About unschooling
Jan. 21st, 2007 01:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamagotchaHey there... we're alive but been way busy, with the start of school, Bill working on a grant proposal, and Clayton's birthday (we had a pile of boys spend the night, and the weather very nicely obliged with about 5 inches of lovely powdery wet snow... probably the best birthday present a 13-year-old boy could get!).
In the last couple of weeks, I've had a few folks asking about our homeschooling experiences. A moderator of an unschooling list I'm on asked me to post about my older kids, because we've had a bunch of younger families join and there's been a wave of insecurity and doubt running through the group (not uncommon among parents, incidentally, no matter what path you choose!). So I'm going to paste in that post here, because it sums up nicely where each kid is right now (and makes me extremely happy to see them all following their dreams!).
(starting post from list)
I've been asked to update what's going on with my family, to give others another example of unschooling results. We've been unschooling for the majority of my kids' lives (with one year in an Independent Study program for Cord, and in a Waldorf school for Julia and Clay, after my divorce). We had to defend our homeschooling philosophy and practice in court through psychological investigations when we moved here, and the psychologist recommended that the children all be allowed to continue homeschooling despite my ex's insistance that they all be placed in public school. One by one, they have each decided to take formal classes, but at the community college level (none of them ever wanted to enroll in junior or senior high school).
Cordell (almost 19) is returning to Metropolitan Community College at Penn Valley with a biology/history combo course, and an English class (he took some time off during the last year when the classes interfered with a soccer team commitment). He's been studying Japanese for the last few years, and last summer spent 7 weeks in Tokyo on a LABO exchange program. He's made it past the first two hurdles in the application process for a year-long internship with LABO that would begin next September... he just heard that he's been selected for the in-person interview, so he's flying to Seattle in February (WOO HOO!) He's also teaching beginning Japanese to two homeschoolers, will be refereeing AYSO soccer again, and working on developing a couple of different computer programs. His ultimate goal is to live in Japan as a translator.
Julia (16) has been crazy busy... last semester she not only took a full load of classes at Penn Valley, but tutored English 17 hours/week and volunteered for Student Activities as Diversity Chair (in fact, she was just awarded a SA full-tuition grant for the second semester in a row). She's the co-editor-in-chief of the online student paper, started a banned books club, loves karate, and recently took up a new hobby: crosswords. This last weekend, she took an impromptu train trip to Boston to join some fellow National Puzzlers League members to create a team for the MIT Mystery Hunt... and they WON! (I'm just a little bit proud of her, can you tell?!). If you'd like to match wits with the brainiacs who created this year's incredible hunt, check this out. The prize? Their team gets to develop next year's challenge. She's currently starting the transfer process and hopes to land at an East Coast university. She's thinking about being a French nanny this or next summer. Her ultimate goal is a PhD in psychology from Berkeley, and she'd like to go into neuroscience research.
This will be Clayton's (turned 13 yesterday!) first semester; he's just taking English 101 at Penn Valley... he tested into the pre-algebra level of math, despite not taking any formal math classes ever, but we decided one class for his first semester was probably enough. He wants to write for the student newspaper and help his sister with some Student Activity projects, and he's also the Dungeon Master (DM) of his own weekly D&D group and working towards trying out for the men's gymnastics team at GAGE. He's not sure what he wants to do yet, but no rush.... he was thinking about epidemiology for a while, but currently the culinary arts holds his interest the most.
None of this stuff happened overnight. We've had countless wanderings down various side interest paths (musical instruments, languages, sports, etc.), and we still have battles about video games and other electronic diversions. I'm looking forward to seeing where Lincoln (2.5) goes with his love of books, planes and puzzles. We do our best to enjoy life and our friends, and not get too focused on distant goals, but to stay in the present and be thankful for our amazing resources and gifts.
Unschooling has been a wonderful ride for our family, and if you can tune out the naysayers and focus on what is right for you and your kids, you'll soon find yourself with some amazing teens on your hands too!
In the last couple of weeks, I've had a few folks asking about our homeschooling experiences. A moderator of an unschooling list I'm on asked me to post about my older kids, because we've had a bunch of younger families join and there's been a wave of insecurity and doubt running through the group (not uncommon among parents, incidentally, no matter what path you choose!). So I'm going to paste in that post here, because it sums up nicely where each kid is right now (and makes me extremely happy to see them all following their dreams!).
(starting post from list)
I've been asked to update what's going on with my family, to give others another example of unschooling results. We've been unschooling for the majority of my kids' lives (with one year in an Independent Study program for Cord, and in a Waldorf school for Julia and Clay, after my divorce). We had to defend our homeschooling philosophy and practice in court through psychological investigations when we moved here, and the psychologist recommended that the children all be allowed to continue homeschooling despite my ex's insistance that they all be placed in public school. One by one, they have each decided to take formal classes, but at the community college level (none of them ever wanted to enroll in junior or senior high school).
Cordell (almost 19) is returning to Metropolitan Community College at Penn Valley with a biology/history combo course, and an English class (he took some time off during the last year when the classes interfered with a soccer team commitment). He's been studying Japanese for the last few years, and last summer spent 7 weeks in Tokyo on a LABO exchange program. He's made it past the first two hurdles in the application process for a year-long internship with LABO that would begin next September... he just heard that he's been selected for the in-person interview, so he's flying to Seattle in February (WOO HOO!) He's also teaching beginning Japanese to two homeschoolers, will be refereeing AYSO soccer again, and working on developing a couple of different computer programs. His ultimate goal is to live in Japan as a translator.
Julia (16) has been crazy busy... last semester she not only took a full load of classes at Penn Valley, but tutored English 17 hours/week and volunteered for Student Activities as Diversity Chair (in fact, she was just awarded a SA full-tuition grant for the second semester in a row). She's the co-editor-in-chief of the online student paper, started a banned books club, loves karate, and recently took up a new hobby: crosswords. This last weekend, she took an impromptu train trip to Boston to join some fellow National Puzzlers League members to create a team for the MIT Mystery Hunt... and they WON! (I'm just a little bit proud of her, can you tell?!). If you'd like to match wits with the brainiacs who created this year's incredible hunt, check this out. The prize? Their team gets to develop next year's challenge. She's currently starting the transfer process and hopes to land at an East Coast university. She's thinking about being a French nanny this or next summer. Her ultimate goal is a PhD in psychology from Berkeley, and she'd like to go into neuroscience research.
This will be Clayton's (turned 13 yesterday!) first semester; he's just taking English 101 at Penn Valley... he tested into the pre-algebra level of math, despite not taking any formal math classes ever, but we decided one class for his first semester was probably enough. He wants to write for the student newspaper and help his sister with some Student Activity projects, and he's also the Dungeon Master (DM) of his own weekly D&D group and working towards trying out for the men's gymnastics team at GAGE. He's not sure what he wants to do yet, but no rush.... he was thinking about epidemiology for a while, but currently the culinary arts holds his interest the most.
None of this stuff happened overnight. We've had countless wanderings down various side interest paths (musical instruments, languages, sports, etc.), and we still have battles about video games and other electronic diversions. I'm looking forward to seeing where Lincoln (2.5) goes with his love of books, planes and puzzles. We do our best to enjoy life and our friends, and not get too focused on distant goals, but to stay in the present and be thankful for our amazing resources and gifts.
Unschooling has been a wonderful ride for our family, and if you can tune out the naysayers and focus on what is right for you and your kids, you'll soon find yourself with some amazing teens on your hands too!