I have not heard much about this "unschooling" thing before, so I read articles and web sites about it today. It does not sounds like a good idea at all. I believe developing at least a little bit of curriculum is totally necessary. Children NEED some structure in their young lives. It's good for them. There is a lot that they need to learn and need to be led through. They even need school books with questions and answers, math problems and abstract learning.

That's not to say that ALL of the learning process needs to be structured. I was homeschooled my whole childhood. And MOST of my time really was spent on unstructured self-directed learning - exploration, reading anything I wanted, etc. But I had SOME time devoted to specific things that I needed to learn, like math, science, geography (reading too, I guess, but I can't remember ever not knowing how to read). I had books and mom asking me questions to make sure I retained a good portion of the info. I would even take "tests," although nobody would stop me from looking up the answers in books, or going over it till I got it right, or even peeking at the answer key if I wanted to. But the point is I had some structure, and my parents CARED about me enough to make sure that I learned the things they thought were important.

When it comes to homeschooling, there are a lot of resources to help parents put together appropriate curriculum and make sure their kids are being taught the basic things they need to know.

But regarding "unschooling," the first thing I saw is an article talking about an apparently normal 8-year old child who was "unschooled" and still doesn't know how to read -- and the parents aren't worried about it because he's good at other things. That makes me ill. These parents seem to think it is okay because the kid is bright and can beat them at chess, but if you're so stupid that you don't teach your normal 8 year old to read, I wouldn't be surprised if you lose a lot of chess games too...

Don't get me wrong, the "formal" part of education doesn't need to be 6+ hours a day of regimented study. Kids absolutely can learn a lot more when they feel free to learn; it shouldn't be like a punishment to have to be taught something. And yes, the whole world is full of things to learn when you're 5 years old. Should you let the child direct much of the study, and spend more time on what they tend to enjoy? Absolutely yes. But parents do have a responsibility to provide some structure and formal education. If you can't provide that yourself, the child needs to go to a regular school IN ADDITION to learning at home.

I have many unschoolers in my homeschool group in Atlanta, Ga. Several have graduated their seniors and are now off to college or other higher education endeavors. Find a good support group and learn from those experienced in unschooling and you will find that this method can be very successful. Don't listen to the tripe from those who have no experience on the subject. One must be very disciplined in order to succeed in this method and to keep clear records of what your kids are learning. Depending on the state that you live in, unschooling can be great or much too hard to keep records for. check out the following websites for more information and help.

Good luck,
Colleen


www.unschooling.org

unschoolers.com

we're radical unschoolers over here. :) But maybe to try and break away from a pre-set curriculum try maybe a unit study. Good luck!

And if you still want your child to go to school do research on schools other than public. My first reaction was how could any schools be as good as me homeschooling or how could I afford it but buying curricula can be pretty expensive too. My daughter is obsessed with the idea of going to school, she is the social butterfly in the family. The school tour I like the best was the Friends School here in Atlanta www.friendsschoolatlanta.org, it made me want to go to school again. Parents are required to participate, kids can get a snack anytime they want (I think it is so important to keep those little brains fed), reading is done all during the day plus some quite reading time in a small room with a few students and teacher helpers. I still plan on doing unschooling at home on what she is interested at the time