Unschooling Picks Up Steam
By Mimi Rothschild
The Louisville Courier-Journal ran a recent story on the growing popularity of unschooling. Unschooling was the hot topic of the homeschooling world in 2006 and it shows no signs of slowing down. Self-taught learning, educational autonomy, child-led learning, are all names for what is now considered “unschooling.”
“It’s an awareness that learning is always happening because it’s part of living,” said Jane Van Stelle Haded of Hobart, who unschools her two children. “It’s almost trying to capitalize on whatever your children are interested in.”
Whether that means baking bread with mom or playing an education video game with little brother, learning can happen anywhere. This type of learning stands in stark contrast to the rigid structures and testing formats of the public school system. Educators are currently unable to tell if unschoolers can stack up against their public school counterparts academically because unschooling is such a nascent phenomenon.
However, unschoolers would argue that they aren’t necessarily doing it so that their children will be able to score well on standardized tests. They want their children to love learning in every form, enjoy life, and pursue their imaginations to their hearts content. After all, what is an education good for if you can’t use it to pursue something you love in the first place?
When I first heard about unschooling I imagined my sons playing video games all day instead of working on schoolwork. I’m sure that most unschoolers would not allow this kind of behavior. There have to be boundaries. Providing boundaries to guide the child’s imagination is a necessary parental function.
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