Today I watched a CNN segment on “unschooling”, which is an educational method where the child chooses what to learn and when to learn it. (This schooling method does not appeal to me. I’m too organizational.) The segment set my brain whirling with thoughts and opinions about various educational methods. I decided to write an analysis of all the methods I know of and what I think of them. I even started writing it. Then I realized that my motivation for writing it was to reassure myself that laziness on my part isn’t the reason my kids attend public school.
I’ve considered homeschooling. I know I’m cabapble of being really good at it. To be honest, the thought of all the work invovled exhausts me. I would be constantly creating curriculum, researching topics, and planning activities. All of that while also managing the household and the business. I don’t want to do all of that. I don’t want to spend hours figuring out how to teach division when there are professional teachers available who already know how. Professional teachers already have the experience that I would have to painstakingly acquire. Why duplicate all that effort?
Public school teaches social lessons that cannot be learned at home. Sitting quietly, taking turns, and dealing with difficult people are all life skills. Some social lessons are painful, so painful in fact that some parents choose to home school in order to avoid them. I know that in public school my kids may encouter bullying, peer pressure, negligent teaching, or drugs. I feel that the best defense against these societal ills is not to shut my children up inside my safe house. The best defense is to inform my children about theset things before they encounter them.
Public school aslo gives my children the chance to meet people frome a variety of backgrounds, heritages, and socio economic strata. They get a chance to meet people with different values than we teach at home. This is good. Sheltering my children from these things is more likely to teach intolerance and fear than to provide safety. People need to have thier values and habits challenged so that they can re-evaluate them. I do not want my children following in my footsteps merely because no other footsteps are available to them.
The biggest indicator of educational success is parental involvement. If a child’s parents are actively involved it education, that child has already won no matter what educational method is used. If all the caring, active, involved parents pull their kids out of public school then the children whose parents can’t or won’t be involved do not stand a chance. I believe in the public school system. It has problems, all systems do, but most of those problems could be resolved if only more parents volunteered. I do volunteer in my kids’ schools. That fact reassures me that laziness isn’t why they’re there, because volunteering isn’t easy.
To summarize: My kids are in public school because I feel that social lessons are as important as academic ones and because by being there both they and I have a chance to help other kids who need it.
There, I feel better. Now my brain can stop whirling and find happy thoughts.
Edit: I feel better until I re-read it and after every paragraph my brain starts supplying contrary arguements for everything I just said. Sigh.
Oooh. What show was it on? I’d love to see it. My dh and I are an unschooling family, for the record, and your post seems very reasonable even if I don’t 100% agree. But that’s why we can all make the best choices for our own families, right?
It was a 6 minute video segement on CNN.com.
I completely agree that everyone needs to make the best choices for their family. And I think that no matter what parents choose, they’ll always be second guessing those choices. (Hence this post analysing my reasons for choosing public school.) If I ever become convinced that non-traditional schooling is best for my family, I’ll switch fast.
I’m curious though. What brought you to choose unschooling? Do you guide your kids toward educational topics or really let them steer completely? I can only picture unschooling being effective if the parents nudge the kids a little here and there. I’m interested to know if that mental image matches with reality.
Ugh! I had to split it up because it was too long
I’ve always wanted to homeschool, but after doing a lot of reading about different techniques, this was the one that I felt the most comfortable with. Spending time with homeschooled families has reinforced that, too. I see too many families getting into huge power struggles over sitting down at a workbook or textbook. And the unschooled kids that I have met were so good at being internally motivated and well spoken. That said a lot to me.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a time or place for textbooks, workbooks and formal curricula, but I think that for us, at this point in the kids’ lives, we’re better off without. As you said, if I ever become convinced that something else is best for my family, I’ll switch fast 🙂
I like http://unschooling.com/ and http://sandradodd.com/unschooling for food for thought. And I just noticed that wikipedia has a section, too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
(Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Yes, we do some gentle nudging. Usually it’s in the form of purchasing the materials I want her to cover and leaving it handy. Last year, we had a huge Usborne book party and got (among lots of other things!) the encyclopedias of world geography, world religion, the human body, and one or two more additional ones. Eva (7) sits and reads those unprompted. I am guessing her reading level is somewhere in the 5th or 6th grade level, since she can read books rated for 9-12 year olds very easily. She can finish a 300 page Little House on the Prairie prequel (different author, written about Laura’s mother, grandmother, and great grandmother) in one day and understand and retain the information.
Eva is entirely Little House on the Prairie obcessed, actually. She wants to know how to cook like Laura did, sew quilts like Laura did and recently chose an adult level book on the pioneers who travelled west “just like Laura did”. She may not comprehend as much as an adult would, but I’m sure she’l get a lot out of it and we’ll discuss it at length so I can answer questions and learn something too!
She also reads the biographies and Cricket magazines (combination of fiction and non-fiction) that are left around for her. Raffi (4.5) isn’t reading yet but loves Eva to read to him.
We had a homebirthed baby this year, so of course reproduction and health issues are covered in detail! I wish I’d had a video camera to tape Raffi practicing “going into labor”. He’d squat on a chair and moan and push out his baby, then announce the sex and nurse it. It was SO cute and funny!
We haven’t gotten into using the encyclopedia yet, but I’m looking forward to that once her spelling catches up with her reading skills. But remember, there’s a whole range. I know people who do much more structured stuff than we do and call it unschooling and people who are way less structured than us and call it unschooling.
Raffi is 2.5 years behind her, but he’s almost as good as she is with math. We do a lot of computer stuff (web searching, educational computer games, using Paint to draw, reading the weather report together, listening to music together, etc) and reading (we have a huge used bookstore near us that gives away the books for free) and like to hang out at the local bookstores (Barnes and Noble or Borders) and read and socialize with other kids. Eva and Raffi are very very interested in nutrition and obcessively read labels on food, ask me to look up nutritional information on unlabeled foods, and discuss the reason we eat those foods (or why we shouldn’t).
Eva is taking sewing classes and wants to learn to quilt with me and the two kids are signed up for but haven’t begun an art class. They’re both interested in dancing classes and Eva wants horse back riding classes. We enjoy going to the state park and exploring the outdoors and get nature “lessons” from their grandparents who live on a farm in NY.
We recently were considering moving to India for a year, which prompted many discussions about the differences between the cultures. Had we gone further in the process, I’m sure we would have covered much more. Instead, Eva is reading about Japan in an effort to convince us to move there, since she wants to eat sushi and udon soup every day 🙂 I’m sure that when she gets bored with Japan, England will be on the list of places to consider next, as she’s said that she wants to go there and “have a tea party every day”. (I took her for an English Cream Tea and she was in love!)
One of the things that I love about homeschooling is the flexibility that it affords us. We want to visit relatives in NY for a week? Cool! We can learn about trees and wild animals for a while. If we want to go visit my friend Elisa in Florida? I’d take her to the Everglades (ok, it’s not CLOSE by but if we’re already in Florida, it’s a must). If we spent time with my mother and sister in NYC? Museums and historical sites galore!
This is just a sample of some of the things we do. There’s opportunity for learning everywere.
Another thought is that if you are concerned about the quality of education your students receive in specific subjects, you can always tutor those at home. That way you’d be supplementing what your kids learn in school without removing the social component. When I was in elementary school my dad tutored me in math – I hated it, but I’m really good at it now!
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
I thought in most states you have to submit lesson plans and cirricula in advance for material that you are going to cover for children who are homeschooled. Is that not a policy where you live, or is there some other way you fufill that requirement on the “unschooling” system?
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
If you don’t mind telling, about how much do you spend on educational supplies? (I used to be a sucker for educational spending before money got so tight, so I know how it all adds up.)
How do you make sure that your kids get enough social interaction with peers? Do they take classes? I have a lingering aversion to higher math, how do you encourage kids to learn something they’ll need, but you don’t like much yourself? What if a child is learning disabled and resists learning to read?
I agree with you about opportunities for learning everywhere. I do some of the same things that you’ve described as after school enrichment for my kids. So I guess I’m already doing some of that work I thought I was avoiding.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
After 15 years of teaching, I can say that I never met a home schooled child who was entering high school who did not have significant “disabilities” (for want of a better word). Children who are average to bright almost never have parents who can give them balanced direction. The kids come in with a vast store of knowledge in some areas and huge gaps in others. Sad to say, knowing how to successfully do 35 quilt patterns is of no practical use if you don’t understand math. (Of course, if you taught geometry and trig with quilt patterns, that’s another matter.) And very very few parents give adequate math instruction. Most kids get marched through the awful Saxon rote books or some similar series which is the lifeless application of algorithms. When they get to higher math, they have no math instincts and they don’t see any of the beauty.
Gifted – especially very gifted kids – are the opposite problem. They are used to moving at their own pace, and putting aside anything that doesn’t grab their interest. School tries to fit them into a regimen with the same pace for everyone and which requires equal devotion to things that may be hideously boring. My own son basically dropped out of school after 9th grade,never got a high school diploma, spent a summer taking enough community college classes to get him into college, and then dropped out of 2 colleges. It was all too slow and boring. He followed his interests, is completely self taught, and earns 150% as much as I did last year as a teacher with 15 years of experience. Some kids, you can’t school. And, FWIW, I did home school him for a year, while working full time as a teacher and as a single parent. I don’t recommend it.
So, I’m opposed to home schooling, unschooling, and, I might add, public schools. Oh, and private schools, too, although I think that an all voucher system might be worth a try. It would allow the development of smaller schools that fill specific market niches, like the one I ran for a couple of years – we specialized in kids who could not survive in public schools because of learning or social disabilities but who were generally of above average ability. If we could tailor smaller schools to more specific learning styles, we’d have a much better system than one size fits none. But I’m just bitter about the whole education thing. You should probably ignore me. 😉
Personally, I think that public schooling is the way to go. Private school kids have always been snotty, and home-schooled kids are always a bit weird, and never quite fit in socially.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
What books would you recommend for homeschooling or tutoring math (if you were going to recommend it)? You mention the awful Saxon rote books, and I think those are the only things I have experience learning math with. I’d like to find something that brings across the beauty of it.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
I don’t know which states require that, but not MD (where we live) or NY (where we’re moving). There’s always a way to creatively and yet honestly write stuff, though.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
How much we spend depends on how much we can afford. I can drop a small fortune on books, or we can go to the book thing and the library, for example. It’s not impossible to homeschool for next to nothing. Or to spend a lot. I can’t tell you how much we specifically spend on school, though, as it’s the same budget as entertainment. I mean, does a trip to a children’s museum with a karate class count and a whole human being anatomy as school/PE/biology or a playdate? How about going out to see March of the Penguins? You get the idea…
My kids don’t get enough social interaction, but it has nothing to do with homeschooling. They’re both somewhat shy and tend to avoid groups. When forced to, they tend to get very upset and act poorly. In my experience, they do best when able to control the pace that they meet new groups. I’d like them to be meeting more kids! But they’re going at a pace they’re happy with. So, for now, Eva is in a small community sewing class and both kids are signed up for an art class for homeschooled kids that starts next month. I’d like to see them in a gym class or two as well, but we haven’t found the right program. Additionally, we spend a lot of time in the children’s sections of Barnes and Noble and Borders playing and interacting with other kids.
At this level of math, it’s easily learned from daily life. Dh has dual college majors in computer science and statistics, so he can teach math as high as we need to go, but if they’re not able to learn math from him, we can hook up with a homeschool class in math. I’m told that I shouldn’t worry about it, that their math will do the same as her reading did, but if it doesn’t, I would be proactive about it.
If one of the children had trouble learning by conventional methods, I would integrate whatever I needed to in order to help them learn. I understand that some people’s comfort zones are more flexible than mine, that some children take longer to read than others, but I personally would not be comfortable with prolonged illiteracy.
And yes, I think most good parents homeschool, whether or not they realize it 🙂
Heh. I was a weird public schooled kid who never fit in, so was dh and I suspect my kids would be, regardless of whether we outschooled or not. And I know some pretty normal homeschooled kids, too.
Or you could homeschool and supplement the social part. Personally, and this isn’t criticism for anyone who does differently, I think my children will do better off without the “socializing” that goes on in schools. I attended both private and public (regular public schools based on districts and “specialized” science schools with selective student populations and have had very bad experiences with both. For that matter, some of my college experiences were that bad, too.
I could have been one of those kids who brought guns to school and killed a lot of people, it was that bad. I’ve been beaten up, ostracized, spat on, had my shoelaces set on fire, excluded from study groups, and more. I’ve been made to feel that my life was in danger by living on campus. Multiple suicide attempts later, I’m still alive, but not for the better. I have almost nothing good to say about my outschooling experiences.
If my public school experiences had been as bad as you’ve described yours to be, I would certainly be homeschooling as well.
Wow. You seem one for generalizations.
Public school kids seem to always be illiterate thugs. But then you’d mark me as a snotty private school kid so we are at an impasse.
My oldest is in public school. I’m utterly baffled at the way this school operates. Teaching to the lowest common denominator? Scheduling testing to see how smart/developed a child is and then not doing it but changing the notes home from the child is lazy to the child is unmotivated?
I think has the right idea. Let’s build schools based around learning styles instead of subject matters/ability levels.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
(you show up just about everywhere….we moved out of the Bay Area, CA in 2002 otherwise we’d probably be meeting face to face)
So, I’m opposed to home schooling, unschooling, and, I might add, public schools. Oh, and private schools, too, although I think that an all voucher system might be worth a try. It would allow the development of smaller schools that fill specific market niches,
I like this idea. But I’m concerned that it harkens back to the idea of guild schools and specialization is for insects.
I tutored learning disabled children when I was in high school. It wasn’t so much that the children are disabled but just that they learn differently from others. Chip Copeland was very smart but he needed to feel the letters forming under his finger when he was reading and the first time he wrote out a word. I’m some what convinced that he would have been considered very normal if he had been born in China or Japan.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Well, I haven’t taught math for a while. What ages are we talking about? What level of math and what ability level? There is no series I know of that jumps to mind that fits all. I had the misfortune/good luck (same thing, here) to have a math prodigy in my son, who was a truly bizarre experience to teach – we were fighting for algebra instruction in the 4th grade, and by the time he was in high school he was so far ahead that we just gave up. OTOH, I loved teaching the kids I described as the “walking wounded” – 8th and 9th graders who had had such poor math instruction that they were convinced they couldn’t do math at all. With these kids, it was more a matter of math strategies. For example, you had to write all the steps (this was pre algebra). ALL the steps. Every problem was worth 4 points – one for writing the steps, one for correct substitutions, one for a correct label on the answer (important in doing area and volume), and one for a correct answer. So the emphasis is not on the answer, it’s on the process. Manipulatives are wonderful – Cuisenaire rods for elementary and using the Cuisenaire books –this is a great resource, and even though I haven’t used them, I’d be interested in looking at the Cuisenaire books in general. My favorite prealgebra text is Houghton Mifflin’s Gateways to Algebra and Geometry. It’s a great book for any kid who is ready for it.
There is a lot of value in rote practice, especially up to pre-algebra. Kids need to have the basics at their fingertips. Most kids get lost at fractions, because fractions can be very unintuitive. Why do you get a smaller number when you multiply? I once put together a whole series of worksheets in which kids never had to solve a problem, but they did have to say whether the answer would be greater or less than the number they started with, and whether they should add or subtract (first set) or multiply or divide(second set). They found this unspeakably difficult, which showed that they didn’t know how to think about the problems. I have a friend at a high achievement private school who still uses them at 6th grade, but most of the inner city high school kids I’ve had couldn’t do them. So fractions need support with games like Fraction Action. We found a lot of entertaining math games when my son was little – I used to haunt educational supply houses and got a lot of good deals on closeouts and overstocks. This series is fun for Geometry.
I do go on, don’t I? If this is no help, please ask a more specific question.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Well, I try to show up in all the best places 😉 Chip sounds like a kinesthetic learner. We all are, to a degree, but life is hard on kids for whom this is the primary learning mode – they’re the smallest minority in learning styles. The majority are visual learners, which is why teachers write everything on the board and show pictures. I had a student who was a marvelous violist and an auditory learner -in order to remember what I’d said in a lecture, she had to virtually replay the lecture in her mind until she got to the right “passage,” so she needed extra time on tests because it was harder for her to rewind tapes in her head than for kids who were mentally skimming their notes.
I don’t really believe that an all voucher system would work, either – given my son’s IQ, statistically there might have been 10 kids in Seattle (where we lived) who would have been in his league. OTOH, he was really rather behind in social skills and social studies. Math types often don’t get people stuff until a few years after their contemporaries. I think some people – maybe even most – are born as specialists – that is, with a strong leaning towards certain disciplines. Unfortunately, this is often squelched in our regimented schools instead of being nurtured.
The real solution? Ungraded classes with 20 or fewer students. Work loads that encourage teachers, give ample time for prep and grading to make it possible to do their jobs. Support for keeping current with their disciplines. (BTW, very few teachers that I know are interested in huge salaries. They’re interested in respect and being able to do their jobs.) That’s the real solution. Take a moment to think about how much money could have gone to each state for education and heath care instead of Iraq. The sad truth is, we really don’t care about education, or we’d elect very different leaders.
End rant. 😉
Sounds a lot like my “education” and my son’s experiences in public school. I would have homeschooled, but as a single parent, I had no choice but to work full time, and you just can’t do that and home school – not if you’re a serious teacher. That’s why I diin’t freak out when the kid stopped going to school after 9th grade. All’s well that ends well, I guess.
Sandra said:
The biggest indicator of educational success is parental involvement. If a child’s parents are actively involved it education, that child has already won no matter what educational method is used. If all the caring, active, involved parents pull their kids out of public school then the children whose parents can’t or won’t be involved do not stand a chance.
I REALLY AGREE!
I’m not able to volunteer at school yet, but I stop in and talk to the teacher every so often to check on progress in trouble spots, and all of LightningBoy’s classmates like to come and talk to me about everything and anything. I catch boys at the school being naughty and I correct them. I ask kids why they aren’t wearing a coat in 15 degree weather. I watch out for the kids who walk down the same street I do to go home. I feel like I have an effect on the kids around me. If all the parents were involved or cared as much as I do (or more) school would be so much better for everyone involved!
Sandramort said:
And yes, I think most good parents homeschool, whether or not they realize it.
I agree! We make sure homework gets done and if there isn’t any we get out the workbook. We talk about everything he learns at school and add to it. We make sure that if there is something to be learned from our surroundings we talk about it.
As long as we are involved I believe we can make any school experience a more positive and successful one.
(although, because of how Jr.High was for me, homeschooling just during Jr. High IS tempting… 🙂
Oh and I hate the new grading system of Satisfactory or Needs Improvement… it’s too PC where did the ABCDF system go?
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
I’d love to make something up about a kid I’m wanting to help, but the truth is, it’s me. I’m one of those you described as “walking wounded” – so traumatized by poor math instruction I’m convinced I can’t even add. Except I’m not a kid, I’m 42! I’d like to “start over” and learn how to think about math so it doesn’t seem so impossible and foreign.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Ah, for you! Well, here are some suggestions. Go to your best local library and see what they have in math in the kids section. There are many wonderful, often special topic books, designed for kids that are accessible and fun to read. I learned about all kinds of odd math topics because my son was almost frantic to read anything he could about math. He always understood things first time through, but I often had to work harder. 😉 Some libraries keep children’s non-fiction in one place – others mix it with the adult books. Ask the librarian. There are several series of kiddie books that treat surprisingly high level topics which are really fun to read. Most of the ones we read are, sadly, out of print, but you may find things in the library or at a used book store. Sadly, it’s been my experience that children’s book stores emphasize fiction and social studies; most folks who run such shops are mathphobes.
Don’t feel that you have to start at the beginning and work up to a certain level. Window shop. I loved topics in topology, but do I actually know enough about it to do anything? No, but even understanding that such a topic exists makes me happy.
If you find something like the Usborne Introduction to Maths, just read a page a day. Don’t try and read it like a novel. It’s easy to get overwhelmed. Stick to one topic/concept at a time. Another thing you might enjoy is some of the Theoni Pappas stuff, like the calendar. Got a university bookstore nearby? Try them.
Also, check into local community colleges. They often offer math for adults classes. Go look at the textbooks, talk to the teachers. Math teachers love their subject and understand what happened to many folks in schools. They are eager to help and are usually amazingly supportive. (I once casually dropped by the messy office of a prof when I was getting my teaching degree to ask a question so basic it was embarrassing about tilings. The prof was delighted to help, spent a half an hour showing me how to build models, and a good time was had by all. I later learned that he was one of the world’s 2 or 3 leading authorities in tilings. The book he wrote on tilings is now out of print and brings hundreds of dollars in paperback. I have a hard cover 😉 )
The big thing, though, is that math is not a spectator sport. You have to work problems, engage the brain, and really work for it. Right now I”m reading Flatterland, and I get bogged down often, even though it’s funny and I enjoy it. I can’t read even a chapter at a time. (BTW, read Flatland first, it’s fun and easier.) And don’t overlook biographies: see if you can find Mathematical People by Daniel Albers at the library. (It’s out of print.) It gave me a fascinating look at the inner workings of mathematicians.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Thank you, so much! This is great!
Oh, and I have read Flatland, and loved it! I think it changed my life. Or at least my way of thinking. I’m also fascinated by the concept of topology, but the math of it boggles me. Needless to say.
Re: (Mostly about Eva because Raffi is pre-school aged)
Algebraic topology is harder for me to follow than Sanskrit (well, I lived in India for two years, so that makes sense…) but some geometric topology stuff is accessible. This is a classic of a topic I got started in with a kid’s book we found at the library. Ben and I went around naming the genus of everything in the house for weeks. I actually wrote a short story that combined Flatland and tilings – specifically, aperiodic tiling with Penrose tiles. It’s a love story. 😉 One of the highlights of my life was giving Penrose a copy of it and having him autograph my original when he spoke at the UW. My son understood the lectures – I didn’t. (The kid was about 12, I think – hard on my ego!) (BTW, the Wikipedia articles on aperiodic and Penrose tilings are pretty good.)
Re: spending
Sandra asked about costs, social interactions, and disabilities. Here is my two cents.
We live in Minnesota, which offers a tax deduction for educational expenses. So, I have a rough idea of how much I spent on education last year. We deducted about $1500 dollars in educational expenses. Are actual educational spend may have been as much as twice that. These expenses include curricula (Saxon math, several reading curricula (none of which we are happy with), a spelling curricula, and some others), violin lessons, a violin, some computer software, books, paper, pens, art supplies, etc.
Note that we have several purchased curricula, and are, accordingly, not unschooling. We started out in this home schooling experiment as unschoolers, but realized that our children needed more guidance.
As for social interactions with peers, our children get a lot of that through church (We’re Mormon too) and through friendships with neighbors and a close-knit group of four families. Also, I think it is worthwhile to evaluate (1) what social skills you learned in school, (2) what social skills your children are learning at school, and (3) what social skills one needs in the real world. The social skills I learned in public school are not the social skills I have needed in the corporate world. For instance, almost all of my social interactions in school were with people who were, largely, of the same socio-economic status that I am (I went to a neighborhood school), and who were largely the same age. The social skills I need to interact with those of my social strata and of my age are very different from the social skills I need to interact with people of different ages, and sometimes even different generations, in the corporate world.
As for disabilities, I don’t have any first hand experience. I suspect, however, that children with learning disabilities are much better off being homeschooled. They will have the benefit of individualized attention. You can adapt the material and the presentation to meet their needs. My oldest daughter has been quite slow learning to read. So what did we do? We tried one method, and then another, and then another. Eventually, my wife crafted her own method. As I mentioned, home schooling is, for us, an experiment. We try something, observe the results, and adjust.
I hope these thoughts help. Also, I agree that parental involvement is the most important aspect of successful schooling. I know I owe much of my education, and my social skills, to my parents, brother, and sisters.
The issue of what I’ll do with my son when he enters the school system in a couple of years plagues me. I have some excellent memories of my early days in public school, and never wished to be homeschooled. Sure, things got harder when I hit middle school (oh, augh, the drama of pre-teen hormones), and were a bit rocky that first year of high school, but part of the problem there was me, and all of the internal struggles every young person must make to figure out who they are.
What would I have done without high school band? Without those three or four dear friends who leaned on me as I leaned on them. If my primary influence had been my mother’s subtle dismissal of my thoughts and needs and my sisters’ tendencies to run roughshod over me, where would I have been? Would I ever have had the courage that I do now, as an adult, to try new things and take risks in life?
Of course the public school system has issues. It’s broken in several ways, and is not the best learning system for the brightest kids – as I believe my son will be. However, I’m not convinced that homeschooling (or unschooling) is the answer. The more bright kids with involved parents who get pulled from the system, the lower the common denominator becomes, and the worse it will be for the smart kids left behind. right?
I will probably send the Munchkin through public school, at least for the first few years, and supplement to encourage him and keep his love of learning alive. There are so many things that cannot (at this time) be adequately replaced by the home-un-schooling system…