Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion To the homeschoolers about unschooling

Also, and this is just gossip but these questions do come up. �When I was a child a neighbor, a single mother of four, did "homeschool" her kids for religious reasons and because the local public school kids honestly weren't the best influence on each other. �She didn't really do a good job homeschooling but it was her kids to raise. �Back then most of the church people who couldn't afford private school home-schooled. �I bring her up because I'm sure her kids were behind grade level in a few subjects. �(I forgot what, I vaguely remember the gossip.). She was allowed to keep her kids home anyway, back then. �

Now, almost 20 years later a friend of mine who recently home-schooled was gossiping with me about her local homeschoolers group, specifically the unschoolers in the group since she was unschooling. �She said that many of the unschoolers backpedaled at the last minute and crammed for the state end-of year test. �We were trying to guess why they would do that? �Do you have to pass the test to be allowed to keep homeschooling? �What about the same kids who fail the standard tests year after year in public school, are they allowed to keep going to public school?

This is a state issue. Different states have different laws. Here's a link to Texas law and the (religious and conservative) HSLDA's take on it:

http://www.hslda.org/laws/analysis/Texas.pdf

It doesn't look like Texas requires any testing. Many states do.

In our state, testing or a portfolio review is required (among other things). Failing the test means remediation is required, though one is allowed to continue homeschooling. The required percentile for passing is pretty dang low though--under the 30th percentile--and one could retest if desired (for another $40 or $50). But I've never heard of anyone who didn't pass. Those who wouldn't pass would probably go the portfolio route.

I'm pretty sure that kids who fail the state tests in public school nearly always stay in the school. Where else would they go? The public schools can't really kick them out.

I don't think most of them are even held back a grade. (Though I could definitely be wrong about this! Not my area of expertise!)

Reasonable question as I've been on email lists where parents of gifted kids express shock when confronted with lists of standard milestones and no, that's not where I'm coming from. I'm pretty well versed in typical child development and the general scope and sequence of what would be typical for different grades. I have a very wide view of what is normal and I'd think nothing of a seven year old who wasn't reading. I'm instead talking about stuff like: thirteen year olds who can't read, middle school aged kids who are unfamiliar with the four basic math operations and who are unable to use a calculator. Yes, more quirky kids homeschool and that could be some of it, but over time it is hard not to notice when you see kid after kid who is unschooled who is really far off what they will need for adult life. I'm not talking about stuff like knowing chemistry, I'm talking about core skills necessary to have any form of higher education.

I can understand this, however, I have also seen the same with schooled children - both public and private. Honestly, I've seen some adults that make me wonder how they get through daily life. It's not about the method. It's about attitude.

A question for the unschoolers. Are your kids much ahead in passing the state tests? A question for HG+ kid parents really. Wondering if unschooling, allowing them to lead their own path of knowledge takes them way ahead of the required curriculum so that they are 4 or 5 grades ahead.

Ren

No, one of my points is that we can't assume that all kids are so naturally well-rounded in their interests that they will prepare themselves well enough for adult life, including the example someone else raised of being a responsible voter.


Which subjects? The important ones? I don't know anything about cooking, but I'm not embarrassed. I can certainly imagine people living with the potential embarrassment of knowing little of civics, etc.-- they surround us everywhere. Whether or not their interests were dulled by poor schooling, these people haven't corrected the situation.


Fair enough. From my point of view, assuming that children in general tend to be well-rounded, to such an extent and in such large numbers that we don't need standards and testing for homeschooled kids to catch the ones that aren't, is just too dangerous.

But I think any type of schooling that works for a particular kid, to prepare them well enough for adult life, is fine for that kid. And, of course, no child needs to be perfectly well-rounded in order for unschooling to work well enough in that way; they just have to be up to a certain level in some important achievement areas.

I see a lot of value in unschooling. I just don't think that radical unschooling is a good idea without any controls to ensure that unschooled kids are doing well, for similar reasons as I think controls are necessary for all homeschooled kids. I am on the fence whether I think controls are more likely to be needed for unschooled or homeschooled kids. I think unschooled children may be more likely to have untrapped learning disabilities than homeschooled kids; on the other hand, I think it may be more likely, based on personal experience, for someone to homeschool than unschool for the wrong reasons, and so if I had to guess, more homeschooled kids are out-and-out neglected.

What would you do if your child wanted to do nothing but read all day and build with blocks, and didn't like math, despite having just as much access to quality math materials as everything else? Would you ever step in to ensure that he or she learned some math, beyond what they'd pick up naturally by counting household items etc.? Would you figure that he or she would learn math when ready, or when the need arose, and just faithfully wait year by year for it to happen?

As another example, at what point, if a kid, say, just showed no inclination to read, would you get worried and at least have him/her tested for a learning problem?

Even if most unschooled kids were interested in history etc., the rest would not be, and the problem would not be discovered without any controls. That's all I'm saying, not really dissing social studies or saying it's taught well across the board.

School systems aren't perfect, but some degree of oversight is a good thing to make sure kids aren't neglected. It's more likely that a neglected kid would be detectable in the school system than under the sole control of the parents. That's really my concern in a nutshell. And even though there are some terrible schools out there still today, when you have more eyes on a kid there's more chance of a problem being detected. That is, a kid in a school system really has to be neglected by the school AND the parents for no one to notice a serious problem.

LOL. You should be embarrassed if you know so little about cooking that you can't even make yourself eggs and toast. And, personally, I think that cooking is far more important than history. If someone asked me whether I'd trade my baking skills for more knowledge about World War I, I wouldn't even consider it.


At this point my child is 4 1/2, and can do at least first-grade-level math, so it's hard for me to speculate. Honestly, it's also hard for me to imagine what math she might need (if she is not interested in math and presumably will not choose a career in that field) that she could not pick up naturally by cooking, planning events, etc.



I did ask an expert for advice when DD was 3 and reading fluently, but still occasionally reading words backwards (e.g., "saw" for "was"). Predictably, I was told that there was no need to worry yet, and she has since self-corrected.

I can get other people to make me eggs and toast. You think I should be embarrassed, but please take my word for it that I'm not in the slightest; I never took Home Ec. class, etc. either, and wouldn't in any parallel universe if I could have avoided it. So I guess that in me, we have proof that what you consider to be a vital skill won't necessarily be created by this mighty embarrassment force you mentioned before.

I guess that as has been noted previously, different people place emphasis on different things. I would think myself neglectful if I sent my children off to college without what I consider to be basic math skills at that level (which are higher than basic counting, quarter fractions, etc. needed to be an event planner or baker). But I guess that it's not really necessary to have kids that are ready for college, either-- we've got to have some event planners and garbage people in the mix.

I never said that it couldn't happen. I just said that I don't think it happens in healthy people, and a total disregard for learning basic self-care skills strikes me as pretty unhealthy.


Perhaps I should have mentioned that I self-taught math through algebra without the aid of textbooks. I also taught my older sister, and by the time I was in the classes (years later) they were a total waste of time. So when I say that I think DD can teach herself math, I certainly don't just mean arithmetic. But it absolutely is true that many people do not need math skills. One can certainly be a lawyer, a doctor, a college professor, etc., etc., without entering college with math skills beyond the algebra level. Of course one can also decide not to go to college and be a garbage collector, and there's nothing wrong with that if it allows one to lead a happy, fulfilled life.