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Unschooling
By Emm Mangum
April 28, 2003
Every child has their own ways to learn and every parent has their own ways to teach. With that being said, the following is our definition of unschooling.
Unschooling is simply listening to your child by going at their pace, not what everyone else is doing or what they should know at a certain age. Unschooling is teaching them in depth about what they are interested in. Yes, they still need to learn the basics, but on their own schedule. I don't mean to let them wait until they are seniors in high school before they learn their alphabet. Some kids may need to be encouraged to try something new, others would just prefer to do something else first. It's easy to compare children against each other, but this is one of the easiest ways to mess with the success of unschooling.
There are different ways to unschool. Some families require a set amount of time on certain subjects, and then their child is free to explore other subjects that are more interesting to them. Other families completely and totally unschool their child until a certain age or grade level and then require some structure. Then, there are unschoolers like us. We may be considered extreme, but we are still very much Christian unschoolers. We very rarely use any type of workbooks, we don't have set schedules, we don't sit down at the table to do the work, and I don't make a lesson plan at the beginning of each week. We may learn about science through watching an earthworm in our flowerbed or the beauty and grace of birds in flight. We learn math by playing store or adding up the groceries as we shop. We can easily play store six days in a row without anything else before our boys decide to learn something completely different. They are even starting to learn the basics on designing their own websites with the help of a program and the guidance from me. It's all up to them.
Unschooling doesn't mean absolutely no textbooks, structure or schedules. Our children choose when and if the textbooks are brought out. It also doesn't mean that the parents aren't involved. If anything, it means the parents must be more involved. How else are we supposed to suggest things that might be of interest in a way that won't make them resist or resent it and then go on to learn about the new interests so we can teach them?
I believe every child is unique and it's our job as parents to help them become who they are meant to be. They may not cover all the subjects that other kids cover at the same time; it may be sooner or it may be later. We can't make our children learn something they're not ready to, but at the same time, if they are ready, then let the teaching begin. Learning occurs all the time, it doesn't stop just because “school” is over; it's a continuous thing.
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