Secondary Course of Study

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~The World is Our Classroom~
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ACME Academy

Course of Study
Secondary Students 

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ACME Academy is a private full-time day school established in compliance with the Education Code of the State of California. Because we believe that the family is the most fundamental social institution and the preferred means of caring for, preparing, and training children to be productive members of society, ACME Academy promotes and supports a family-centered education through our independent study program. At ACME Academy, independent study, in which children learn primarily under the immediate direction, guidance, and support of their parents and other caring and involved adults, offers an outstanding educational opportunity by providing a natural learning environment, extensive real-world experience, flexibility of schedule, and the ability to respond to the specific needs and inclinations of the child. Each ACME student’s program is developmentally appropriate, integrated and fully individualized, and continually built upon student strengths and interests throughout the year.

English: 
ACME students will develop knowledge of, and appreciation for literature and the language, as well as the skills of speaking, reading, listening, spelling, handwriting, and composition.

Students will read from self-chosen or parent-chosen literature on a regular basis and will engage in reflection on those literature pieces in a variety of ways, such as: journal writing, book reviews, conversations, drama based on the books, book clubs. Our educational goal is for ACME students to read for pleasure, to gain exposure to a wide variety of genres, and to be able to reflect critically on what they read.

Students will read content-related non-fiction materials to support their chosen areas of interest. They will reflect on these pieces in a variety of ways, such as: journal writing, writing articles for submission to magazines or newspapers, discussions, or development of a scrapbook in an area of interest. Our goal is for ACME students to learn to read critically for information, to understand and be able to reflect on materials read, to be able to compare them to other sources of information, and to learn how and where to find written resources as needed.

Writing, spelling and grammar will be covered as part of ACME studentsí natural writing processes. Students will develop their ability to write creatively, to write letters and lists, to create and write drama pieces, informational essays, persuasive articles, etc. Our goal is for ACME students to enjoy writing, to gain expertise in both the writing process and in technical writing and editing skills, and to develop a sense of power over the written word.

Science: 
ACME students will develop their scientific knowledge with emphasis on basic concepts, theories, and processes of scientific investigation and on the place of humans in ecological systems, and with appropriate applications of the interrelation and interdependence of the sciences. These will be related to areas of special student interest by engaging in hands-on activities, watching science videos, reading related written materials, conducting scientific experiments, keeping journals, making and recording observations, visiting scientists in their work places, visiting local science museums, participating in science fairs and workshops, or through cooperative learning. Our goal is for ACME students to experience a wide range of scientific exposure in their areas of interest, to develop a positive interest in science, to learn to think scientifically, to develop a respect for the work scientists do, and to understand the importance science has in daily life.

Social Studies: 
ACME students will develop their understanding of the social sciences and humanities by reading and discussing fiction and non-fiction materials, participating in field trips to historic and politically or culturally significant sites, or through discussion and debate. Anthropology, economics, psychology, geography, history, political science, and sociology are fully integrated into the students studies in a wide variety of ways, such as: the use of time lines and maps, discussion, journal writing, cooking, plays, road trips, invention building, field trips, and art. Our goal is for ACME students to develop a foundation for understanding the history, resources, development, and government of California and the United States of America; the American legal system; the operation of the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems and the rights and duties of citizens under the criminal and civil law and the State and Federal constitutions; the development of the American economic system including the role of the entrepreneur and labor; the relations of persons to their human and natural environment; eastern and western cultures and civilizations; human rights issues, with particular attention to the study of the inhumanity of genocide, slavery, and the Holocaust; and contemporary issues including the wise use of natural resources.

Health and Physical Education: 
Health and physical education will be fully integrated as a part of daily living skills and participation in the wider community. Students will learn to care for their health and physical environment in a variety of ways, such as: shopping for and preparing food, discussing the necessity of a healthy diet, participation in fire drills and other emergency preparedness activities, exercise both as play and as part of a structured group experience and through camping, hiking, and other outdoor activity. Our goal is for ACME students to appreciate the necessity of a healthy body and to develop lifelong habits of regular exercise and good nutrition.

Applied Arts and Vocation/Technical Education: 
Consumer and homemaker education, industrial arts, general business education, and general agriculture will be offered in a variety of ways. Studentsí interests will determine the direction of their applied arts and vocation projects, which may include apprenticeships, mentorships, or specific training. Our goal is for ACME students to develop skills and knowledge to meet their own future vocational and avocational requirements.

Visual and Performing Arts: 
ACME students will develop their knowledge of art, music, and drama through informal and structured methods in a variety of ways, such as: art classes, instrumental lessons, choral singing, listening to various styles of music, learning about the people who have influenced music through history, or working on individualized or group projects that relate to music, art, and drama, including acting and performing in a variety of venues and genres. Our goal is for ACME students to enjoy a wide variety of art, music, and drama experiences, including performance, while developing an understanding and appreciation of the importance of art, music, and drama as creative expressions of human life experiences.

Mathematics: 
ACME students will develop mathematical concepts, operational skills, and problem solving through participation in daily real-world activities such as cooking, building, shopping, budgeting, computing, etc. Mathematics materials will be chosen to support studentsí individual learning styles in order to achieve competency in operational skills and insight into problem-solving procedures. Our goal is for ACME students to gain a strong conceptual knowledge of mathematics as well as an appreciation for the daily applications of mathematics in their lives.

Automobile Driver Education: 
ACME students will be offered the opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to become safe drivers.

Foreign Language: 
Students will have the opportunity to develop understanding, speaking, reading, and writing skills in a foreign language of their choice.

Parenting Skills: 
ACME students will acquire parenting skills primarily through first-hand interaction with, and observation of, young children and through direct adult instruction in skills and knowledge including: effective parenting, prevention of child abuse, nutrition, household finances and budgeting, personal and family interactions and relations, methods to promote self-esteem, effective decision-making skills, family and individual health, child growth and development, parental responsibilities, personal hygiene, maintenance of healthy relationships, and teen-parenting issues.

Elementary Course of Study

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~The World is Our Classroom~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACME Academy

Course of Study
Elementary Students 

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ACME Academy is a private full-time day school established in compliance with the Education Code of the State of California. Because we believe that the family is the most fundamental social institution and the preferred means of caring for, preparing, and training children to be productive members of society, ACME Academy promotes and supports a family-centered education through our independent study program.

At ACME Academy, independent study, in which children learn primarily under the immediate direction, guidance, and support of their parents and other caring and involved adults, offers an outstanding educational opportunity by providing a natural learning environment, extensive real-world experience, flexibility of schedule, and the ability to respond to the specific needs and inclinations of the child. Each ACME student’s program is developmentally appropriate, integrated and fully individualized, and continually built upon student strengths and interests throughout the year.

English:
ACME students will develop knowledge of, and appreciation for literature and the language, as well as the skills of speaking, reading, listening, spelling, handwriting, and composition.

Students will read from self-chosen or parent-chosen literature on a regular basis and will engage in reflection on those literature pieces in a variety of ways, such as: journal writing, book reviews, conversations, drama based on the books, book clubs. Our educational goal is for ACME students to read for pleasure, to gain exposure to a wide variety of genres, and to be able to reflect critically on what they read.

Students will read content-related non-fiction materials to support their chosen areas of interest. They will reflect on these pieces in a variety of ways, such as: journal writing, writing articles for submission to magazines or newspapers, discussions, or development of a scrapbook in an area of interest. Our goal is for ACME students to learn to read critically for information, to understand and be able to reflect on materials read, to be able to compare them to other sources of information, and to learn how and where to find written resources as needed.

Writing, spelling and grammar will be covered as part of ACME students’ natural writing processes. Students will develop their ability to write creatively, to write letters and lists, to create and write drama pieces, informational essays, persuasive articles, etc. Our goal is for ACME students to enjoy writing, to gain expertise in both the writing process and in technical writing and editing skills, and to develop a sense of power over the written word.

Science: 
ACME students will develop their knowledge of the biological and physical sciences, with emphasis on the processes of experimental inquiry and on the place of humans in ecological systems. They will relate these to areas of specific student interests by engaging in hands-on activities, watching science videos, reading related written materials, conducting scientific experiments, keeping journals, making and recording observations, visiting scientists in their work places, visiting local science museums, participating in science fairs and workshops, and through cooperative learning. Our goal is for ACME students to experience a wide range of scientific exposure, to develop a positive interest in science, to learn to think scientifically, to develop a respect for the work scientists do, and to understand the importance science has in daily life and in the overall environment.

Social Sciences:
ACME students will develop their understanding of the social sciences and humanities by reading and discussing fiction and non-fiction materials, participating in field trips to historic and politically or culturally significant sites, or through discussion and debate. Anthropology, economics, psychology, geography, history, political science, and sociology are fully integrated into the students studies in a wide variety of ways, such as: the use of time lines and maps, discussion, journal writing, cooking, plays, road trips, invention building, field trips, and art. Our goal is for ACME students to develop a foundation for understanding the history, resources, development, and government of California and the United States of America; the development of the American economic system including the role of the entrepreneur and labor; the relations of persons to their human and natural environment; eastern and western cultures and civilizations; and contemporary issues including the wise use of natural resources.

Health and Physical Education: 
Health and physical education will be fully integrated as a part of daily living skills and participation in the wider community with an emphasis upon the physical activities that my be conducive to health and vigor of body and mind. Students will learn to care for their health and physical environment in a variety of ways, such as: shopping for and preparing food, discussing the necessity of a healthy diet, participation in fire drills and other emergency preparedness activities, exercise both as play and as part of a structured group experience and through camping, hiking, and other outdoor activity. Our goal is for ACME students to appreciate the necessity of a healthy body and to develop lifelong habits of regular exercise and good nutrition.

Visual and Performing Arts:
ACME students will develop their knowledge of art, music, and drama through informal and structured methods in a variety of ways, such as: art classes, instrumental lessons, choral singing, listening to various styles of music, learning about the people who have influenced music through history, or working on individualized or group projects that relate to music, art, and drama, including acting and performing in a variety of venues and genres. Our goal is for ACME students to enjoy a wide variety of art, music, and drama experiences, including performance, while developing an understanding and appreciation of the importance of art, music, and drama as creative expressions of human life experiences.

Mathematics: 
ACME students will develop mathematical concepts, operational skills, and problem solving through participation in daily real-world activities such as cooking, building, shopping, budgeting, computing, etc. Mathematics materials will be chosen to support students’ individual learning styles in order to achieve competency in operational skills and insight into problem-solving procedures. Our goal is for ACME students to gain a strong conceptual knowledge of mathematics as well as an appreciation for the daily applications of mathematics in their lives.

 

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Training is Tricky

Sue Patterson, who has taken up the Unschooling Blog Carnival along with Cydney Romano, has been bugging me to write a blog post about their next month’s theme, which is “Animals.” I’ve been uninspired in spite of the fact that our family has a new dog, Persie, a small, female mixed terrier we rescued in late December from the city animal shelter. (She is named after Robin Van Persie, the soccer player, by the way.)

I think my lack of inspiration might be because the connection between unschooling and animals is almost too obvious. I mean, animals and unschooling seem to go together like peanut butter and jelly. Yes, of course, you can have one without the other – but boy, oh boy, are they good together!

Still, I don’t feel very inspired to write about all the great things kids learn from interacting with animals. I thought I could write about Rosie’s years of intense involvement with horses. Or, maybe Roxana’s deep deep love for all things related to cats would be interesting. I could talk about Roya swimming out in the ocean among the dolphins and where that kind of experience has brought her today. These interests led from one thing to another and resulted in a tremendous wealth of opportunities for learning all kinds of things.

But, right now, we have a new one-year-old dog and we’re taking her to “puppy school.” So I’m immersed in thoughts of “training” and positive reinforcement. And I can’t help considering how this kind of dog training compares to how our children grew up. People sometimes talk about unschooling their dog. I think by that they mean they are kind and generous and give a lot of freedom to their pet and the dog learns without formal training. The instructors at our puppy classes might be a little surprised to discover how sweet a dog can be and how much it can learn if given appropriate and accurate feedback, but not formal behaviorist training.  But I think this approach applies to some breeds far more than others. Our instructors are very into positive reinforcement – training dogs to do tricks using treats as rewards. I keep imagining training our children that way, thinking how silly it seems, and then I remember that this IS the way many people think of raising children. Well, many use negative reinforcement (punishment) and the more enlightened use positive rewards instead of negative consequences. This is the reason for gold stars and stickers and free pizza for reading 15 minutes a day and so on.

Of course, dogs DO respond to incentives, and so do people. Our instructors’ dogs are trained to do over 200 tricks. Could I, or would I want to, say the same about my children? If want my dog to sit and stay on command, I can train her to do that. It takes time, but it isn’t at all hard. I just have to keep rewarding successive approximations of what I want her to do and, eventually, she’ll do it when I tell her to do it. This is behavior shaping and it can work on people, too. Why not train our kids like we train dogs?

The answer is that we want more from our children than instant obedience, we want them to learn to use judgment and take initiative and, well, think for themselves. Training them with rewards may seem positive and at least better than using threats and punishments. It may seem easy and may get short-term results. But, good strong human relationships do not develop between parents and children when parents treat children like pets who need to be trained.

And yet, people do respond to incentives and behaviors do have consequences. Sometimes people say they are using “logical” or “natural” consequences to teach their children. These are typically euphemisms for a form of punishment – a way to “negatively reinforce” certain behaviors. This is the flip side of reward training. If a child leaves a toy outdoors and it begins to rain, the parent may call it a natural or logical consequence to leave the toy outdoors to be ruined. I call it mean and that is exactly what the child will think of it.

Is there an alternative? Yes. Relationship-based parenting is living in a household with each person giving and getting what they need, including support and encouragement and information. Parents take responsibility for being kind and generous with their children while their  their children are growing into kind and responsible people, themselves. The parents do this by BEING kind and generous and responsible with their children. Children learn what they live with. Parents should also give good, clear, and accurate information to help their kids understand how the world works, but they can do that while being kind and helpful, they don’t have to create opportunities for negative lessons to be learned. “I brought your doll in out of the rain; I dried her off and I think she’ll be okay,” versus “You left your doll out in the rain after I’d told you 10 times to bring her in. It is your responsibility and I warned you so I left her there and now she’s ruined.” The first parent has just helped her child along the road to learning thoughtfulness, care of property, and kindness. The second parent has modeled irritation, impatience, and cold-heartedness. Which will the child learn?

Children are not pets to be trained, but young humans to be loved and guided with compassion and kindness. My dog seems to be enjoying her puppy school training sessions. She’s excited and eager. But my children would have felt manipulated, insulted, and controlled and would NOT have responded well.

Do you remember “Silly Pet Tricks?” I hate to mention it, because someone might take me up on it, but I can easily imagine a tv reality show called, “Silly Kid Tricks,” where parents are taught to use positive reinforcement to shape a child into doing some foolish-looking behavior.  Let’s not go there. Let’s love and share and model and live our lives with our children and avoid trying to manipulate them into doing tricks for us.

Careful Planning and Instruction? No Thanks!

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) got me thinking back in the 1980s when they were strongly against early academic, and especially early reading, instruction. I took their arguments to heart, and my own young children freely played their way through their preschool years and were not given any type of early instruction. Instead, we created a rich and stimulating environment in which they could learn through play, experimentation, exploration, investigation, collaboration, and doing what brought them joy. And they learned. A lot. There was no stopping them. After that, school was a big disappointment. The very idea of school is that someone (usually some committee of experts) decides what, when, and how children should learn, and eventually the requirements filter down to a classroom where a teacher tries to inspire, cajole, or flat-out force the kids into learning it. WHAT a difference from the way my children had been learning until then!

My own thinking about learning was firmly rooted in the radical ideas of John Holt and A.S. Neill, both of whom I’d read before I ever had any children of my own.  Both argued for supporting children’s learning without curriculum, lessons, or other imposed-from-above methods by offering real-life experiences and encouragement and assistance to a child pursuing his/her own interests. I had managed to get my children into an cutting-edge public school which had ungraded classrooms and an unusual amount of freedom for students. There were no tests and no grades. Classrooms had learning centers and children were free to move around the room, working on activities of their own choice for much of the day.

So what was wrong? Why did I continue to be so dissatisfied with the schooling my children were receiving? Even while I spent my time volunteering at the school, working in the classroom, running PTA events, promoting “teacher appreciation” and school spirit, I was disappointed with the way my children were being educated. There were good times and bad, but, overall, I thought it was stifling, and I could see that it was slowly, but surely, dulling the children’s initial bright-eyed curiosity.

And then we simply stopped doing school. We pulled the kids out of formal school and we stopped worrying at all about lessons, teaching, curriculum, assessment. We focused on creating a joy-filled and stimulating family life in which the children could discover and follow their interests. They watched, read, listened, played, built, created, explored, investigated, experimented and learned. They talked and wrote and sang at the tops of their voices throughout the day. We spent days outdoors at the beach, in the woods, hiking, swimming, and relaxing. We spent days cocooned in the house, cooking and playing games. Life happened. Learning happened.

Now they are grown. And, maybe surprisingly in light of our unconventional choices, they are quite successful in very conventional ways including work, college, relationships, and hobbies. All three are leaders in their communities. They turned out just fine, thank you very much!

The NAEYC, which inspired me so much at the beginning of my parenting journey, seems to have moved in a different direction. In their position paper, “Where We Stand on Learning to Read and Write,” they state, “Children do not become literate automatically; careful planning and instruction are essential.”* I could not disagree more. Children DO become literate automatically in the same way they learned to walk and speak automatically, if they are given the opportunity. Careful planning and instruction are totally unnecessary and can do far more harm than good. What children (of all ages) need is a rich and stimulating environment with caring adults who engage with them and support them. A rich and active home life with attentive parents and books, games, music, conversation, and socializing among people of all ages, is ideal. Ideal!

Yes, in today’s society, most children will continue to go to school. But it is NOT ideal for young humans to learn in crowded classrooms with 20 or 30 other same-age children and one adult providing lessons decided on by committees who don’t even know these particular children. It could be made better, however, if the NAEYC and other professional organizations would put their focus back on how children naturally learn. Children who learn in a rich and supportive environment do not need to be constantly assessed and tested, for example. Children naturally challenge themselves.  They don’t want to be bored or frustrated – they want to learn.  If adults are paying attention and are responsive to children’s expressed interests, they will automatically provide appropriately challenging activities. When curriculum is planned somewhere else and imposed on children, it is almost certainly inappropriate to any particular child and children will respond by becoming apathetic or either passively or actively resistant. Then schools are dealing with many recalcitrant children, and a vicious cycle is begun in which schools try one method after another to force learning and children become increasingly resistant.

The problem is a very basic one. It will take a paradigm shift to solve it. The entire education system is based on a faulty premise and my family, and many others like mine, are the proof. The faulty premise is exactly what is stated in the NAEYC ”Children do not become literate automatically; careful planning and instruction are essential.” This is just wrong and the more careful planning and instruction are utilized, the more difficult it seems to become to get children to learn.

Children do not need to be cajoled or forced to learn. The urge to learn is as natural to human children as it is to all other animals, and their learning can be equally joyful, intense, satisfying, and successful. Education “experts” are on the wrong track as they write and rewrite learning objectives, learning standards, or new “student learning outcomes.” They redesign curriculum and they test and test and test again, hoping against hope that the newest educational fad will be the one that works.
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*Here is a link to a summary of the NAEYC paper. I’m not recommending it, just citing it as the source of the quote I used. <http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/WWSSLearningToReadAndWriteEnglish.pdf>

Television? Really? Won’t that ruin kids’ brains?

I want to reassure you about something so I’m going to write a lot here – to get my point across. My kids are 19, 22, and 25. They are not slackers by anybody’s standards. They are straight-A college students, one in graduate school. They are people of good character – they are responsible and honest and hard-working and kind. AND – they watch TV – they have unabashed love for movies and tv shows. They didn’t grow up with the idea that TV is bad for you, they are untainted by guilty feelings when watching, and so they can simply enjoy it. They have wide-ranging tastes – from PBS documentaries to Family Guy. They can be watching a Great Performances opera broadcast and move on to South Park. They all read – a lot. Really a lot. They’ve all three written novels (NaNoWriMo novels) and lots of short stories and other stuff. They are engaged in life – they do a ton of volunteer work and have super active social lives. They really are just fine – more than fine – and they all watched a lot of tv, all their lives.

In our household, we have a big-screen, high-def tv in the living room. It has an x-box 360 and a wii hooked up to it – both of those can also stream Netflix directly to the tv. We have several laptops that sometimes someone watches on, even while somebody else might be watching something on the big tv. We have a couple of little-bitty netbooks, too, and sometimes a couple of us might cuddle up together and watch something on one of those (close to book-size). We have another tv in our bedroom – which sometimes my husband uses to watch international soccer when the rest of us might be watching a more girlie movie that he loses interest in <g>. My 19 yo frequently watches tv shows on her iPod. She also has a desktop computer in her room with a big screen and she sometimes watches tv episodes on that. I also have downloaded some tv shows onto my  little iPod nano – and occasionally watch on that. I watched most of Mad Men on it.

With all this tv-watching, you must think we’re slugs. But, no. Roxana does musical theater and plays and has rehearsals many many nights and long weekends of multiple performances. She is a double-major at a university (drama and history). She is in a sorority and is an officer in her sorority and they do all kinds of philanthropic activities, plus a lot of social stuff. Rosie is a more than full time college student and has a job teaching karate classes. She also plays soccer three days a week and does musical theater. She has a boyfriend and a lot of friends – one group that gets together for a long day of playing board games about once a week.  Roya has a full-time job as director of “Access to Adventure” – she plans and carries out exciting excursions for adults with developmental disabilities – just got back from a week in Mexico. She’s now in graduate school – starts today – planning to become a licensed marriage and family therapist. She will be spending a week on an uninhabited island in June – part of the staff for a challenge course for college students. She’s got a degree in Recreation and Leisure Studies and has also worked in the Alaskan back country as an assistant forest ranger. She’s getting married in August. She’s a ceramicist, a spinner and knitter, and she writes poetry.  She works out at a gym almost every day and she has a big dog that she works on training almost every day.  Oh – and she has a huge veggie garden and recently made about 30 jars of lemon and orange marmalade.

I tell you all these things – and I could list more – not to brag. I want you to know that unlimited, unrestricted television truly did not harm my kids. It contributed and still contributes to their enjoyment of life and it has been a significant contributor to their knowledge of the world and to their critical thinking abilities. We all watch a few shows together and have a blast doing it. We watch Project Runway – and talk and talk about the designs and what we like and don’t like and so on. We watch LOST and we talk and talk about the clues and we try to figure it all out and predict what’s going to happen. We watch The Office and we laugh together (and sometimes cringe) and we analyze what makes people act the way they do. We also go to a LOT of live theater. Weekend before last we saw The Beaux Stratagem (a 300-year old play by Farquhar). This past weekend we saw, live, “Grease” and “Working” AND a live musical theater review show (12 minute versions of 10 different musicals)that Roxana was in (she played Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors). This weekend we will probably see two different dance shows. Coming up we already have tickets to see Weird Al Yankovic.

In a couple of weeks three of us are getting on a train to travel for 30 hours up to the Life is Good unschooling conference. Two summers ago we took the train from California to New York City and back.

Are you tired yet? (Yeah, writing some of this out makes me realize why I am so tired at the end of every day.)

My point is that all that tv watching isn’t creating sluggards or dullards. We’re busy and active – more busy and active than most families, including those who don’t allow more than one hour of tv per night, etc.

Two Things About Unschooling

Conventional parents usually don’t think they are being disrespectful or
unkind to their children, and they often think they are using only gentle punishments,
referred to as “natural” or “logical” consequences.

What do radical unschoolers do that is different?

First, they try to engage in  “Parenting with Interpersonal Intelligence.”

One of the things unschooling parents work on is having a clear idea in our own heads, as parents, of what our
interactions with our children mean TO THEM, from their point of view.

Parents send their kids to their room to, “Think it over,” or give them some kind of punishment to get them to, “Think about what you did.” But what are the kids most likely thinking? “She’s so mean.” “She doesn’t understand.” “She’s not fair.” “She didn’t listen to me.” “She doesn’t care.” “I HATE her.” “I’ll never treat MY children like this.”

When we are more able to think from our kids’ point of view, we are more able to figure out what we can do that will really help a situation. It makes a huge difference in what choices we make, as parents.

Second – most people are completely and totally and thoroughly  brainwashed by the whole Skinnerian behaviorist approach to “training” children. When a child is, for example, lashing out at a sibling, that  is a child who needs a parent to help him work through some kind of  problem. But most parents think that any show of sympathy will be
perceived as a reward by the child for his misbehavior and will condition him to do more and more of it.

It is very hard to get out of that mindset – but children are not circus animals, to be trained with reward and punishment. Unschoolers drop that “trained animal” paradigm – and that is a HUGE huge gigantic big  change that requires us to re-examine every aspect of parenting – and to treat our children like real human beings, with complex needs and
interests.

Making these changes in our thinking isn’t easy. Not everybody starts out with the same level of interpersonal intelligence (look up Howard Gardner’s ideas about multiple intelligences for more info on this). For some, it comes naturally, but for many people it takes effort to develop. And, we are SO steeped in behavioral psychology ideas that we tend to think of them as axiomatic – unquestionably true.  It takes almost all of us time and practice to accept that there are other, much stronger, forces at work in child development than positive and negative conditioning and, especially, to realize that conditioning techniques can often counterproductive.

Radical Unschooling

It  isn’t at all surprising that radical unschooling sounds pretty wacko to those who haven’t observed it in action.

First, it is extremely hard to explain it – it is a total paradigm shift in how we parent. We don’t just keep doing things the same way while dropping rules and punishments – there is a lot more to it, and the other changes are significant although more subtle.

Second, it is a long-term process and it involves giving up some things for the sake of other things which we value more. So, in the short run, it can seem pretty goofy. I get that.

But my radically unschooled kids (we had no rules and no punishment) are now 19, 22, and 24. They’re just fine – they’re better than fine. I think they’re pretty darn awesome people and, even by external standards, they’re all successful.

HOW we live without rules or punishment is what is important and what takes a LOT of discussion to really get across.  I just think it isn’t at all what people who have rules and punishments think it would be like if they just dropped them.

Parents of school children think homeschooling would be like what they experiencing when trying to make resistant children do homework.  But we all know that isn’t what homeschooling is.  Still, we find that it is difficult to get that across to parents whose only experience with their own kids is in having homework battles.  We have a similar problem in explaining radical unschooling to other unschoolers and homeschoolers.  It really is just hard to imagine how it really works.

We’ve loved our radically unschooling livestyle – it has been sweet and joyful and extremely satisfying and we have no regrets. They kids were never out of control, never rebellious. We’re super close and the now-grown kids are helpful and generous and responsible and they really don’t quite understand why parents would punish kids – they don’t see any reason for it. They understand other ways of developing parent-childrelationships based on cooperation and collaboration and support.

So – not saying everybody should jump on the radical unschooling bandwagon. Just asking people to maybe not rush to judgment based on a tv segment or even on just a family or two you might happen to know.

Radical unschooling has come to mean extending the basic principles of unschooling to all kinds of learning – not just the usual academic subjects, but to learning to share, to clean the house, to take care of personal hygiene, and on and on. We trust our kids not only to learn to read but also to learn to eat and sleep.  But not “on their own.”  Not at ALL. There is tremendous parental involvement – being a radical unschooling parent is hard work (albeit great fun) and requires a lot of attention and awareness and it needs a lot of creativity, flexibility, and energy.

Supporting Math Learning

Comparing how parents support learning to read versus learning math.

Why do you want your child to become proficient in reading? I have asked this question of hundreds of parents and the answers always include: “to experience the joy of reading,” “to learn to love books,” and sometimes, “to be able to function in adult life.” When I ask them how their child is motivated to learn to read and what they do to encourage it, they say, “reading aloud,” and “provide the kind of reading materials my child enjoys.”

When I ask the same questions about math, parents typically say things like: “I want my child to learn math so he can understand money, get into college, get a job, handle her finances, do well on tests.” To motivate their children, they try to find the best math books they can and they make them do their math on a regular basis.

Comparing their approach to reading with the typical approach to math, it is clear that parents don’t typically put “joy” and “mathematics” together as either goal or motivation even when they do that when it comes to reading. Why not?

You might want to stop here and think a bit about your own attitude toward math. What are your goals for your children in learning math? What do you wish for them? How do you support or encourage them? Lots of times people are really not all that clear on why they even care if their kids learn math; they’ve just accepted it that it is important, and they really can’t articulate why that is – especially beyond some pretty simple arithmetic that is used in everyday life. Few parents find math enjoyable and few feel very competent in math themselves. It’s no wonder that math is the subject homeschooling parents worry about most. And it’s no wonder that they find it hard to support mathematics learning in the same encouraging and enjoyable way they do reading.

Becoming aware of our own math hang-ups can help us set them aside so that we can appreciatively enjoy and happily support what our children bring into our lives, even when it involves math.

Unschoolers are Lazy?

Unschooling is really impossible to confuse with being lazy. It takes a lot of time and energy and thought on the part of the parent. Now, for some people, it is SO fun that it seems easy — just like anything else, when you’re loving what you’re doing, it doesn’t seem like work.

But – it really does take a lot of time and devotion and focus — the
parent needs to really think about the child. A LOT. The parent needs to bring interesting things and ideas and experiences to the child and this means being always on the lookout for what the child might enjoy. It means becoming super aware of your child – not only getting a good sense of what might interest him or her, but how does h/she express that interest and what is the best way for you to offer new and potentially interesting ideas, experiences, and things. The parent needs to consider when and how to support the child in further pursuing a current interest and when the child might be more interested in moving on to something else. The parent needs to be aware of when the child needs someone to talk to and be with and interact with and when the child needs more solitary time to think and pursue an interest on his/her own. The parent needs to get a sense of when the kid needs a more active social life and when he needs to meet some new people or when he needs help in staying connected with old friends.

The parent needs to be so aware of the child that the parent
automatically thinks of him/her and partially sees the world through
h/her eyes.

This is all a tall order. Overly self-centered people can’t do it
because it requires a lot of empathy. People with too many personal
problems that they haven’t addressed in their own lives probably can’t
do it because they are too distracted by those. People who are too
negative or cynical can’t do it because they tend to crush interest and joy, not build it up. People who lack curiosity and a certain amount of gusto for life can’t really do it.

On the other hand, we grow into it. Turns out that we parents learn, too <g>. So – when we are making moves, taking steps, in the direction of unschooling, turns out the trail starts to open up in front of us and we get more and more sure-footed as we travel the unschooling path.

My suggestion is that you ask yourself really honestly, is there
something more I could be doing for my child that would enhance my
child’s life? If the answer is yes, then make the choice to do it. Then ask this question of yourself again and again and, each time, make the life-enriching choice. Apply this to small things and to big momentous decisions. Small things – could I make something for dinner that would be special and interesting? Did I see a cool rock on the ground outside – could I bring it in and wash it and set it on the table for others to notice. Big things – would my child enjoy traveling – can we take a family vacation that involves exploring things my child would find interesting?

In unschooling, “lazy” means not thinking about enriching and enhancing your child’s life. You change this by doing it – one choice at a time.

Support versus Coercion

Don’t people sometimes need external motivation to accomplish things they do want to accomplish?

A friend gave the example of exercising. Lots of us find that we keep up an exercise program if we have a buddy to do it with. I know it is true for me that there are many days I’ll go for a walk or to the gym because I’ve told someone else I’d meet them there and, if I hadn’t, I’d probably have flaked. So, isn’t it human nature to need some external motivation to get us to do even things we really do want to do?

However, my actual desire to exercise is internal. Nobody is “requiring” me to exercise. It is something that I really want to do for myself, but there is a certain amount of inertia that I have to overcome in getting going to do it. It isn’t
someone else trying to make me do something that “they” think is good for me, against my will.

Some of that inertia may be human nature, but a big chunk of it is because we, ourselves, were so often coerced into doing things that other people thought were “good for us” that we built up resistance. Again, exercise is a good example. How many of us can remember the feeling of sheer joy of moving our bodies, of being truly “in” our bodies, when we were little? When did we lose that? Could it have anything to do with forced physical education?

We don’t always do the things we “want to” do (or think we should do). I have a stack of books I want to read, but I sometimes sit and play games on my computer, and then later wish I’d spent that time reading. Why don’t I do the things that have a higher priority to me? Am I lacking in self-discipline? How will my kids learn not to procrastinate or flake?

Would forcing our kids to do things we think are good for them help them do a better job of making their own choices?

I don’t think so.

Instead, we can provide support for the choices our kids make for themselves.

THAT is a really good description of unschooling, but how do we tell the difference between “providing support” for something our kids do want to do and pushing or coercing them? I think it is something we learn through trial and error and being very sensitive and observant.We may sometimes nudge or even push something a little when we think our kids are a little fearful, for example, of doing what they really do want to do. When we do it, we are very very cautious and we pay close attention to what affect our support is having. We watch to see if it is encouraging our child, are they becoming more eager? Or, are they doing it a bit grudgingly? Are they becoming actually resistant? If we give a little push and they get started and they’re INTO it and obviously it is something they were wanting to do – then we know that we provided “support.” If they keep resisting, they moan and groan, you know that they’re not interested and you’re not providing “support,” you are coercing them into doing something they’re not interested in doing. After a while, you can fine-tune your awareness, and you’ll provide just the right amount of support with confidence that it is just what your children want and need.

Example: I knew, deep in my heart, that Rosie would love martial arts and yet she turned down all offers to sign her up. I thought that what was holding her back was not wanting to be embarrassed in front of a group at not being able to do it well. I finally pushed a bit – I said, “Please just try a class and see how you like it. One class. I think it is very likely you’ll love it, but if you don’t, that is fine.” She LOVED it! She now has a black belt and is an instructor at her studio. That’s support. If she’d not liked it and I’d kept making her go anyway, that would be counterproductive  coercion.