Has anyone in CA tried unschooling?

Question

I have researched it all night and haven't found much on unschool. I have mostly found "homeschool". If anyone has any information on registering for it, I'd appreciate it very much.

Answer 1

It is because there is no registering for it, but people just choose to do it. Some go ahead and fill out the affidavits and others stay under the radar and don't let them know they are unschooling or homeschooling at all.

I am an Unschooling here in California and I can tell you where Iive there aren't many if any unschoolers that I know of in my town. I think they tend to not say much.

The funny thing is even if you do fill out the affidavit according to the laws it isn't proving you are a private school. It is basically just informing them of your schooling at home. Even if they were to ever take you to court about homeschooling it wouldn't matter whether or not you even signed up for it.

It is usually by word of mouth that you hear about other unschoolers.

Answer 2

Unschooling is a method of home schooling, and is practiced widely all over the country.

It is the most natural way of learning, since it is living what you learn; using all media, and materials available, like may great living books, but avoiding most, if not all artificial environments or textbooks.

We do not believe in facilitated, or prescribed learning; the method used in schools called guided learning/discussion.

Click on the little purple box to watch a little video illustrating why "schooling" is not the way to go, in a conventional setting, or at home.

http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/

Some informational sites on unschooling.

Click on methods, then unschooling.

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/

Unschooling FAQ.

http://ulfaq.home.comcast.net/~ulfaq/ULf...

A general unschooling site (example).

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling

Answer 3

It's california... of course there are unschoolers there, just like unconventionalists in just about anything else. Try yahoo groups... iirc there is at least one group for unschoolers in CA, and there definitely are national lists. Good luck. :)

Answer 4

I unschooled in almost everything I am, but I also day schooled, which taught me little if anything after Middle School.

You don't register in unschool, you just do it.

Unschooling is buying a 21 in 1 electronics kit at Radio Shack and learning to make all the projects and learning to read the schematics and identify the parts.

Then if you want to carry it further you buy your electronics parts one by one and invent your own stuff.

This leads to a career as an electronics tech or even a junior engineer.

I was trained in electronics in private school and also in public school, but most of it was privately taught by television design engineers at Admiral back when there was an Admiral and they actually made TVs and Radios in Chicago.

A friend of mine was having problems with his electronic metronome and I opened and in seconds I knew exactly how they made it.

Battery, potentiometer, two diodes to keep the electricty in one direction, a capacitor to hold the power and release it on cue based on the setting of the pot, an LED and speaker to flash and click from the power release.

It was 35 years since I took electronics and I took tube electronics but I could look at this and understand it just from looking.

And that's what you do with unschooling.

You want to learn more you buy a DC electronics book at Radio Shack, you look up spec sheets.

A freind of mine's father made his own beat box with a whole bunch of capacitors.

See each capacitor filters the frequency of the DC power going by and you can use thse to tune CLICKS and POPS out the speaker so they are low like a bass drum, medium like a tom tom.

A whole bunch of caps, some resistors, a DC power circuit, a few transisotrs, maybe an op amp and speaker.

A bunch of switches to make your sounds.

boom you have an electronic drum kit.

Not even $50 in parts.

I unschooled in filmmaking and that's popular today with kids.  There are 13 year olds with Mini DV cameras shooting videos and editing them in Movie Maker and putting them on You Tube.

Do that long enough and at 18 you can get a job doing TV commercials for an RV company

All you have to do is know how to use a camera, upload it, edit it, adjust the sound, add titles and background music.

Kids are doing that all the time on You Tube.

The only difference is your gear was $1,000 and the RV comapany has gear worth $25,000

It basically works the same.

So they pay you $8 or $10 to start as an assistant and in two years you might take over and amke $25,000 a year doing their TV commercials in Boise Idaho

I had a weather station, I still have my aneriod barameter and keep it handy so I can see if things are up or down.

I used to know my isobars, fronts.  I got a piece of glass and a US map and would draw my own weather maps with grease pencil.

I used to take dry and wet bulb readings and figure out humidty.

I out predicated the weather on many occasions.  They get on TV and repeate the US Weather Service forcast and I'd be looking at the humity rising, the barometer dropping, the wind getting faster and I knew they were dead wrong and within two hours a major storm would hit and it did and the weather man gets on TV and apologizes for saying it would pass us.

Unschooling is sitting at the computer and writing and submittind and writng and submitting and writing until someone publishes your story or article.

That's unschooling in creative writing or journalism.

Unschooling is not a paint by numbers kit.  It white canvas, oil paints a brush and learning how to do it.

Unschooling it not buy a tutorial in Visual Basic and doing all the examples.

Unschooling is reading the manual, learning all the functions, experimenting with them with little examples showin in the manuals and then saying

I want to make a paint program.

It's not following the code chapter by chapter in Dr. Programmers Tutorial

You're just using HIS code.  HIS brains.

You're plagerizing!

You're violating copyright law!

YOU sit down and say

Well, I know how a circle is formed, what do I have to do so anyone can draw a circle.

And you figure out the ways to make it work.

You figure out how to use PSET to make an air brush.

You design it, you code it yourself by trial and error until you get it to work.

I used to design my own routines to do word wrap and justification.

All you gotta do is know your functions and operator and put your brain to it.

UNSCHOOLING to it's optimum is a MASTERS OR DOCTORATE program in some field.

This is what you have to do to get a Masters or PHD you have to do something new and impress the teachers at college.

Unschooling teach yourself physics by doing and testing.  By devising testing methods.

Unschooling is buying an optical bench from Edmunds for $50 and maybe a laser for $20 and seeing how the optics bend (refract) the light and seeing how different lenses at different places on the bench do different things.

That is was an Optometrist does for your eyes with all those gismos and lenses.

How far you get into it is up to you

You can start doing optical physics math, which is algebra, geometry and trig.

You're dealing with arcs (concave or convex lens surfaces) which are an aspect of an angle or a triangle.

You can buy two glass blanks at the observatory and grind your own mirror with rouge and polish.

You learn how to test it for wave.

You silver or aluminize it and build a tube and buy a eyepiece mount with diagnol mirror and make a newtonian reflector JUST LIKE NEWTON DID IT and learn how to made a Dobson mount to hold the unit.

Now your doing the work of an optician.