John Taylor Gatto - Challenging the Myths of Modern Schooling. Frequently Asked Questions. I am new to unschooling but know this is where God is leading us. How do I start? You will want to start here: Begin at the Beginning. What is unschooling? From the Wikipedia page: “While there is significant variation in what is meant by “unschooling”, generally speaking, unschoolers believe that the use of standard curriculaand conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child. Instead, unschoolers typically allow children to learn through their natural life experiences, including game play, household responsibilities, and social interaction.”In general “unschooling” could be considered the process of learning by living, life schooling, or interest led schooling, where the child learns as adults learn–by pursuing their interests, and seeing where those lead them, side by side with parents who facilitate and guide and learn together rather than coerce.
What is radical unschooling? Christian Unschooling - Home. ~ Welcome to UnSchoolers Online ~ Unschooling.com. School Sucks Project | Education evolution. Unschool Adventures. What is Mensa? | Mensa International. How Can Unschoolers Learn Math? By Leo Babauta This is one of the most common questions people have about unschooling. It seems that people think reading might be fun enough for an unschooler to do on her own, but math has to be forced. And there might be something to this -- after all, in school, math isn't often a very loved subject.
At least, not unless it comes easy to you and is fun. So it's a legitimate question. Let's explore it a bit. But let's start by asking you, my dear reader, a question: if you didn't know math now, as an adult, how would you learn it? The honest answer is that most of you probably wouldn't learn it, not right away at least, unless you really needed to. But you would learn some math -- the math you need to buy food and pay rent and get paid and make change if someone pays you $5 for a widget that costs $3.95. So then you'd learn, on your own, without someone forcing you. This is how unschoolers learn math. So, to recap, here's how unschoolers learn math: That makes sense, doesn't it? John Holt. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia John Holt may refer to: People[edit] Fictional people[edit] John Holt, protagonist of the The Twilight Zone episode "The Trade-Ins" Companies[edit] See also[edit]
What is Mensa? | Mensa International. Mensa International. Founding[edit] Roland Berrill, an Australian barrister, and Dr. Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa at Lincoln College, in Oxford, England, in 1946. They had the idea of forming a society for very intelligent people, the only qualification for membership being a high IQ.[6] It was to be non-political and free from all social distinctions (racial, religious, etc.).[9] American Mensa was the second major branch of Mensa. Its success has been linked to the efforts of its early and longstanding organizer, Margot Seitelman.[10] Membership requirement[edit] Mensa's requirement for membership is a score at or above the 98th percentile on certain standardised IQ or other approved intelligence tests, such as the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales.
Mensa also has its own application exam, and some national groups offer alternative batteries of tests. Mission[edit] Organizational structure[edit] Gatherings[edit] Publications[edit] Demographics[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] So What Do Unschoolers Do? Life Learning - The Unschooling and Homeschooling Magazine. The Homeschooler’s Guide to Getting Into College | Online College Search – Your Accredited Online Degree Directory. There's a common misconception that homeschoolers have difficulty when it comes to getting into college. This may have been true 20 years ago, but these days, colleges are making the process of admissions for homeschoolers simple and fair. In fact, many colleges are now seeking out homeschoolers themselves, as homeschooled students tend to be excellent college students. Here, we've gathered several facts, tips, and helpful resources that you can put to work to ensure that your college admissions process as a homeschooler is smooth and successful.
Facts Did you know that Harvard recruits homeschoolers, and that most homeschoolers have a higher GPA than regular students? Read on for these facts and more. Harvard wants homeschoolers: Top schools including Harvard, MIT, Duke, Yale, and Stanford are all actively recruiting homeschoolers. Tips Follow these tips to make your college admissions process easy as a homeschooler.
Resources June 11th, 2012 written by Site Administrator. Free Range Kids. Self Made Scholar - Free Self Education Classes Online. ClickSchooling. Homeschooling Curriculum, Laws, Programs, Friends | A2Z Homeschooling | A2Z Home's Cool – Home Education from A to Z. Unschooling and Homeschooling FAQ — John Holt GWS. By John Holt with later additions by Patrick Farenga (This is reprinted from Chapter 3 of Teach Your Own) NOTE: To learn about the laws and regulations about homeschooling in your state, check with your local or state homeschooling groups as they will likely have the most up-to-date information. You can locate general legal information from this list, and find support with this list; both lists are maintained by Anne Zeiss. —PF People, especially educators, who hear me [John Holt, 1981] talk about homeschooling, raise certain objections so often that it is worth answering them here.
Since our countries are so large and our people are from so many different kinds of backgrounds (this was said most recently to me by a Canadian) don't we need some kind of social glue to make us stick together, to give us a sense of unity in spite of all our differences, and aren't compulsory public schools the easiest and best places to make this glue? About needing the glue, he's absolutely right. ... Unschooling. "Read a little, try a little, wait a while, watch. " People learn by playing, thinking and amazing themselves. They learn while they're laughing at something surprising, and they learn while they're wondering "What the heck is this!? " My favorite and oldest discussion group is called AlwaysLearning, where the principles underlying unschooling are the topic. On facebook, my less favorite but busier discussion: Radical Unschooling Info If unschooling can't work in the real world, nothing at all can. People will say "How will they learn algebra in the real world?
" Is there algebra in the real world? Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum. I've removed the link I had because used copies on Amazon are listed way too high. The way adults tend to learn things is the way people best learn—by asking questions, looking things up, trying things out, and getting help when it's needed. Regional groups, lists and resources (by language, nation, state, religious or special focus) What is Unschooling? What Is Unschooling? This is also known as interest driven, child-led, natural, organic, eclectic, or self-directed learning. Lately, the term "unschooling" has come to be associated with the type of homeschooling that doesn't use a fixed curriculum.
When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear. The advantage of this method is that it doesn't require you, the parent, to become someone else, i.e. a professional teacher pouring knowledge into child-vessels on a planned basis. Unschooling, for lack of a better term (until people start to accept living as part and parcel of learning), is the natural way to learn. —Pat Farenga, Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling Unschooling is not unparenting; freedom to learn is not license to do whatever you want. Homeschooling With Gentleness: A Catholic Discovers Unschooling (2004) by Suzie Andres Click here for more information. New to this blog? New to Unschooling? Read this! Hello! So, looks like you just found this blog for the first time. Maybe you were searching specifically for information on unschooling, or maybe you stumbled upon this site by chance.
Either way, I want to welcome you! And also to ask you to kindly read this page before commenting. If you're an unschooler yourself, or an unschooling parent, you may want to just skim this page, as I'm mostly just going to cover Unschooling 101 type stuff, but otherwise I'd ask that you please read the entire page. Though I do write the occasional post aimed at an audience unfamiliar with unschooling, life learning, or home learning, for the most I'm writing to an audience who already have at least a basic understanding of unschooling. So, what is unschooling, anyway? I feel like several different explanations, all equally accurate, just from different angles, are in order: I most certainly can be serious, and I'm most certainly not ruining my life. What about socialization?
What about college? The Worry That Your Unschooler Isn't Learning What He Should Be Learning. The crazy thing is that we parents too often obsess about did they learn this or this or this which are all items spread all over the board, and our kids don't tend to learn, really learn, things by spreading out, but by going deep into an interest. And they will learn the basics we're so concerned about by going deep. Your kid into sewing? Wow, she really likes that dress, but the pattern is for a size too big for her. How do need to adjust the pattern? Your kid like music? A fundamental flaw in our thinking when we worry about this is that we think learning is something we do to someone. And the fundamental base of skills and knowledge that we learn, we almost never learn at school. Just my two cents... Alternative education. Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, includes a number of approaches to teaching and learning separate from that offered by mainstream or traditional education.
Educational alternatives are rooted in a number of philosophies differing from those of mainstream education. Although some alternatives have political, scholarly or philosophical orientations, others were begun by informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with some aspects of mainstream education. Educational alternatives (which include charter, alternative and independent schools and home-based learning) vary, but usually emphasize small class sizes, close relationships between students and teachers and a sense of community. Terminology[edit] Alternative education refers to education which does not conform to a conventional standard. Origins[edit] Alternative education presupposes a tradition to which the "alternative" is opposed.
In the United States[edit] Courses. BartlebyProject2010. Khan Academy. Unschoolery. The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling. Post written by Leo Babauta. There’s nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents. It’s an educational philosophy that provides for more freedom than any other learning method, and prepares kids for an uncertain and rapidly changing future better than anything else I know. My wife and I unschool four of our kids, and have been for several years.
And yet, as powerful as I believe unschooling to be, I’ve never written about it, because the truth is, I certainly don’t have all the answers. The beauty of unschooling is in the search for the answers. But I’m getting ahead of myself: what is unschooling? What is Unschooling? First, it’s a form of homeschooling. However, this is how I describe it — in contrast to school: Let me emphasize that for a minute: in unschooling, life itself is learning. This is how I learn as a self-employed writer, as an entrepreneur, as a parent. Why Unschool? More reasons to unschool: How to Unschool. Family Unschoolers Network - Unschooling Support. Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun | Dayna Martin's Book. Unschooling. Canadian Unschooler. Learning Mind. Unschooling. Philosophy[edit] Children are natural learners[edit] A fundamental premise of unschooling is that curiosity is innate and that children want to learn.
From this an argument can be made that institutionalizing children in a so-called "one size fits all" or "factory model" school is an inefficient use of the children's time, because it requires each child to learn a specific subject matter in a particular manner, at a particular pace, and at a specific time regardless of that individual's present or future needs, interests, goals, or any pre-existing knowledge he or she might have about the topic.
Many unschoolers believe that opportunities for valuable hands-on, community-based, spontaneous, and real-world experiences are missed when educational opportunities are limited to, or dominated by, those inside a school building. Learning Styles[edit] People vary in their "learning styles", that is, how they acquire new information. Developmental differences[edit] Essential body of knowledge[edit] TheDigitalUniversity.