Talk:Unschooling

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Opinions

As there were no opinions voiced either way (being in the wrong time zone and therefore asleep is not an excuse! :P) I've made this as a new article. It could possibly do with adding some extra snark as it reads as some kind of unreferrenced advert for it at the moment. Also, potentially a moonbat category but I'm not sure if it's stictly that. ArmondikoV^narchist 14:26, 28 November 2008 (EST)

We need to do much better than this. My mother has a case in a divorce where a child was in "unschooling." Now, in his teens, he is unable to perform even the most basic academic functions. A local court ordered psychologist who is the "default" guy who assesses all the kids in troubled divorces said he was the most academically backward, unmotivated, child he had ever worked with. He is functionally illiterate, and seems to have trouble with any kind of goal oriented actions. The saddest part is that he exhibits all kinds of signs of being a potentially highly intelligent child. Anecdotes are anecdotes, but a fluff piece is not worthy of RW. tmtoulouse 20:22, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I propose we all take some time off from being drama whores and pound on this article for a bit. ^postate 08:44, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, this article should be way better than this, and I know we can do better. Unfortunately, if I continue editing, my gf will become my ex, so good night all. Conservative Punk (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Well goodnight. Also, this sort of reminds me of that Dan Brown chap/prat on YouTube saying that "college was interfering with my education". Thunderf00t made a pretty angry blast at him for it. So you might "lose your individuality" (well, not really, its that lecturers don't constantly reassure you of it by holding your hand, a good university program enhances your individuality, but you have to, shock horror, work that out for yourself) but this is the trade-off for developing an education system whereby people can be taught in the numbers that our population throws at us. If you can find a way of efficiently transferring very specialist knowledge to half a million people a year without having to do lectures and structured learning, I'd like to see it. ^postate 09:35, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources of information

Where the fuck subjects of unschooling are supposed to get their information from, especially on subjects such as science? Surely they are not dropped a pile of peer-reviewed papers and told to "swim or sink"? Advanced material requires introductory material, i.e. some kind of textbook, and a sequence of "things you need to know before you can learn other things", i.e. a curriculum. And having someone "in the know" to explain you things (i.e. a teacher) helps a lot. But don't they consider all these things "evil"?--ZooGuard (talk) 15:35, 20 August 2010 (UTC) PS. This blogger seems to be an advocate for unchooling. --ZooGuard (talk) 15:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I was pretty much unschooled for high school (health problems at the time made it pretty much impossible to attend school) and I used textbooks from the local high school. At least around here (I live in southeastern Illinois), public schools are required to provide textbooks in such a way, which is how it was possible. --GastonRabbit (talk) 21:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

The Internet and books. That's kind of what I did: although I did go to public school, I only actually learned things outside of school. I could study to my interests at home, and it just so happens that I tended to have the entire grade's curriculum mastered years before I got to that grade. The Heidelberg Kid (talk) 23:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If someone wishes to engage...

This podcast is supposed to contain a refutation of the article: http://www.everything-voluntary.com/2014/10/episode-039-criticisms-of-unschooling.html (By the way, I don't even remember starting the section above. Memory is a funny thing.)--ZooGuard (talk) 11:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Explain

How is this different from homeschooling?^{— Unsigned, by: Kingdamian1 / talk / contribs}

The kids teach themselves? I think. Christopher (talk) 16:49, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Homeschooling involves external structure, unschooling does not have external structure and instead relies on the child's internal motivation. A homeschooler will follow a curriculum or plan that is (at least partly) parent directed, whereas an unschooler does not. That's the fundamental difference. An unschooler may purchase a curriculum, it's just that the child would choose when and how to utilize it. The parent just acting as a facilitator. Some unschoolers don't believe in having anything resembling school, though, and wouldn't have a curriculum or any traditional learning materials. They should have other resources available, however. Unschooling really encompasses a whole range of methods- some unschoolers are really big on child led learning and will exploit absolutely every opportunity to learn (which is probably when unschooling works best). They often will have a lot of external structure in other areas (controlling when the child can watch TV or play video games, having chores, bedtimes, etc).

Other unschoolers have a very laissez faire attitude and might let their kid play Grand Theft Auto 16 hours a day for months on end with no real outside intervention. This is often referred to as radical unschooling, and may also be referred to as unparenting. They may take adopt a romanticized idea of how children learn, for example believing that learning to read is inevitable. In the absolute worst circumstances you basically end up with educational neglect and a child who is severely undereducated- often illiterate. The parent may claim the child is dyslexic or has another learning disability as a cover for the neglect, which likely makes it all the more harder to uncover what is actually happening.

There is a somewhat grey area between homeschooling and unschooling, where you have a very child led, constructivist approach, but the parent is still ensuring the child is engaged in learning and providing the appropriate structure (based on the child's needs) to ensure that learning is taking place. Generally speaking, these approaches will fall under the homeschooling umbrella, not the unschooling umbrella, although with a very motivated learner it may be indistinguishable from unschooling. Evolily (talk) 09:03, 22 June 2017 (UTC)