Posted by Sir Four at 10:33am Nov 11 '05Unschooling is what you might call the fringe within the fringe. Adherents believe that following strict curriculums in the homeschool environment amounts to "playing school" at home. The unschooler disavows a curriculum and believes that the child should drive his or her own learning experience.
A standard curriculum is something created by some experts who believe that children should master skills x, y, and z by age 7, 8, 9, whatever. The unschooler believes that every child develops differently, and that it's okay if he or she excels or falls behind on this or that skill, compared to what the experts expect. For example, if an 8 year old is reading at an 11 year old level but still has not mastered his multiplication tables, that's okay--he'll pick up the math at a later time.
Another point that unschoolers make is that the standards place too much emphasis on unimportant things, like penmanship. This is considered, by the unschooler, to be time wasted. Basic skills like math and reading are still considered important by the unschooler, but almost more important is instilling in the child a love of learning, a sense of how to learn and how to solve problems, and a feeling of independence and self-direction.
You can read more about unschooling at unschooling.com. I'd like to ask what you think, but the reactions to the idea of vanilla homeschooling alone were pretty rough. Unschooling must be beyond the pale!
A standard curriculum is something created by some experts who believe that children should master skills x, y, and z by age 7, 8, 9, whatever. The unschooler believes that every child develops differently, and that it's okay if he or she excels or falls behind on this or that skill, compared to what the experts expect. For example, if an 8 year old is reading at an 11 year old level but still has not mastered his multiplication tables, that's okay--he'll pick up the math at a later time.
Another point that unschoolers make is that the standards place too much emphasis on unimportant things, like penmanship. This is considered, by the unschooler, to be time wasted. Basic skills like math and reading are still considered important by the unschooler, but almost more important is instilling in the child a love of learning, a sense of how to learn and how to solve problems, and a feeling of independence and self-direction.
You can read more about unschooling at unschooling.com. I'd like to ask what you think, but the reactions to the idea of vanilla homeschooling alone were pretty rough. Unschooling must be beyond the pale!