking into account the fact that math is cumulative.
This is a good counterpoint. I recall something from possibly slate star codex where students who had no formal math education up to grade five could catch up within a year of starting to learn it. If you take that logic further maybe if you skip it all the way to grade 12 you could just focus on it for a year and be caught up? But perhaps if you take it that far no one could do that, because as Bryan points out, most people find it really boring and you cannot focus too extremely on just math to catch up?
The experiment with not teaching math was by Louis Benezet. Here is Peter Gray on the topic. He even claims that waiting produces better results, that traditional teaching is brain damage. The other taught himself quite a bit, including significant amounts of trigonometry, because he was interested in computer programming and game design and the projects he undertook led him there. I like the keyhole solution, but it should probably be limited to those students who show some proclivity toward math.
I displayed some early math ability by age I loved it and eventually became a math major in college. She has other powers. I fear this would poison the well and make the whole concept of curiosity-driven education not work. Also hours of math is per day is enormous — if, as an adult, I could find the time and patience to study something hours per day… Moon, here I come. Forcing them to do math daily would quickly teach them that education is also yawning and finding excuses to waste time. I went to public school and there are massive holes in my math education.
I went to school at a time when various methods of teaching math were being tried and tested on us. We were guinea pigs and the experiment failed at our expense. I find the idea that math is the most crucial subject quite limiting and stagnant.
Did you ask these adult unschoolers about their arts education? What about their knowledge of plants and wildlife? If you look for holes you will always find them!
And if you live a life in which you do things how is it even possible to not learn math? I had a horrible maths education, but I use math all the time! Would my life be easier if my education had been better? What if I had grown up in an environment where I learned how to ask the right questions and the best methods to find the answers.
So that I was better prepared to be a lifelong learner. My son is quite gifted at math. At a very young age he figured out basic multiplication on his own. It was the first indicator to me that, left to their own devices kids will learn things that interest them. They will create problems in their mind and seek to solve those problems. Will there be holes? The idea behind unschooling that maybe you have missed is that if a child is called to a certain trade or profession they will be driven to learn and master the skills needed to work in the field.
If they are called to a STEM career they will want to learn the math skills they need to be qualified in the field. This may require more adult assistance, resources and accountability. But even if certain subjects are boring or hard for them, the sheer fact that they have created the goal for them self will give them the motivation to learn what they need to or in some cases find a loop hole around it! If math is important to your family then it is perfectly okay for your family to agree on learning math skills.
The important thing is that the kids are apart of the process. They get a say in their own education. That brings us to the core of unschooling, respect.
Everyone in the family is valued, everyone has a voice and is listened to. While the adult has a broad perspective to share, the child is an expert on themself and is capable of setting age appropriate goals and working towards them. CS programs usually require advanced math which is quickly and thoroughly forgotten and not used again. This is true of game developers, too. Only a small number work on the engines — and the rest use those engines.
I think this is less true than you realize. Almost none of them could actually do any of the math they learned, but the extra few years of math makes coming up with algorithms second nature.
Eh, maybe. But I doubt that their strength comes from having taken the math class vs being smart enough to get into and graduate from a top CS program. I agree with JayT. Another area that is often overlooked is you need at least a decent understanding of probability and stats to interpret many test results.
The best thing you can do for your kids with math is to learn to love it yourself. Play with it. Not just how to calculate, but why it works that way. Why does borrowing work? Why does carrying work? What is the real meaning of "place value" and why? Why do we use base math. Learn some other system. Learn to multiply in binary.
Play with numbers. Play with shapes. Why are "odd" and "even" called that? Is it important? How many math words do you know? How many math words do you use every day?
Count them! Make a list! How much math is there in your life that you are so comfortable with you're not aware of it? And my very favorite math question: How, exactly, do you know when it's safe to cross the street? Play with sets. Go outside and throw rocks and pay attention to the paths they travel. Drop stones into a pond and watch the ripples. Figure out why buildings don't fall down- or why they do.
Ponder why the wind off Lake Michigan travels through the city of Chicago the way it does. And Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plains How do you need to change things to accommodate that? Or other weather?
Why are most of the roofs in places that get a lot of snow not flat? I could go on and on and on and on. You can, too. Question everything. Figure some of it out. Don't worry about whether you are learning math or not.
You are. If I waited for them to come to me asking how to divide Why would they not ask you? If they needed to divide and couldn't figure it out, they woudn't ask for help? Or is it that you believe they'd never need to? Sometimes, we buy a box of popsicles. In our family, treats like that are portioned out by shares, so each kid gets a fair share.
They're into this. But the youngest used to have to ask me how to figure out what her share was. She very specifically DID come to me and ask me to help her figure it out- to learn how to divide. Then she thought it was cool, and figured out shares of practically everything in the house.
They've never needed to. They do it in their heads. They estimate, when that's good enough for what they need. They use calculators. And honestly, that's what almost everyone does in real life when they need to divide big numbers anyway, because few people trust their own figuring enough to use it without checking. I used to freak people out when I ran a food buying club and did all the invoicing and such by hand, no calculator.
Truly, just wanting to figure it out. And that's what it's all about. Figuring stuff out that you need to know.
Remember that. I kind of got going on this, didn't I? In March, , Linda wrote to ask me to ask my sons about a video game her son was considering. This came from that correspondence, and I was eager to add it here! Just got home and spent a few minutes looking around on your site. Found some of my math stuff that you have posted prominently there wow! I'd like to add a comment to it. I wrote that in January , just over five years ago.
Since then, some things have changed. But not everything. We still don't "do math. He was using his computer; I was using mine. He asked me a question about prime numbers. I don't recall exactly what it was. Turns out, he was trying to create an algorithm to calculate prime numbers, and then to display them on his computer. I don't know why. For fun, I guess.
His method of display had something to do with a circle, and with sections of the circle, and he didn't know how to figure something out that he wanted to do. Again, I don't recall exactly what. But basically, he needed to be able to figure out something about triangles. Oh, I said. Triangles are cool. Let me show you something. So I showed him how to use basic trigonometry to figure out whatever part of a triangle, be it an angle or the length of a side, that he didn't know.
Spent about half an hour, maybe, showing him what the trig functions look like on a graph and how, in a triangle, or a circle, you can see how they relate to each other. Which, of course, it is.
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