Unschooling: An Encouraging Option

[Salty]

Kids pick up on things and if you ask questions with the intent to get him to learn he probably won't respond. But if you make the whole thing about play and you play hard most kids are going to want to be a part of it.

Ignoring him while playing the game and making HIM ask questions about its intricacies is one idea. Also, shifting how people think about the things they do daily takes time.

But these are suggestion given without knowing your kid so...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I would love to unschool my son, but he doesn't have the drive to learn on his own. And I don't have the patience it would require to get him to learn.
So sadly school is the best for him, despite the stupidity of it all.

Children are born curious.

School, if anything, drives it out of them.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

All of those things are learning opportunities, if you just let them happen. My kids learned a shit ton of world political history from Hetalia. 

Playing outside is naturally educational.

I think you are confusing "learning" with "memorization" and "drills". Learning doesn't need to include those at all.

[Salty]

I think a large part of this is trust.

You have to trust that your child has a brain yearning to be filled, to reach beyond, this is part of how the brain works.

N fact, you have to trust that you child's brain has a larger capacity for extracting quality information and learning from a video game than you do.

ETA: Your notion of what learning is has to be readjusted because you've probably been put through the public school wringer. This is a chance for you to learn, and unlearn, as much as it is for your child. In fact, I look at it as an opportunity to unschool myself as much as my son..

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is a good site for learning more: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/earl_stevens.html

The videos I posted are also really informative, although they aren't about unschooling specifically, but about how children learn.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think a large part of this is trust.

You have to trust that your child has a brain yearning to be filled, to reach beyond, this is part of how the brain works.

N fact, you have to trust that you child's brain has a larger capacity for extracting quality information and learning from a video game than you do.

ETA: Your notion of what learning is has to be readjusted because you've probably been put through the public school wringer. This is a chance for you to learn, and unlearn, as much as it is for your child. In fact, I look at it as an opportunity to unschool myself as much as my son..

YES!

[Salty]

http://sandradodd.com/activeunschooling.html

Is good link, Sits.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://sandradodd.com/activeunschooling.html

Is good link, Sits.

Oooh, that is a good one! This one too: http://www.holtgws.com/unschooling.html

[Sita]

He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

All of those things are learning opportunities, if you just let them happen. My kids learned a shit ton of world political history from Hetalia. 

Playing outside is naturally educational.

I think you are confusing "learning" with "memorization" and "drills". Learning doesn't need to include those at all.

Not at all. I was a very curious kid so I know how being outside and stuff is educational. Just don't see that in my son.
He doesn't care why or how. If he does this and then that happens then that's all he wants to know.

[Sita]

I'll take a look at those links. Thanks.

[Freeky]

Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I would dearly like to unschool my three bio-kids. Almost all of the stress my children experience is related to school. I remember that stress, way back when. One of the best things my mother ever could have done was pull me out of school, in terms of  my emotional and intellectual health.

ALL I did was play. It's amazing how much you learn when you just play. Some days I just watched TV all day. Some days I sat on the computer playing adventure games. Yet somehow, when I talked to my friends in high school, I was always kind of horrified by how ignorant they were. I was also a heavy reader, and I've noticed that kids, left to themselves, tend to turn to reading to break up the monotony of TV, when they aren't exhausted and stressed from being in school all day. Siana reads ALL THE TIME. It's her comfort.

I missed some of the key talking points in, say, US history, so things periodically surprise me, but functionally speaking, knowing about the Gettysburg Address is pretty useless for most of us. On the other hand, because my knowledge of history is specific to my interests, I know about historical events most Americans don't.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

This is an awesome idea, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it an option for my kids. My son's rate of learning has literally been cut in half since he started 1st Grade.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

I don't think it's ever too early, but most kids seem to get a lot out of kindergarten and many of them also enjoy first grade. At that age, the socialization is really good for them, so even if you plan to unschool all the way it would be good to find a playgroup.

By fourth grade, though, they're usually showing pretty intense signs of stress. So, preferably before fourth grade.

The problem for most parents is that they have to work, and can't actually be home to keep an eye on their kids and act as facilitators. For safety and psychological reasons, I wouldn't recommend leaving a kid under 12 home alone for longer than an hour or two (at most). 12 is also the age at which, for many children, school becomes an intolerable ordeal, and is also about the age at which schools are increasingly criminalizing children.

http://www.temple.edu/history/thompson/documents/Thompsondissent.pdf

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

This is an awesome idea, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it an option for my kids. My son's rate of learning has literally been cut in half since he started 1st Grade.

It's really sad, isn't it? They start out such remarkable, eager sponges, and school just drills it right out of them. They take 12 years to teach them about a year's worth of information, which means that most of it is numbingly repetitive.