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Alternative Schooling Styles : Unschooling Where the World is the Classroom Perhaps more than any other style, Unschooling takes advantage of a child's natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. It recognizes that he learns best when he is allowed to pursue his own interests, in his own way. Unschooling is infinitely flexible because there is no curriculum. The student explores whatever he likes as thoroughly as he wants. This freedom of inquiry leads to higher information retention because the child is more engaged -- he wants to learn, he enjoys learning. There are two other big advantages to this style. First, The alert parent or mentor can spot a child's strengths and inclinations sooner and give him a head start in a vocation or career best suited for him. Second, the usual stress and complaining about homework is never a problem because there isn't any homework, at least not in the conventional sense. Although this style is child-directed, it does not mean that he is completely on his own. Parents still need to introduce subjects about which the child might be unaware, provide access to resources, and encourage good study habits. This style is best used in a home schooling environment. Its progressive, natural-learning philosophy is similar to the one used in "Free Schools." Resources Quotes
"The idea of schooling free men in anything would have revolted Athenians. Forced training was for slaves. Among free men, learning was self-discipline, not the gift of experts." -- John Taylor Gatto, Author and New York School Teacher of the Year "The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both." -- Zen Buddhist Text "There is only one Education, and it has only one goal: the freedom of the mind. Anything that needs an adjective, be it civics education, or socialist education, or Christian education, or whatever-you-like education, is not education, and it has some different goal. The very existence of modified 'educations' is testimony to the fact that their proponents cannot bring about what they want in a mind that is free. An 'education' that cannot do its work in a free mind, and so must 'teach' by homily and precept in the service of these feelings and attitudes and beliefs rather than those, is pure and unmistakable tyranny." -- Richard Mitchell, The Underground Grammerian "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -- Mark Twain, author "All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education." -– Sir Walter Scott, writer, poet and historian Copyright 2005 r u s t y ἐπὶ r u s t y m a s o n . c o m , all rights reserved. |