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

You've lost track due to no5no5's habit of twisting and dodging. I haven't.


Which child?


Anecdotes about a few people teaching themselves to read in late teens or adulthood and being just fine are unconvincing support for unschooling, to say the least, in light of our illiteracy problem. It doesn't make sense to assume that being put far behind is not a serious disadvantage, and that it doesn't limit one's life choices.

I'm sorry if you've really gotten confused. My message is pretty clear, where I haven't been forced to accompany no5no5 on her excursions, and parts of it have even been restated. I encourage you to go back and read the thread again, if you like. Most of your rhetoric boils down to a little series of straw men.

No, I'm not. I'm interested in honest conversation, and honest discussion, but arguments, particularly when one party has no interest in anything but winning, seem pretty pointless to me. And I'm not big on muffins, but I will certainly enjoy my poppy seed cake. And my cornbread. And my pecan pie.

Sorry, you didn't answer my question.

Summary: Iucounu began by claiming "at least radical unschooling is guaranteed to produce lower-caliber voters than even a mediocre school education". He's provided no evidence for this, however.

In other news, ColinsMum likes to present quotes out of context. Here's my actual quote in full, for convenience:


It was clearly identified as a statement of opinion, in other words. And I think there is plenty of reason shown for that opinion-- including that there is no real basis for any assumption that discarding schooling entirely, and trusting to forces such as embarrassment to result in well-rounded people, will in general work as well as schooling in ensuring minimum levels of competency, or for preparing people for adult life, for example by producing decent voters.

In that very post I pointed to a specific sort of claim made by unschooling advocates, and I doubt that most people would disagree with my conclusion, at least without some sort of proof to the contrary.

Anyone can feel free to prove my opinion wrong with some valid evidence. The thing about radical unschooling is that there are no statistics I've been able to find, although unschooling advocates seem to be ready with a quick anecdote for just about everything, even brussels sprouts.

Those summary thingies can be tricky; they've got to present information properly, or they can be misleading. Anyone can feel free to read the words I've written, in their proper context.

You asked a series of rhetorical questions, in presentation of your straw men, which aren't worth my time. Here's an example:

You're right?

Here's my full answer to this particular question: You're absolutely correct, as nothing I've written would indicate to a normal reader that I consider it to be impossible to learn something in adulthood. Such a position would be insane.

A natural question in response might run, "Why do you assume that greatly delaying, perhaps until adulthood, the learning of (what almost all non-unschoolers would consider to be) foundational knowledge and skills will have no negative consequences for anyone, or, if you like, for anyone but a 'negligible' number of children? Keep in mind that an anecdote about one or a few kids doing fine doesn't mean that an approach will work in general. If you like, present non-anecdotal data, from a neutral source, as part of your answer."

But I'm not asking that question.

I did ask a question that no one answered and it was a serious question. Since so many of us are dealing with trying to get acceleration in the school, for those of you unschooling:

Do you find that your child is now testing way above grade level on the state tests?

Anyone? I would like to know if it works for accelerating the curriculum.

Wren, to answer your question (and ducking to avoid the drama going on above!),

If accelerating the core curriculum counts as "unschooling," then I would say it definitely works for state tests. When we started HSing my then-kindergartener last January, grammar wasn't even part of the standards curriculum and not required by our charter. However, we accelerated with Grade 2 and 3 materials because he loves to write and I felt he was ready to start the foundation. He doesn't have to do California's "STAR testing" until the end of 2nd grade (based on his registration, not what level he's studying). When he sat in on the school's scantron equivalent at the end of K, though, he scored in the 99th% amongst 2nd graders. Same thing with 2nd grade math and reading comp.(which came out far higher).

I don't really think of us as "unschooling," though, by accelerating these core curriculum subjects. We're still following a set path, just with our own curriculum and at our own pace. I think of our unschooling coming more through things like social studies (we study Ancient World and geography instead of the community-concepts in 1st grade standards), science (we do subject-immersion, often following where DS wants to go, but still hit the standards), literature (since he's a 9th grade reader and we don't have to do "reading" anymore), and our co-op classes that are filled with "electives" like Spanish, music, fine arts, and drama class. I present the accelerated core curriculum to DS and he accepts that as part of his core work, vs. when we turned Harry Potter into a lit./writing unit because he suddenly fell in love with the series.

Does that make sense?

Wren, I didn't answer because my DD is still a preschooler, so we have not had her tested yet. I can tell you, though, that she is at least two years ahead in everything that is on the ITBS in the first couple of years of school. I have no reason to think that will not continue, but if you remind me in a couple of years I'll give you an update.

In our case our child was testing many levels out prior to the beginning of calling anything schooling and that continued through home/unschooling. So, I'm not sure I can really answer the question.

I have heard parents of gifted kids who were removed from school for homeschooling/unschooling, comment with absolute shock how fast their kids started progressing at that point. Part of it was probably that the kids were already past grade level. The other part was once all of the time wasting parts of school (line up, busy work, stuff that was not at the right level, etc.) stuff is removed kids who are engaged can progress very rapidly.