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[DSanner106 AT aol.com]

You are right Gene that homeschooling and unschooling are definitely not  
right for all
kids in all situations. The level of commitment on the part of the parents,  
and their 
ability to spend the time necessary is what makes it successful. In  
addition, the level
of education on the parents part can help and hinder the  child's 
development. The projects
are probably not a good place for most to try this
 
Drew 
 
 
In a message dated 6/14/2008 11:19:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
genegerue AT ruralize.com writes:


On  Jun 14, 2008, at 9:49 AM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com  wrote:

>
>
>>> How many examples do you need? Walk  through any housing project for
>> starters. Then walk through the  barrios. Then observe the home lives
>> of children whose parents are  working minimum-wage jobs. All children
>> deserve the opportunity to  rise above their beginnings.
>
>  -----------------------
>
> This, I am going to suggest, Gene, is  based on a misunderstanding of  
> the
> nature of learning  and the concept of unshcooling.

Could very well be. I have no personal  experience with unschooling. I  
find the concept wonderful in many  ways. My caution is thinking it can  
replace school for all  children.
>
> Throughout human history children have learned about  adult life by  
> being
> exposed to the real world.  As  far as math and reading and such go,  
> if a child is
>  exposed to it being used, he picks it up.  All children do.  I  am  
> involved in
> extended groups of unschoolers.   Not one of several score of  
> children ever had
> one  reading, phonics, spelling, or math lesson in their lives but by   
> an early
> age they all read and all do whatever math is  necessary to operate  
> their
> rather extensive  world.

In what way are you involved? Do you assist parents who are  unfamiliar  
with the concept?
>
> Did I mention ALL  children. But, says you, what about this or that  
> hard  luck
> example or this one particular individual .... you can't say  'all'.   
> Read my
> lips, ALL  children.
>
> Unschooling was the way of things from tribal  societies all the way up
> through the cottage indsustries and farm of  pre-industrial times.   
> With slavery per
> se falling  out of disfavor, people who wanted to get rich on the  
> backs  of
> others created what we recognize today as public schools.   It's main  
> function was
> to break up the family,  indoctrinate the children to accept token  
> rewards for
>  their labor, and instill the "work ethic" which means to go off into   
> some
> dismal place like a sweat shop or a cubicle and feel  guilty if you  
> don't.
>
> The situation you describe  above is a product of that form of societal
> management.  Children  naturally learn from their surroundings.  Fish  
> swim,  birds
> fly, children learn.

Surely what they learn is what is  around them. If they are surrounded  
by disorder and criminality is  that not what they would learn?

>  It's their nature.  The  function of schooling to to
> convince parents and children that they  can't learn.  If high priest  
> and high
> preistess of  education does not perform the appropriate rituals over  
> them,  the will
> forever remain ignorant and illiterate.
>
> In  unschooling families this cycle is broken.  Not knowing that they   
> are
> supposed to not be able to learn without the  "professionals",  
> children learn
> instantly when they are  ready to do so.
>
> The argument to look into the enclaves of  poverty and explain how  
> those
> people, sans the  supervision of government schools, can ever hope t  
> make  anything
> of themselves, is exactly the same argument made in the  1860's about  
> the
> slaves.  When emancipation was  general, it DID cause a lot of social  
> problems for
>  those whom it was intended to benefit.  Did that mean it shouldn't   
> have been
> done?
>
> Also there will be some  reading this who will stare and drool and  
> fall into a
>  fit absolutism, much as people do about subsistence homesteading.    
> When I
> have advocated hand labor and simple methods, there is  always  
> someone who will
> say, slackjawed, "But you are  using a computer so you really don't  
> do that
>  yourself!  So you using a computer is the same thing as me using a   
> John Deere to
> till up my 20' x 30' garden."  The  absolutist thinks that for the  
> minimalist to
> have any  credibilty, they must wander off into the forest naked and  
> find  some
> flint to knap out tools.
>
> Like that, the same  foggy mentality thinks that unschooling is  
> locking your
>  child in a closet and never talking to them.  It is the exact   
> opposite.
> Government schooled children are the ones locked  into closets.  The  
> unschooled are
> in constant  contact with people of all ages, all relationships, all  
> skills,  all
> beliefs.
>
> The housing projects snd barrios are not  a reason why we need the  
> status quo
> government  education and nannyism.  Rather it is the PRODUCT of  
> these  social
> debacles.   
> ________

I understand the  history, the motivation, the logic. I can see how  
homeschooling and  unschooling would be most helpful to many children.  
I have strong  reservations that it would work in areas where some  
children are  trying to do good things while surrounded by gangs  
pushing them  around, taunting them, recruiting them, training them to  
be good  gang members. It seems to me that urban gangs are in fact a  
result  of lack of guidance, of extreme unschooling. What these  
children  learn is how to survive in a criminal  atmosphere.

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