Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Homeschooling and unschooling

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: DSanner106 AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Homeschooling and unschooling
  • Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:36:20 EDT

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.

_______________________________________________
Homestead list and subscription:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
Change your homestead list member options:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/options/homestead/dsanner106%40aol.com
View the archives at:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead







**************Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best
2008. (http://citysbest.aol.com?ncid=aolacg00050000000102)




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page