It seems there is a straw man leg of this thread arguing against a radical free-range osmotic thing and by proxy dismissing the whole principle of child-led learning.
I don't know if there is a realistic unschooling path for average parents or average kids, which isn't quite what the focus of the discussion ought to be here.
Can a gifted child have an interest in a specific area and be supported by their parents in pursuing information and training and support in that area? Why not multiple areas, why not within a guided scope of a bigger picture of life goals.
Will a typical teacher be as aware of a highly gifted kid's learning methodology and approach than that child combined with their parent? Experiences here says it's a coin toss or less.
I had a really lengthy response to this-- but let me summarize by stating that I don't
think this is a straw man. BUT-- I also think that those saying that radical unschooling is a bad idea are also stating that there is no mechanistic reason why in LIMITED ways, it's not a good thing for most kids, and particularly for HG children.
We're just saying that as a "plan" it really isn't a good idea beyond those limits, whatever they happen to be for particular children.
The true believer types of unschoolers (I call them the John Holt fanclub, myself
) are all about
trusting the process, even when it seems to run counter to all that is known about child development. I think that's irrational-- might even be magical thinking at work, truthfully.
As to the other side of the skill equation, will an expert in a particular field be inherently more competent at teaching that skill? No, pedagogical skills are different than field expertise. It might be better for someone to support their own learning through various sources than to waste time listening to the back of an instructor mumbling in broken English to a chalkboard.
Okay, but this, too, is a straw man. "Good pedagogical skills" are insufficient to make someone a good teacher, and NEVER is this more apparent than in watching a "good" (but borderline subject incompetent) teacher manage HG+ students. Many "good" teachers have the failing of not knowing when they are crossing that boundary of being out of their league, too.
Unschooling at its heart proposes that children should develop
without "interference" from their parents, and mostly without anyone "imposing" anything at all upon them. That
is the philosophy.
I don't think that necessarily is the same thing as "child-led" learning, though it would obviously fit under that larger umbrella.
There are real problems with "child-led" learning as a construct. It assumes a level of agency and autodidactism that I think is simply not present even in most PG children. Not
as children, anyway. It's an issue of critical thinking skills, which are simply not fully developed enough to make children (and a good many adults, come to that) capable of evaluating the validity or bias of a source of information. One need only look at the myriad
foaming condemnation of Common Core to see what I'm talking about there. How to know WHAT to believe-- that is the question. Information is easy. Look, watching Vi Hart do her thing is lovely, but it's not doing me personally as much good as sitting down with a paper and pencil myself. More
enjoyable?? Absolutely. If I were ten, I'd be quite comfortable watching and not DOING, and calling that my "math education." Which would be profoundly wrong, by the way.
The system as it is certainly doesn't do some things very well. It certainly isn't right for some children. But I'm not sure that is the same thing (at all) as saying that the children themselves know
better how to meet their needs than the adults who are raising them. That
is the underlying philosophy of unschooling, however, which is distinct from "homeschooling" in that way.
I agree with mindful, parent-led,
respectful homeschooling that incorporates a child's innate strengths and interests. Absolutely.
I also do NOT agree with letting the child determine the full arc of his/her educational experiences, because it deprives such children of the benefit of adult experience and judgment. It's not "controlling" in an unhealthy way for a parent to state that there are boundaries for a child's own well being or safety.
NOT all children will demonstrate where they need help with basic skills like literacy or numeracy-- and unschooling in it's philosophy says that it is wrong of parents to ASK for such demonstrations, instead saying that one must "trust" the child and the process, that it will all be just fine.
Any 2e parent can tell you that this is a dangerous way to think about things-- because those weaknesses
can be mitigated best when they are identified EARLY on.
We've wondered repeatedly if our early willingness to trust that DD would (eventually) pick up written expression
resulted in deficits, or if it was a MARKER of them.
That puzzle was created by child-led homeschooling, and if we'd continued to do that, she might
still not write or keyboard. In fact, it's what I suspect-- that she'd have used voice-to-text, and nothing else. The "why" is still not clear, and because the basic assumption is that "whatever the child does is fine for him/her" then that precludes concern and evaluation, doesn't it?
