Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Unschooling: What Does it Look Like?

Wow. I'm so amazed and impressed by all who answered. Such intelligent and thoughtful responses--whatever the position.

My poking into this idea was inspired by a deep frustration for my ds12. This year he skipped a grade, so navigating socially took a bit of energy. He's very happy with the move and academically it wasn't an issue. What I'm frustrated with was all the busy-work type homework. Clearly one of his teachers believes you throw more work at high-achievers and high ability kids "to slow them down." This teacher gave enough homework for a team of teachers. Some of it I wished I hadn't seen come home such as a word search of World War II terms. Word search. For 7th graders. Bah.
My point is that by the time ds was finished with his homework, there was no energy or desire to work on his novel, do his chemistry experiments, or whatever else is intriguing him. He was simply a fried egg. I was toying with the idea of using the year between 8th grade and high school for a year of exploration. The issue then is psychological; I'm not sure placing him back in his old grade again would be a good move.
In the end, after reading many of these comments and thinking about what styles of teaching and learning really suit my child, I've decided against it.