How do you unschool (or do flexible homeschooling) under these regulations?

Question

If you live in a state with stringent regulations (e.g. New York), how on earth do you unschool, or even do stuff at your child's pace, without running afoul of the regulations? Does anyone have any experience with this?

Please Note: I am not currently homeschooling, I am not going to be homeschooling anytime soon (one generally needs to have some kids around first)--I am just curious. So I am much more interested to hear how you deal with the situation, rather than just hearing the suggestion to "contact your local homeschooling group".

Answer 1

Honestly...sometimes, you lie.

I've been focusing mainly on Austrian economics, my piano lessons, math, and doing a lot of reading. This year I'm adding in more science but I don't always get to that.

Also, there are a lot of things that don't really fit in anywhere. I'm building a computer. What subject is that? I'm focusing more on training my mind than learning facts. What subject is that?

Also, there are ways of dressing things up. I take these afterschool classes at the Museum of Natural History. They're ridiculously light on facts, but they count as my science for the quarter. (That's coming back to bite me but I'm working on it.)

There are some ridiculous things, too. Sure, we spent 25 hours this quarter talking about highway regulations. Yeah. Totally.

Ultimately what matters is your score on the standardized test, not your IHIP.

Nobody reads your IHIP anyway. And here in NYC, the homeschool office is incompetent beyond belief. A relatively harmless bureaucracy.

Answer 2

I'd relocate!

Ok, so if that's not possible, I'd join the HSLDA - Home School Legal Here's a link to that organization's NY page. The news headlines alone made this California Mom shudder!!

Answer 3

I used to HS in New York and it was tough trying to get that IHIP together, considering we were not very structured.

I just tried to make it as general as possible... The most structured work we did were for math and language arts, so I would just find a textbook or workbook we planned to use for those subjects (usually went for garage sale or finding a friend who had one from a school) and I would list the table of contents as my "Math" and "Reading" IHIPs.

For other subjects, I did not list specific week-to-week lessons for the next 9 months, but 5 or 6 general topics that I would try to cover over the year.

For example, my IHIP for "Science" might be:

Weather

The Planet Earth

Solar System

Reptiles & Amphibians

Mammals

Simple Machines

Then I would note on where unit studies would be combined with other subjects, such as noting under the reading part that we'd be taking books out on these subjects.

This left us a lot of room to veer our studies in different directions and leave little structured work written in stone. This way we also always ended up doing more than was on our IHIP than falling short of our goals.

For keeping track, I'd just round our time up or down to the nearest quarter hour, and keep a little notebook, so if we sat down and read in the middle of the park for a half our, I'd take out my little book and scratch in "reading-- .5 hrs" and add them up every so often into subject areas.

Instead of grades for our quarterly reports, I'd send in a paragraph or two for each subject area briefly describing some things we've done.

Answer 4

You have to learn to think outside the box...that's all.

Here is a great website that has a sample of an unschoolers 'curriculum'

http://sandradodd.com/unschoolingcurricu...

Answer 5

I'm pretty flexible with my son's homeschooling; when he was younger he needed a pretty strict structure, otherwise he actually decided he wasn't learning enough.  Now, somehow, something has clicked and he's figured out that he can learn on his own.  I'm still very involved - I lesson plan, find him resources, and often fill out a notebook or do my own project right along with him, but he's starting to become more and more independent.

What I do, simply because I need the time to plan and find resources, is to sit down with him 2-3 times a year and plan out his coursework.  I plan it out very roughly, so there is plenty of flexibility and time for "rabbit trails", but I need that plan to go by.  I'm not required to even notify our state that we homeschool - it's constitutionally protected where I live - so I don't have to fill out any state forms, but I need that plan for my own sanity. :-)

What I would list would look something like:

Math - curriculum level and name (I let him pick his curriculum, he's about 4-5 years above grade level.)

Science - Marine Biology and Oceanography - list the resources (based loosely on an Apologia course with other resources built in, I would just list the textbook objectives)

Science - Botany - again, list the text resources and any projects we have planned (an organic garden, notebook, field botany projects)

Foreign Languages - Spanish and Greek - list the curriculums

History - semester-long study on the Revolutionary War and founding documents (list basic resources) and semester-long study on states and presidents.  Studies include social, political, religious issues and historical geography leading to present day.

Civics - integrated with history.  Study founding documents including the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution with all amendments (as they happened in historical period being studied).  Study electoral college and elections through the various campaigns.

Language Arts - Lit Analysis of CS Lewis works (list works); integrated writing throughout the curriculum - paragraph summaries, creative writing, research papers, and writing from pictures and music.  Spelling (list grade level); grammar study (list grade level).

Health - units in First Aid, nutrition, anatomy, fitness, drug/alcohol/tobacco awareness (list a text that we will loosely follow, add in other resources and projects through the year)

Art - weekly projects studying art theory, yearlong art history study that correlates with historical time period being studied.  

PE - participation in local parks program, participation on sports teams (list sports).

This is what our semi-annual plan looks like, and it's about the most detailed I would get with the state.  Honestly, if I could get away with being less detailed, I would.  From there, we take it as it goes - I tend to log his assignments as he completes them, rather than planning them out ahead of time.  I also log his Scout activities, as we do many units based around his badge and rank requirements, but I wouldn't feel it necessary to tell the state about that.    

(I do lesson plan more accurately than this, but I wouldn't feel the need to submit them to anyone - it's more for my own use.  We loosely stick to the plan, but are flexible.  More often than not by the end of the study we've covered everything in my plan as well as many other things that interested him.)

I don't have experience with the state forms, but that's how I write out our yearly plan; if we had to move to a more stringent state, it's how I would fill out the paperwork (again, sticking to the most basic info I could put down).  With a child who's old enough to make the decisions, getting them involved in the coursework planning is the key to flexible homeschooling.  Many kids 4th-5th grade on up who either unschool or are eclectic are openly involved in the planning of their subjects - they just don't necessarily study them out of grade-correlated texts.

Good question - hope this helps!

Answer 6

I would move if I were you.

Answer 7

I'd try to mix the two. Build a curriculum with all the materials you'd use if you were homeschooling the traditional way, but let the child go at it in a more unstructured way. Make sure CERTAIN things are done that will be checked up on, and of course make sure that you're meeting the requirements, but let the child choose what subject to work on when, and if he wants to work out of the textbook or read other books, if he wants to delve deeply into some topics or glance over others, and so on.

Answer 8

*edit*

In regard to your additional details:

We unschool.  We also have books coming out our ears lol.   Textbooks, classics, fiction, non-fiction, etc.

For the IHIP, I would simply list several books by category (Language Arts, History, Science, etc), space them out over a school year and form a very loose, flexible schedule around them with some not too specific goals for each child.  If the state would need that kind of reassurance in order to soothe their "thinking in the box" sensibilities, then that's what I'd give them.  I've filled one out before; it's not really hard to do.  I would not, however, stick to the IHIP.

*******

Hi there :)

I found this on the HSLDA website for New York.  The most stringent rule I found was:

"File, with the local superintendent, an annual assessment by June 30; must be from a standardized test every other year in grades 4-8, and every year in grades 9-12; the child should score above the 33rd percentile"

The 34th percentile is really not that great lol.  I would imagine that most kids, including those unschooled, could acheive that with very little effort.  I would bet that most unschooled kids could score at the 50th, at least.

However, if it were me, I must say I would either not have the kids take the tests (I don't agree with standardized tests at all.. I mean, I am not homeschooling to have my kids fit into some cookie-cutter standard...) or I'd relocate.

For now, and for the next two years, I live in CA.  If you've not heard, a judge in a Superior Court recently ruled that parents who homeschool here must have a four year degree and a state teaching credential.  Were that to be made law here, I would simply go "underground."  I would continue to school my kids as I saw fit, not advertizing the fact that I homeschool.  If I felt the risk outweighed the reward, I would relocate to a more homeschool friendly state.

Answer 9

On many unschooling sites you can find ways to put what you do or plan to do into 'educationese' specifically for this purpose.  I know what we do over the course of a year; what we plan to do, though we're free to deviate from the plan and add new stuff. :)