Is this true about unschooling?

Question

in Bradenton, FL? You don't have to do any school work and you can do it any time you feel like? Is it less work and hours than school? Do you have to have a parents permission at age 15? Any criteria you have to have to qualify?

Answer 1

You DO need an education...even comedians and pro bowlers have to manage finances,  correspond, be able to read and understand contracts,  have articulate speech when dealing with the public.  Plus...someday you may have children, and will feel painfully inadequate when you cannot help them with homework.  You may or may not succeed as a comedian or pro bowler...it depends on your skills.  However, education will never be wasted and will always be yours

Answer 2

Everyone needs an education.  What if you bomb out as a comedian?  What if you lose your voice and can't tell your jokes?

What if you dislocate your shoulder, damage the rotator cuff, and can't bowl anymore?  What if you have to live in the real world where most people simply can't make a living telling jokes and bowling?

Unschooling is great for people who have motivation to learn something, but if you are looking at it as a way to sit around and do nothing then maybe you should either use a more traditional style of homeschooling or just stay in Public School.

Homeschooling / unschooling is not about being lazy and never having to work, its about having the freedom to work on your interests and passions more intensely than ever before.  If you aren't ready to do that than just stay in school and get programmed, uh I mean educated, like everyone else.

Answer 3

Unschooling is when parents home school at the rate the child chooses.  For example, if a child wakes up one day and decides he or she wants to learn addition, then that's what they work on that day.  The downside is that a lot of kids really need the structure of a schedule.  The upside is that kids can also learn skills that are more applicable to life.

Answer 4

What on earth is 'unschooling'? Is that erasing memories of anything you have learned? If you don't have to do any school work, how can you do it any time you feel like it.

This sounds very odd, and a highly unusual approach to education. In fact, it doesn't sound like education at all.....

Answer 5

NO! Unschooling is NOT an excuse to sit on your bum and do nothing all day. Earl probably summed it up best when he said that the way we (as unschoolers) work is more akin to university than school. I'm 15 and am currently studying french history...all in french (just one of several languages I've taught myself as an unschooler).

Unschooling can be heaps tougher than regular schooling because there is no teacher there to feed you the information you need to do something; you have to find everything out for yourself.

Oh and as for you not needing an education because you want to be a comedian or professional bowler, I could say I want to be a cosmonaut and be the first girl to set foot on Mars...but it doesn't mean it's ever going to happen.

I could equally say I don't need any paper qualifications but that doesn't mean I'm not interested in the world and don't want to understand it. I haven't totally opted out of life yet, lol!

You shouldn't confuse wanting to opt out of school with opting out of education. School is an entirely artificial concept, education is a natural and life-long activity.

Answer 6

Unschooling is a style of homeschooling. What I've heard for unschoolers in Florida is that they sign up with an umbrella school (there are one or two or something who specifically support unschooling).

Yes, you have to have your parents sign you up, just like you can't go sign yourself up for public school or some private school.

Unschooling isn't necessarily what you think it is. It means that YOU are the one who dictates where your education will go. Some parents allow the kids to do whatever, even if it means playing video games all day long. Others have limits, but no specific requirements. Do you think your parents would approve of either style?

The 'good' unschoolers I know do not have the eagerness you apparently have in thinking that it is 'less work and hours'. They actually spend the bulk of their days working on something, it's just that they've chosen what they will work on.

Answer 7

It's possible, considering in most states you can DROP OUT at age 16.

You can lie and do anything you want.

Go can go to brick school and and do no work and get D's or F's

No one actually cares, except maybe your parents.

Teacher's certainly don't they get paid JUST because you show up.

In brick schools you're a warm body that gets them Federal Funding.

That's all most they actually care about.

Anyone who cares more is an idealist.

Do YOU feel sorry for THEM!  Idealist teachers.

I mean THEY believe in YOU even if YOU don't!

Don't you find that a TAD sad!

What's even SADDER is in most school SHOOTINGs it is THEY, or THEM that get killed, not the JERK teachers but the ones who actually BELIEVE they make a difference.  They are typically the ones shot!

That's a reality that statistics back up....

EDIT

Now as to unschooling few understand it.

It's a process of self learning and it usually involved practical hobbies and genearl interest in life itself.

It's about watching Discovery, Science, PBS.  You see a program on the Neutrino and then you see there is a book by Isaac Asimov on it so your read it.  Now you have a undergraduate college concept of one aspect of small particle physics.

You get software and program on the computer, writing programs from scratch, getting a dozen tutorial books and then learning what they don't teach you on your own.  It's 5-10 hours work a day, several days a week rendering your own original software idea.

This also teaches you math as programming is geometry and trig.

They way YOU portray it makes unschooling sound escapist.

It isn't.

Unschooling is basically what consists of a Masters Program in college.

In a Masters Program they stop teaching you and you start teaching them.

That is the goal.

The goal of a MAsters and Doctorial program is for you to spread your wings, do indepdent studies and research without someone giving you a list of books to read.

You find them on your own and you present it to the department.

I started programming in 1990 and started internet work a few years later and wrote the world's FIRST no code web page maker.

I did it in BASIC, Visual BASIC for Windows and Quick BASIC for DOS.  I had both programs out there and it was letting 10 year olds and teachers and ministers make web pages with the click of a button.

One of my programs turned any text document into a web page in 10 seconds.  Ready to upload.

Then Dreamweaver and Front Page came along and Word for Windows started saving as a web page and my little $5 and $10 software offerings ate the big one, but for almost 4 years I had a monopoly on no code web page making.

I did it all with unschooling and I can tell you I didn't sluff off.  I worked on that every free hour I had and it took weeks to make those programs work and days to debug problems users alerted me to.

Answer 8

what do you mean you dont need a education? everyone needs to learn to read write and all the other things that go with school! come now smarten up sounds like you just want to drop out and be a bum?and if thats the rules in your state man iam glad my kids dont live there! We have enough dummies in the world!

Answer 9

No, this is not true. It might sound like a great idea at 15, but when reality comes crashing down after a few years you might be sorry you didn't use your brain a bit better.

It's funny that people are dying in other countries for the right to an education and there are kids in the US trying to throw that all away.

If you look at most successful comedians they take their material from the things that are going on around them and make intelligent connections that make people laugh. They're actually very intelligent and educated people. Conan O'Brien graduated from an Ivy League University. This is also not a guaranteed income. Very few people make a living doing this.

Professional Bowling is not a guaranteed income, either.

Why are you wanting to quit school, anyway? Is it too hard? Are you having trouble socially? Are you depressed? There has to be an underlying reason that you want to give up an education at the age of 15. If you're struggling academically, there is no shame in asking for help. If there are social reasons, then reach out. Whatever is going on, talk to your parents or a trusted adult and try to sort this out. Just trying to do less work isn't going to be a solution because no matter what you do a good work ethic is going to be needed. Good luck!

Answer 10

Unschooling is not the same as getting no education.  

We are unschoolers; as such, my children educate themselves in what they are interested in.  I often bring up topics to discuss or educational shows to watch or places to visit that supplement what they are already doing.  

Unschooling is not structured like a classroom, but education and learning does take place.  Everyone needs to learn and grow and add to who they are, even pro-bowlers :p

http://www.unschooling.com/library/faq/d...

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Answer 11

I do not know what you are refering to in Florida, but unschooling is simply a different method of home schooling, and therfore would fall under the same state requirements as regular home schooling .

Unschooling is simply a different way of going about it.

Home schooling is teaching your children at home instead of using a conventional school, private, public, or charter to do it for you.

Home schooling gives the parent complete control over what is taught, as well as the time, place, and method used to do the teaching.

Both home schooling, and unschooling gives the parent the choice to go year round, or simply set their own schedule that is best for their families.

Children quickly gain the understanding that learning is not confined to a school, certain hours, or pre-selected books, but is a life long process, and has only those limitations that we ourselves place upon it, or allow others to place upon it.

Unschooling is not, at least not for us without guidance.

Children need guidance, and direction throughout their young lives to be able to learn, and develop character, and integrity.

Unschooling is a natural continuation of basic parenting, we simply add academics when they are ready.

Unschooling simply means learning in a natural setting, and using non-traditional means to teach.

Non-traditional meaning without an artificial school setting, either in a conventional school, or at home.

Unschooling uses many media, and some, but rarely traditional school text books, much of the learning is hands on, by working along side the adults, through 4H, and other organizations that have hands on training.

We use 4H for all our electives, as well as speech and debate. (Toast Masters).

Unschooling is learning by doing, not just reading about it.

We learn math, reading, and writing in a more structured (traditional) setting once they are between 6 and 10, but it depends on the child.

We use a lot of games, board games, computer software, or outdoor games.

Unschooling can be completely, or to some extend be child directed, and this; at least for us; means that when our children come to a particular subject that they want to learn about, we do not put a time limit on them as to how long they can learn about it, we simply try to provide every opportunity they need to learn as much as they want too.

Most often when children are allowed to learn in a natural way, in the form of unschooling, relaxed, Montessori, or self directed learning, they understand the concepts better, and score high on any (academic) test they are given.

Hands on teaching, instructors who are experienced in their field, from a car mechanic, pilot, store clerk, to a doctor; if these are willing to answer childrens questions and children would be incouraged to ask questions freely; can teach more in 15 minutes than textbooks, and hours in classrooms could accomplish.

Addition:

Wow, you do NOT need an education? since when?

You may not need schooling, but if you do not think you need an education you will be very unpleasantly surprised come "real life" time.

Answer 12

As someone says, you could do whatever you want and call it unschooling, doesn't mean that's what you are doing. Unschooling is trusting that a child will learn what they need as they need it, not that you don't learn anything at all. Unschooling is learning 24/7, with no stop, no start, and no restrictions.

For example, my ten year old wanted a way to figure out how high his model rocket flew. So I showed him some trigonometry formulas, showed him how to use a protractor and weight to find the angle, we measured distance, and figured out how high the rocket went. So we jumped from that and he has a notebook of trig and geometry formulas at the age of 12, that he can use easily to find the sine, cosine, tangent, secant, cosecant, of nearly every angle. He was able to calculate what kind of dish we needed to get clear line sight for wireless access from my husband's office.

It is child-led, but definitely that does not mean that parents aren't involved. In fact, it is much more work than regular homeschooling, because our job is to constantly find the resources and materials that our children need to learn. If your parents aren't on board, and if they are not willing to be working all the time to find these things with you, unschooling will leave you an uneducated person with few options.