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Monday, September 15, 2008

Unschooling? What are your thoughts?

Me, I love the idea. I love the relaxed, child led, focus on their interests idea of education.  I am trying really hard to let my head know that my heart likes that idea.  My main thinking with unschooling, or even relaxed school, I think that they need to know the basics.  They have to know how to read, write legibly, basic math facts.  There are some grammar rules that they need to learn.  Once they get that down, then I am all about learn what you want to.


I have tried real hard to be relaxed, and I think I do a decent job at it.  When the kiddos were younger, I read The Well Trained Mind and I really like the classical aspect of homeschooling. Well, maybe it was the levels that I really took to, that and the 4 year history rotation.  I am not to much into teaching them Latin, we aren't into composer study and they are not to caring about studying the artists.  I like the science rotation also, but the more I read and think about things, we will be going with Apolgia from here on out and doing some total immersion studying on the science side of things. The reason we have done science the way we have the past two years is because they have to test at the end of their 3rd grade year.  I felt it best to use something that covered all the areas, so they would be prepared for the test.  Come to find out, they do not have to test that part anymore....so, we will do what we paid for this year, plus, they seem to like it, then go Apologia next year.


So, tell me what you think...what are your thoughts on unschooling or relaxed schooling.  Tell me why I should let go and let them learn!

1 comment:

  1. I consider myself a very relaxed unschooler, we don't follow any more than a loose schedule (get up, do your chores, start school) and have a lot of leeway in our lives for...well...life.


    A few years ago I was highly criticized by a friend for how relaxed I was, but now that I have a 13 year old I can see how it worked for him. He LOVES to research and study on his own and is constantly reading about, learning about, checking out books on whatever subject has caught his interest.

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