- Oct 10, 2011
- 1,139
- 2,954
I cannot believe that a parent would do this to the young mind of a child! I already have my negative opinions on homeschooling, but this is crazy is my opinion. Opinions?
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Just to be clear, this is the very extreme of the public schooling/homeschooling/unschooling continuum. Many states require that you prove that your children are learning certain subjects, and while this can be done while "unschooling," you really have to be diligent in recording your experiences and, in reality, you have to steer your children's interests to ensure they are learning those core subjects. For instance, if your child is interested in cooking, you need to be right there with him, having him write out the instructions, treating it like a science experiment if it is a new recipe and recording observations and results in a kind of "lab notebook," talking about measurements, asking him to convert to metric measurements, pretending you're planning a huge dinner party so you need to figure out what measurements you'd need if you had to double, triple, multiply the recipe by 100, etc. There is definitely a way to "unschool" and let your kids pursue their interests while ensuring they are learning essentials. You have a plan about what your kids will learn and you figure out ways to incorporate that into everyday activities. This not-setting-any-boundaries-at-all business, well, let's just say that that approach wouldn't work for my family.
As far as the "socialization" aspect, please let me debunk that right now. Sure, there are homeschooling families that are completely isolated and their kids don't know how to behave around other people. But there are families that send their kids to public school that have similar issues. All of the homeschooling families that I know participate in co-ops (I'm part of a physical education co-op that gets together weekly so the kids can learn and play team sports) and the kids understand how to interact politely and properly with kids of all ages and adults. Many of the kids participate in community sports with their public-schooled peers. Homeschooling does not have to be an isolating experience.
Personally I have no experience with homeschooling as it isn't really done over here. But I completely agree with what you've said. I don't think most home schooled kids/unschooled kids have social issues. I think this example is probably the most outrageous one ABC could find. I'd be interested to see where her children were in ten years, perhaps they'll be very happy adults doing exactly what they love. Or maybe one will realise they want to go to college and in that case, will they have the practical skills to get into college?
Whats going to happen to them when its time for them to get a job...because clearly college will be out of the question.