Your thoughts on unschooling!

I don’t know if this will really answer your questions (and I haven’t researched much on unschooling), but CM encouraged spreading a feast before children, not forcing every child to regurgitate the same information.  They make their own connections with the rich life and and experiences they are given.  So in a way you are controlling what they learn by choosing the best possible materials to bring into your home, but in a way they are controlling what they learn by making their own connections with those materials.  I don’t think it’s a bad or stifling thing to be choosy about what we expose our children to. I also think that children (and adults!) don’t always know how much they will enjoy something until they are forced to try it.  A certain topic may sound dull at first but end up more interesting than anything else you have studied.  🙂

The life of a Christian is filled with battling our sinful nature and making ourselves do what is right through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes we don’t want to do something, and it isn’t fun or interesting, but we still must do it.  Sometimes that is another load of laundry, sometimes it is being kind to someone who isn’t kind to us, sometimes it is going to work when you would rather be fishing, sometimes it is reviewing our math tables.

So there is both sides to the story. CM methods leave so much room for savoring the topics we find facinating while gaining some basic knowledge many areas.  Our Christian faith tells us that working hard in all areas of our lives glorifies God, and our joyful and willing attitude in situations(subjects!) that are more frustrating is a witness of the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.  🙂

Hope that makes sense and at least sort of speaks to your questions.  🙂

You didn’t mention which unschooling book you are reading, but there are books about Christian unschooling. A lot of unschoolers practice ‘strewing’ (the mom purposefully places educational materials based on the child’s interests or areas they might want to cover), which reminds me of CM’s ‘spreading a feast.’ Other unschoolers are completely child-led. We’re like you – scoping out all of the options but settling on CM as being the best fit for our family, long-term goals, and my own teaching style. 🙂

   IMA-I think of it more as there are two types of unschooling. guided and unguided schooling. I am assuming you are thinking of unguided. You really have to set up things for them to do anyway.  Some say you don’t “unguided” but I found that if you don’t they want to do things like play on the computer and TV if you have it around. I guess if they want to be a computer person all their life then maybe that is good. When they suggest that you get them the materials you should probably have them on hand or be quick to get them. If you don’t get them right away or don’t have access to them right away then you may loose their interest.  I have a friend that was using this method and when I pulled my children out of school I did this for a little while. I found that I needed to guide them because they would play all day. Now play is a good thing but it was becoming quite disruptive.  We had gone with a box curriculum and that was good except my perfectionist son really hated it. This is when I learned about learning styles. 🙂 Homeschooling is a learning process. For a parent as well as a child. I think life is just that way. We look for the best way to teach our young children, their styles, fun things to do ect.. We always have to keep growing. You just have to look at what is good for yourself, child and family and situation. I am so glad I was turned on to SCM by a friend. It was what we were looking for. SCM seems to me like a guided unschooling. 🙂  We have an agenda but it is more layed back like unschooling however we are guiding what they learn.  So, I hope I don’t offend anyone by calling SCM a guided unschooling but this is just my opinion on how to explain it if someone wants to do unschooling.  I don’t just turn my kids loose without guidance only because I think they should be prepared. I know they say they will catch up but forbid you and hubby dies.  Where will they be then?  They may be stuck in a ps and they will be behind and I would hate to think that they wouldn’t have the skills for the grade level they have to function at. Is that really the time when you want a child to start new things? So, with that said I hope I answered some of your thoughts on the subject.  I myself am not against unschooling I just think that they can learn at their own pace but guide them in that direction. 

     I have seen a large family recently that had gone threw a divorce.  The kids were put into ps. They were behind by at least 2 years.  There was nothing that this mom could do. It wasn’t her fault that her husband chose a different life that didn’t include them.  This has changed their schooling for the rest of their lives.  I felt bad because I heard some of the other people talk poorly of this woman.  I believe if she was able to carry out her job all of those children would have been fine by the time they were in/out of High School.  However, because of one tragedy they were looked poor upon. 

  This is only my opinion and I know there are others out there that have done fine with Unschooling. That is great.  I however don’t think it is the best option for myself.  It maybe what you are looking for. I just want to give you my thoughts on the subject at hand. 

   Blessings!

This is cool … just seeing a discussion of unschooling and CM! 

I love them both and have commented or advocated for them on here before in my posts or responses.  I think they blend beautifully as long as you can relax a little on both.  At least that has been my experience so far.  If you are a person who is very rule bound or schoolish (enjoy the feel of planned curriculum and school like environment or hours) then it’s probably going to be hard to accept the premise of unschooling or of blending the two philosophies.  However, the rich choices of a CM education really open themselves to an unschooling enivronment.  i was made espcecially aware of this after reading some of Charlotte’s own writings.

I don’t think I’d ever be able to totally abandon all structure for a radical unschooling approach.  I have found it works best for my children if they are involved and interested in what they are learning.  And if there are reasons behind learning it too.  Learning just for the sake of test taking, or someone else’s idea of what’s worthy doesn’t fly with us.  Luckily there is an endless supply of information out there to be learned and investigated!

The forum here tends to focus on schedules and plans a lot, but there are those of us on here who are following a much more relaxed form of CM that still accomplishes or mirrors the philosophy of a CM education. They just tend to be more quiet!

I do want to mention something that has now happened to me in two states in regards to unschooling groups/forums/etc – I’ve thought that my relaxed approach to unschooling would be well accepted and so I’ve tended to jump right in with those folks and declare our family sort of an unschooling family.  Whoa!  Did I ever meet with resistance (and I use that word over other harsher words I could use) to our version of unschooling.  I was told on several occasions that “you are not unschoolers!”  Apparently I’ve yet to find the unschoolers who have room for those of us who are not radical or who might adopt a variety of philosophies and approaches.  I’m still searching. 

Interestingly enough, when I read John Gatto’s work (which many think of as an unschooling approach) I did not get this extreme veiw of unschooling at all.  In fact I got something very similar to what you are attracted to and what we practice.  A respect for the child as a person, a respect for learning in all its forms and fancies, a turning away from the popular culture behavoirs and mentalities and a real push for “real life” learning in practical and meaningful ways. 

I had the same experience with Mary Griffith’s book – the unschooling handbook – too.  Not a lot of “don’t do anything, ever that resembles school or blatant learning” but more of an idea that there is so much wonderful learning out there for our children and that we should think of everything we do every day as what it is: learning.  Everything we do teaches us something – small or large, important or unimportant. 

I think we do this most effectively and best when we determine for ourselves what the “goal” is and then, keeping that in mind, walk forward with baby steps being unafraid to go backwards, swing around, do a square dance and come full circle on occasion!!  Really our attitude as parents and as learners goes a long way in how our children approach their educations.  If we are happy, enthusiastic and rearing to go … how can they not follow suit (most of the time anyway!)?

I think many people mistake some of the CM philosophies (the child as a distinct person, the development of character through living books, the study of practical skills) FOR unschooling. But it is absolutely not the same method – at all.

Basically, my understanding of unschooling is that it is completely child-led. I think this is a distorted view of the parent/child role and leads to many authority issues in the children I have been exposed to who have been educated this way. They resist authority, resist hard work, resist any of the demands that the rest of society will surely place on them.

Too often, unschooling becomes an excuse for ‘sloppy schooling’. I can’t forget the conversations I have had with unschooling moms, who tell me that thier kids are learning TONS from watching cartoons, how much they enjoy getting up at noon, and that they aren’t at all concerned that their 13 year old hates to read and write. I am sorry, but that is simply neglect of a child’s education, and isn’t ‘homeschooling’ at all.

I think we all want our kids to follow their own interests, but to put them in the teacher’s chair too soon is an act of foolishness, IMHO. Charlotte’s opinion was that children were born ‘persons’ – that they should be cared for, appreciated, and respected. But she did not advocate putting the children in charge of their own education. They simply aren’t ready for that level of responsibility…until they are educated and trained to be!

Sadly, most of the parents I know who have ventured down the ‘unschooling’ road have deeply regretted the damage it did to their children – educationally and morally.

Of course, this is only my subjective experience. But I would not be at all surprised if it was the general experience of Unschoolers.

This blog post might add to your understanding of the similarities and differences between Charlotte Mason and unschooling.

When you farm or are on overload with LIFE…unschooling happens on it’s own.  We’ve never tried to unschool, but we’ve had years that were largely that.  When there is a lot of LIFE happening, they learn really important things that you can’t get when you are schooling – out of necessity.  It would be a bad deal for us to unschool now.  We live in town and life is pretty low-key.  But in past years we milked and fed 200 plus goats with our kids at 9 and 11 doing a LARGE part (most) of the work, then we had a few years of haying (and hauling) around 100 acres (not much land when you do corn perhaps, but for a couple of kids to make hay 3 times a year with just a little help from Dad when he’s not working in town…it means haying more than not!).  Unschooling happened!  Nothing else was doable at that point.  But what they learned those years was invaluable.  They really know how to work.  They appreciate free time.  They know what things cost and what hardship is to a much greater extent than many in our country.  In other years we’ve tried to spread the feast a little more and faster to make up “lost” time…but I would not trade the one for the other.  We needed both.  I sometimes wonder if my younger kids will get this opportunity even though they may get a “better education”  – I doubt they’ll be better prepared for life.  So, that’s another .02!