Another NYT homeschooling article

[LAS in LA]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/magazine/my-parents-were-home-schooling-anarchists.html

[Starr]

What more could you want? You have to love this mom.

[gingersmom]

What a great article. I wish she wrote a book about her and her siblings upbringing.

[Wildiris]

My thoughts after reading this article:

From the kids' point of view, homeschooling/unschooling was a mixed bag--not really a blessing for all. While homeschoolers always want to sing the praises of homeschooling, I think there are some very real issues with homeschool that get ignored. Really, nothing is perfect, and this article reflect that imperfection.

[melissel]

My thoughts after reading this article:

From the kids' point of view, homeschooling/unschooling was a mixed bag--not really a blessing for all. While homeschoolers always want to sing the praises of homeschooling, I think there are some very real issues with homeschool that get ignored. Really, nothing is perfect, and this article reflect that imperfection.

 

:iagree: It was a very interesting article, though. I wonder how they would have turned out had they not eventually gone into formal schools.

[Elizabeth in MN]

Great article, thank you for posting it here!

[Sharon H in IL]

I find myself angry that the parents basically ignored their children once they dropped them off at the front door of the school.

 

They were not totally unprepared, but they certainly suffered a great deal, unnecessarily. Not because they had homeschooled, but because mom and dad were too busy to pay attention to their need for social and academic help.

 

The mother is overly self-congratulatory, imo.

[HS Mom in NC]

The first problem with this article is that it does not consistently use the term "unschooling" in reference to the mother's approach. Ignorant readers unfamiliar with child-centered, unstructured, unschooling might be assuming, based on only this article, that unschooling and homeschooling are synonymous. There is a huge variety of approaches to homeschooling. Unschooling is practiced by the minority of the 2 million homeschoolers she mentions and not all of them are so unstructured in all subjects and their lifestyles.

 

The second problem is not addressing the issues of transition. The parents blindly dump children from a real world, multi-cultural experience into something as foreign as the bizarre parallel universe of American PS (which by the way, bears little resemblance to the real world of the American workforce and American adult life.) Even some children immersed in PS culture from age 5 have a hard time adapting to Jr. High or High School in PS.

 

Basically, these kids got the worst of both worlds. It was a free for all of mom's impulses and a rootless existence and then it was the mass production conveyor belt of PS with no preparation or follow up by Mom or Dad. I guess whatever Mom and Dad wanted for themselves mattered more than what their children needed at the time. It seems like these parents never thought beyond the moment. What did they think their children would be doing at ages 20, 30 and 50? What would those children need to do now to prepare? What would they need to do 10 years from now to prepare?

 

This is also an example of sticking to a theory over real life results. If your child is not reading well or focusing well, it is not an in born personality trait. It's something that can be developed with a thoughtful, systematic approach and consistency.

[Sahamamama]

The first problem with this article is that it does not consistently use the term "unschooling" in reference to the mother's approach. Ignorant readers unfamiliar with child-centered, unstructured, unschooling might be assuming, based on only this article, that unschooling and homeschooling are synonymous. There is a huge variety of approaches to homeschooling. Unschooling is practiced by the minority of the 2 million homeschoolers she mentions and not all of them are so unstructured in all subjects and their lifestyles.

 

The second problem is not addressing the issues of transition. The parents blindly dump children from a real world, multi-cultural experience into something as foreign as the bizarre parallel universe of American PS (which by the way, bears little resemblance to the real world of the American workforce and American adult life.) Even some children immersed in PS culture from age 5 have a hard time adapting to Jr. High or High School in PS.

 

Basically, these kids got the worst of both worlds. It was a free for all of mom's impulses and a rootless existence and then it was the mass production conveyor belt of PS with no preparation or follow up by Mom or Dad. I guess whatever Mom and Dad wanted for themselves mattered more than what their children needed at the time. It seems like these parents never thought beyond the moment. What did they think their children would be doing at ages 20, 30 and 50? What would those children need to do now to prepare? What would they need to do 10 years from now to prepare?

 

This is also an example of sticking to a theory over real life results. If your child is not reading well or focusing well, it is not an in born personality trait. It's something that can be developed with a thoughtful, systematic approach and consistency.

 

:iagree: