There’s an article ‘Unschooling’ – education fad or real alternative? https://theconversation.com/unschooling-education-fad-or-real-alternative-12548 on theconversation website.
I always find it ironic that although I see merit in many of the “unschooling” theories, and am highly critical of many school practices, I end up defending the role schools play in education.
Over the decades I’ve spent a lot of time reading about homeschooling and talking to people who did it. When my children were school age, there were times when things got so bad that we had to withdraw them from school. I guess I could have been called a “reluctant homeschooler”.
We tried the distance education model which is the easiest way to meet the requirements of the bureaucracy. I found it simply moved an inappropriate curriculum and the accompanying frustrations from a classroom into our home.
Sometimes we just chilled and did what some would call unschooling. Day to day life at home tended to be more intellectually stimulating and a better learning experience than school anyway – which is more a negative reflection on schools than a positive reflection of our homelife – so they never fell behind their age-peers at school.
Gradually, I came up with a hierarchy which determined when we should stay with schools and when we should get out. It goes:
- Ideal – a school which provides intellectual stimulation, opportunities to access knowledge and master skills, opportunities to meet new people (adults and children) and new ideas, a safe emotional and physical environment.
- Good – a school which does some of the above
- Worth hanging in there – a school which does no harm supplemented by education elsewhere
- Homeschooling – when none of the above are available
- A school that is doing harm – which includes schools where children need to be drugged to cope
We changed schools which sometimes worked for a while, sometimes not. Sometimes it was the individual teacher or classroom that determined whether we were at, above or below level 3. We tried state schools and private schools and while there were differences, I wouldn’t deem either one as necessarily better than another.
So, here are my reasons that homeschooling is way down at number 4.
- It takes away the child’s opportunity to have a life independent of the family.
- It conflates the roles of being a parent and a teacher – and sometimes that matters.
- It means that at least one parent has to put their job/career on hold for many years.
- It means that you are likely to pass on your own educational shortcomings eg poor grammar, poor understanding of maths, lack of interest in science. While individual teachers may have these too, at least other teachers can counteract their effect.
- While it avoids option number 5 above it also means you lose any chance of getting 1 or 2.
- It takes away safeguards for children. I’m sure that most people can think of certain parents they would judge to be unsuitable to homeschool their children. How do you know that you are not one of “those” parents?
That last point is very important. The article referenced above https://theconversation.com/unschooling-education-fad-or-real-alternative-12548 and the comments below it provide an excellent example of common ideas of “good” and “bad” homeschoolers and how not everyone would agree who gets categorised as which.
If we were inadequate homeschoolers, would we know? Would you? Or would everyone simply judge themselves to be a “good” homeschooler?
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