Unschooling

Glad to have my kids home, enjoying being relaxed together as a family. Wishing it didn’t rain yesterday and ice last night leaving us trapped in our small feeling house. We are all looking forward to trying out our new sleds and snowboards once the weather cooperates.

I copied the following list from another website. It explains why I still want to have my kids at home even though they are in a “good school.”

The School Organization
· Breaking up the day into learning time and play time.
· Starting and stopping learning (or shifting topics) according to an externally-imposed schedule.
· Telling students what they should care about.
· Telling students when they should care about it.
· Telling students what is good enough.
· The complex hierarchy with the student at the bottom.
The De-humanizing Aspects of Schools
· Having to ask permission for basic human needs.
· Having to supply "acceptable" excuses for absence or lateness.
· Routine abridgment of human (constitutional) rights.
· Standing in lines, waiting for everything: food, water, attention of the teacher, time on the computer, etc.
· Group rewards and punishments.
· Neglect of individual gifts and problems.
· Moving at the sound of a bell.
· Students coming to view themselves as products, moving down a 12-year assembly line, with bits of knowledge poured in or bolted on by others as the belt moves along. Seeing the primary responsibility for their education as being in the hands of others.
Isolation from the Real World
· Segregation by chronological age.
· Separation from family.
· Isolation from the working world.
· Isolation from the effects of age and disease.
· "Free" education isolates children from economic reality.
· Subject matter is divorced from context.
Schedule Rigidity
· Having to be in school at certain times means you can't see the World Cup or a solar eclipse if it happens during the school day, and you can't see the late show or a lunar eclipse if you have to get up in the morning.
· Having to be in school limits your ability to travel.
· Having to be in school limits your ability to do any time-consuming worthwhile activity.