The current brick and mortar school system was designed in the 19th Century. Its institutional mission was to prepare agrarian peasants to obey and to work in factories. Students are not taught to think. They are taught to obey and to consume. From vaccines to food to gender to religion, the current school system is more about social engineering than it is about education.Problem? No. This is an opportunity.
Why the assumption that the government / plantation is better equipped to educate our children than are the parents?
If we can buy piano lessons, and karate lessons why can't we privately fund science lessons, math, art and literature?
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The Deschooling and Unschooling Movement Is Growing
A small but growing movement known as deschooling, life learning, unschooling, and edu-punk is home-schooling returned to its postwar progressive roots, far from the Bible-thumping mould that has come to dominate the modern image of home-schoolers.Unschooling takes children out of schools, but, unlike a lot of home-school approaches, it doesn’t import the classroom into the home. It does away altogether with educational clutter such as curricula and grades.
Unschoolers maintain that a child’s learning should be curiosity-driven rather than dictated by teachers and textbooks, and that forcing kids to adhere to curricula quashes their natural inclination to explore and ask questions.
Unschooled children can organize their knowledge in free and better ways. They never need to feel they are through learning, or past the point that they can begin something new. Each thing they discover can be useful eventually. If we help provide them with ever-changing opportunities to see, hear, smell, taste, feel, move and discuss, what they know will exceed in breadth and depth what any school's curriculum would have covered. It won't be the same set of materials—it will be clearer and larger but different.
To an outsider, unschooling may sound like pedagogical tofu: a shapeless, idealistic substitute for an education. But there's a growing consensus that unschoolers might be on to something. Their ideals have been quietly infiltrating public education. CONT=>
11 comments:
i co-sign living it and loving it with my son.
I don't get it... so does that mean that a child with no curiosity or interest about certain issues can just omit that from the curricula (or un-curricula or whatever)? Mel how hold is your son? Was does an average day look like?
no what it means is that a child's interest usually are wholistic and not fragmented as a standard education. for instance they like to cook they learn it as a whole subject but in the end can learn math: fractions, measurements, weight, volume; reading, nutrition, chemistry, writing, etc. Instead of say learning how to read they are only focused on reading, words, pronunciation, phonics, etc. if the child isn't ready or interested then they don't learn how to read and will stay behind because it is not of "interest" at the time it was taught.
he's only 5 but even though he is just starting "school" he knows his stuff. we read, he's a computer whiz, he can discuss a topic he is interested in at length, he's an independent/critical thinker, he taught himself how to ride a bike in 2 weeks from training wheels to riding throughout the yard with one hand. he is teaching himself kung fu through movies and books.
an average day depends on the schedule some days we stay in the house. those days we will read, may do hands on activities or he's on the computer. days we go out we might meet with other homeschoolers, shop or errands (in stores he makes grocery lists through dictation, finds groceries, learns how to budget and count money, nutrition, etc. depending on local events at least once a week we will go somewhere and explore.
Mel!
Where you been Bra?
"no what it means is that a child's interest usually are wholistic and not fragmented as a standard education. for instance they like to cook they learn it as a whole subject but in the end can learn math: fractions, measurements, weight, volume; reading, nutrition, chemistry, writing, etc. Instead of say learning how to read they are only focused on reading, words, pronunciation, phonics, etc. if the child isn't ready or interested then they don't learn how to read and will stay behind because it is not of "interest" at the time it was taught."
That's beautiful.
That's courageous.
That's intellectually aggressive.
That's black.
Big ups
thanks and female. been around absorbing.
I cant keep up with the calls from teachers that are complaining that they are no longer able to teach...they are being forced to "teach to the test"...used as scapegoats for cheating scams... and systematically being eliminated if they fail to comply..when schools immediately cut creative programs...build "schools without windows...limit the "recess time" or eliminate it all together...what is that indicating...duh indoctrinating.. the computer tech is a scam..the students have to be monitored intensely to keep them from going to porno sights(teachers too!) but thats another topic! Nation building starts with the proper education..how many times do we have to read Carter G. Woodson..I taught at a school with this name and 90% of the students didn't have a clue as to who he was...Big ups to Mel..other parents should take heed..
Okay Mel, that sounds like a really cool approach to learning. Do you plan to do this from k-8 or through high school also?
this will be done until he decides otherwise. my choice would be until he decides his path, wanting him to be an entrepreneur.
Naturally Mel For President!
just doing what i know is best for my seed. you know how it is being the different one in the family. have had a lot of discouragement from family mostly. i have always known educating my own was the only way. child led is even better when you give your children a model of how to act and self regulate themselves. learning what is of their interests teaches them more than anything a parent or teacher can.
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