I don't know that speaker, but I Googled him. He looks to be one of John Holt's disciples, so he's probably going to be all about unschooling.

If it helps, I'm doubting that you'll be an unschooler, just given what I know about you and your DS...It's the least structured form of HSing and basically says that all children are natural learners, so if you just spread opportunities before them, they'll learn on their own. No teaching unless the kids ask to take the class. No taking the kids on field trips unless they first express an interest in the subject. Etc.

It's a valid method, and a lot of people love it, but it's too hands-off for me (and perhaps for you? I could be wrong, but...). Oh, and if you're unschooling, you'd have to restrict media time pretty much completely so that TV and computer are not all the child does!

Mostly I just don't want you to think that unschooling is the only way to go. His form of HSing may look nothing like what I do!

I've responded before about how we do our HSing thing, so I won't bore you. If you can't find my description of our LOOSE daily plan, let me know and I'll repost. We definitely leave room in our schedule for field trips and playdates.

The biggest thing I would warn against is the other extreme from unschooling: thinking that you have to do "school at home" in order to HS. (Not that you would do that, but just in case...) We don't try to keep to a typical school schedule at all. Not even a little. In fact we take one day off a week for skiing--that's his phys ed! Not typical!

So much of a typical school day is wasted time (waiting in line, waiting for everyone to catch up, waiting, waiting, waiting...) that if you have just one child to focus on, a whole school day's worth of material can be managed in just a couple of hours, including dawdling time. Less is more I've found, since you're probably going to FLY through curriculum even faster than you think you will. Without pushing by me, DS6's reading has improved about 2-3 grade levels in 5 months. He's done 2 years of math in that same time. Etc. in short, there's no need to spend a lot of time on traditional school. Cover the basics and give him plenty of time to play/work on his own projects.

I guess what I'm saying is that unless your DS *prefers* a typical school schedule at home, or unless your state requires that sort of time commitment, there's absolutely no need to go that route. It will wear both of you out for no good reason.

Oh, and schedule clean-up time in that day somewhere. The mess expands the more time you're home! Clean-up has to be part of your DS's day...or else!

I don't anticipate trouble returning to a regular school schedule. DS6's biggest worry for next year is that he'll be bored. I think the GT school he's going to part-time next year will prevent boredom, so I'm not worried about that. I do think he'll have to readjust, but I don't think it will be a big problem. It's not like they have no idea what school is all about, you know? I think the transition back in is less of a big deal than the transition out.

Finally, I would advise you to talk to your DS about HSing beforehand to a) be sure he's on board and understands the commitment you're BOTH making to the state, since this will make it easier on those days when he doesn't feel like working, and b) let him know that you're going to have to learn together how to do this, so he's going to have to communicate well with you about what's working and what isn't and why and be understanding if something doesn't go well. You're new to this, too, so you're going to make some mistakes. But the two of you are a team, and together you can figure it all out.

Having that conversation before we took DS6 out of school was the best thing I could have done! There are still some hard days, but he gets why we're doing this and he is definitely a member of the "educate DS6" team.

If I can help, you know where to find me...


Kriston