Let me get this right about unschooling...?

Question

Unschooling is where the kids actually choose what they learn, when the learn it and how the learn it?

I came across this site that gave me the curriculum standards for each grade. And then I found my grade level curriculum standard. [http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?curriculum/grade9]

Soooo... Let's say this is what I wanted to go with, meaning... using it to teach myself, finding books, internet, resources, videos and much more to learn from... My parents could find worksheets and other things to quiz me on a certain lesson/subject.... Things like that. Is that considered unschooling?

Answer 1

I'm an unschooling mom of seven. All my kids learn differently. One likes a hands-on approach while another would rather just read and another cracks open a textbook everyday. Unschooling can be anything you want really. If you want to get get quizzed and fill out worksheets go ahead. If you think you'll be utterly miserable doing that you should take a different approach to education. You are right when you say "Unschooling is where the kids actually choose what they learn, when the learn it and how the learn it?" That is what unschooling is. It doesn't matter if you use a textbook or not. As long as you find what interests you and pursue it in a way that works for you you are an unschooler.

Answer 2

Yes, unschooling is where the kids choose...in my case I would say "help choose".  I do have basic requirements for what they need to learn, but I give my kids options on how they complete (internet, text, encyclopedia).  In addition, they always come up with something they want to learn about.  

Like sharks....we took a whole year and learned everything about sharks...and enjoyed watching Shark Week on TV.  

I don't test them, I can basically tell if they "have it" by tallking to them.  

It's great that you are so motivated.  I was the same way, and could basically school myself, just have the parents there to be the "parental" figure legally.

Answer 3

Yes, that's the basic idea of it, though like homeschooling, it can vary from family to family, and even from child to child.

I unschool, and for me that means my mother, and anyone else only get involved when I ask for help or guidance in certain areas. I decide how and when I do school. In some subjects I know I learn best by working with hands on materials. In others, I need to hear something for it to sink in. In others still reading and researching is the best way for me to learn. In the beginning of the year my mother gives me a set budget and deadline to have all my textbooks selected, and I do the research, find out what I need to learn, choose a few things I WANT to learn, find a textbook that meets my needs as well as all the extras like lab supplies, etc, and run the shopping list by mom before going ahead and buying. If I need a textbook in a more accessible format (I'm blind and often the magnifiers don't cut it) it is my responsibility to go the the Division of Blind Services and request a large print/audio/braille copy, or whatever. It is also my responsibility to arrange for volunteer opportunities to gain hours for scholarships, to determine the date on which I'll be taking certain standardized tests (in the case of this year, the SAT and SAT II subject tests), register for those tests, talk to all the administrators, admissions officers, school board members, employers, DBS councilors, doctors, and any other adults I need to deal with day to day. I get all the guidance and help I ask for, but I am also encouraged to do a lot of things for myself from school to every day things. I think this way of life really helps prepare you for the real world, and not the perfectly structured, everything-handled-by-a-councilor, false-sense-of-independence world of public school.

Answer 4

Unschooling is not how we do something, but why.

Unschooling is the belief that all people, no matter how old or young, have a built in desire to learn (unless that desire has been crushed by outside forces). It is a belief that if you allow a person of any age to pursue their own interests throughout life they will end up gaining the knowledge they will need in order to pursue the life they want.

Unschooling has nothing to do with tools that one may use to learn something, it is pure technique. Assuming the person wants to learn this way, it allows for structure or no structure, textbooks or no textbooks, workbooks or no workbooks. It includes the taking of classes. It allows for correspondence courses and private lessons. It allows for field trips, mentorships, jobs and volunteerism. It also allows for months of just playing with LEGOS or street hockey or endless computer games or taking apart the old car, if that is what the child needs then. It allows the person, no matter what age, to pursue their own goals and their own interests without guilt. It allows for educational freedom.

Not WHAT you do, but WHY you do it. Instead of learning from BOOKS....take the time to find real life situations in which you could learn. Basically, you don't need quizzes and worksheets, if you are wanting to learn, you don't need that sort of motivation, that's public school thinking.

Answer 5

Unschooling gives the parent the choice to go year round, or simply set their own schedule that is best for their families.

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

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.

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.

I hope this helps you understand one of the many ways a student can unschool.

http://www.unschooling.com/

http://www.unschoolingamerica.com/

http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/meth...

Answer 6

Yeah, that would pretty much be unschooling.  I know unschoolers who are brilliant, but I also know some who use it as an excuse to not do school.  I would say make sure you're taking some kind of tests to see if you know things a normal human being needs to know... you really will need to be self-motivated.

Answer 7

Most unschoolers don't have their parents give them worksheets and quizzes. If you wanted to and your parents were willing, then yes, it'd be unschooling if you were the one initiating it. But there are other ways to learn things than to have worksheets and quizzes. And not everything you learn about needs to be tested.

Answer 8

No.  That's self-learning homeschool.

Unschooling HAS no ciriculum.

Let's take an example I did.  Computer programming.  From the ground up.

I started on a Kaypro in CP/m using M-Basic and got a book and started to make programs to do my work and other peoples work.

I got books with sample programs and code.

I learned how to do bubble sorts, etc.

I learned how to use SINE and COSINE to draw circles and arcs (that TRIG, by the way)

I moved to the Atari ST and got several flavors of BASIC for it, plus Modula2 and C.

I moved to the PC.  I moved to the Amiga.  I moved to the Mac.

I studied a little C++ lots of BASIC

I did about six years of BASIC on six platforms and 20 subsets.

I learned how to do amortization problems (that's more trig, using Log e, that natural grow irrational, also used in population estimates and bacterial growth projections)

And I started doing my own concepts.

I decided to make a text processing program and just figured out how to do things.

In the process of doing a task like RIGHT JUSTIFICATION and WORD WRAP I'd have to design algorthms to buffer, sample and hold, then copy to another butter, re-write with padding from extra spaces.

I had like six algorithms and SIMPLIFIED this down to TWO.

That's algebra.  Algebra is taking a complex equation and simplifying it.  Something I could NEVER do in school with abstracts.

Programming is ALL algebra, a little geometry and a little trig.

It started me looking into SINE COSINE TANGENT ARC TANAGE SECANT CO SECANT and all my college frineds would just say they were ratios and what.

I eventually kept searching and found physics examples on wave propegations and started to see how TANGETS, SINE COSINE PURE LINE and CORDS actually work in real life.

A surfer, for example, catches a wave at the correct point of SINE or COSINE forming a CORD with the SURF BOARD at a TANGENT on the SINE OR COSINE and then attempt to manually hold that position to get optimal velocity and thrust from the energy of the wave in motion.

When I explaiend this to my undergraduate college friends they told me that was gradute work in harmonics.

So I was doing gradaute studies ON MY OWN out of a desire to understand what SINE and COSINE were about.  Especially since in electronics and TV work the system is BASED on the SINE WAVE.

In computer work you use SINE, COSINE, RADIUS and X,Y graphing locations (that's geoemetry and trig combined) to draw a most squares arc or circle

You illmunate the most significant pixles on the X,Y plane determiend by the radius and then using SINE and COSINE (to draw both sides at once) finding the most optimal RADIAN postion for the X,Y pixles.

The formuals I got out of a book, but I'd them start making changes and I started integrating SECANT and other things to see what those aspects would do (and they are still a mystery to me).

So it gave me a desire to see geometrical harmonies.

Without DESIRE, unschooling doesn't work

You have to DESIRE to know more or figure out what it does

You have to DESIRE to research the situation

You have to DESIRE to experiment

You have to DESIRE to ask questions of people

Without an ITCH to scratch unschooling doesn't work.

Using an unschooling tool (like an Xbox 360) that doesn't teach practical things also doesn't work.

Baking is unschooling.  IT's a form of chemistry.  It's mixing solids and liquids to a specification with an expected end result.

Creative cooking breaking the rules and experimenting.

Your grandmother should not find working in a chemistry lab all that difficult, you take some of this and some of that and mix it together.

Now, doing the math part will be difficult.

I unschooled in observational astronomy at age 11.  To this day I can walk out at night and say, GEE THERE'S VENUS or JUPITER or MARS or ORION, I know when the major meteor showers occur and what their merits are.

I had a GREAT desire to take pictures through my telescope with a $5 box camera and Verichrome pan film.  We moved to Tri-X thinking the verichrome was too slow.

At age 14 I decided to stop using Walgreens and do my own work so I bought a Yankee kit at the photo shop and on my first roll was a perfect picture of the full moon.  It took 3 years of experimetning and desire to get that picture.

And it lead me to a little chemistry.  Mixing a Tri Chem pack to secifications.  Learning about better chemicals like Microdol X and Accufine.  Learning about wetting agents.

I eventually moved to color make my own color head for my englarger (Middle School helped there!  Thank you Mrs. Artran for teaching me about Etheyline DiChloride and the hobby store for selling it to me).  Plastics shop did teach me something!

I learned about both ADDITIVE and SUBTRACTIVE color doing color printing work.  But the RGB and CYM systems can be used (look that one up in your Funk and Wagnals!).

See, this is unschooling.  When I got into unschooling in graphic arts I learned about CYMX.  I learned about orthochromatic drop outs and doing a rubilith.

The only problem was that picture was the size of a marble.

So I got a shoe box and magnifying glass, a toilet paper tube and started EXPERIMENTING with optics.

I made my own OPTICAL BENCH.  A light, negatives scotched taped over a hole cut into the box, that lens.  I moved it until it focused an image and then I cut my toilet paper roll to match the distance, mounted that lense on the roll (my barrel) taped it to the box (I must remember to buy stock in 3M) and I made a projected enlargement four times bigger on my Velox paper.

This was my englarger for 2 years until my mother bought me a real one for my 16th birthday.

This is unschooling.

Unschooling is DOING what ALL the people in James Burke's CONNECTIONS did, except in the same time frame.

Unschooling is Galelleo taking  a 3x Naval telescope and playing with different lenses until he go up to 25 power of magnification and then he turned it on the night sky.

Unschooling, alone, is NOT always enough.

You need to learn some structured things here and there.

But as an unschooled writer I learned to go get an English Grammar text book and learn more about sentence diagraming and how to construct better sentences.

I'm still working on that one, but I'm getting better.

The UNSCHOOLING part is my getting a SPEAK TO ME program that takes my writing and SAYS it (rather PURLY at dimes) back to me.

I stop it when it says something stupid and I look at my writing and figure out of it's the dumb program or the dumb ME at work!

Then I re-write.

Call it a cheat, but AFTER a while it does EXACTLY what shcool does

It ROTES the right way of doing things into you!

Whatever gets you there WORKS

That's the key to unschooling.

Whatever you have to do to stop that itch from bugging you is unschooling.

Unschooling therefore takes DESIRE and a mind that is open to any avenue to obtain the gratification necessary.

It is TOTALLY unstructured, flying by the seat of your pants with NO CONCEPTS, no PRE CONCEPTIONS just an urgent need to find out WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and most important WHY

Without that desire you need structured homeschooling or public schooling to craft you into a robot functionary who does the same task over and over becuse they mastered it, but they have NO DESIRES other than to go party hearty as a result of their income.

Oh, by the way my UNSCHOOLING work in ASTRONOMY and WRTING got me published at the age of 16 in Sky and Telescope.

Further UNSCHOOLING and HOMESCHOOLING from a legal secretary got me into print over and over in a variety of magazines.  It got me up to $300 an article.