I guess the definition of "unschooling" can be a fuzzy one. Wikipedia gives the following definition:
"Unschooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum."
I consider our son to have been homeschooled for K-4th grade as we were using a private school's curriculum at home and he was having tests graded by a teacher hired by the private school and paid by us. He went on field trips and did a bunch of other things (played with Legos, studied electricity and geography, etc.) with other homeschoolers and played with both homeschooled and traditionally schooled children. One day when he was 6 and in 4th grade, he was reading a college engineering book (friends of the family had given him when he was five, why I am not sure) when I came to him and said it was "time for school" and to come to the kitchen (where we typically "did school"). He looked up at me and responded, "Why should I stop doing what I am doing here, which is actually helping me to learn something new, to go in the kitchen a fill out a bunch of worksheets on things I've long since known?" Foolishly, I answered, "Because we paid good money for this program. But if you want to go it on your own once you finish the fourth grade curriculum, we can give that a try." I should have just ended homeschooling with a private school curriculum right then and there, but I am not as quick a learner as our son.
Anyway, after 4th grade, he learned using all sorts of activities and books, and unschooling was the most delightful part of my career as a homeschool teacher/parent (as really my son was more the teacher than I; he had started correcting my spelling and offering me more precise words for my business letters when he was only two). He went to Shakespearean plays since he was three or four, I think (we had a very smart entrepreneurial friend who owned a tech company by day and ran a Shakespearean group by night and weekend, and he still doing both today). And while I admit I feel history was his worst subject, he was still far better at it than most American adults, as supported by his score on the Culturescope test (where he scored higher at age 7 than most high school seniors) and his being a top student at age 11 and 12 in his university's Honors College upper level history and culture courses.
I don't see unschooling as meaning the parents can't provide any direction to the child's education, or use any textbooks, though I also don't think textbooks are necessary for learning in general (the only exception perhaps - and this is only a perhaps - being upper level math).
Thanks very much for all your posts here, I read them all.
There are so very few profoundly gifted kids and hearing all these anecdotes from a parent is a rare treat.
Clearly for highly intelligent children, unschooling - going their own way academically, is something that works very well. There's also the traditional child prodigy approach of pushing them even harder, and it seems in those cases the kids are never heard from again, perhaps they crack.
Some people ask if unschooling can work well with students that are just normal and aren't highly intelligent. I've seen where it works well in that case as well (or at least as well as traditional schooling). But, obviously for a special needs child with disabilities such as Downs Syndrome, it would not work as they need much more intense interaction just to learn how to live on their own in society. Or say for Helen Keller, what saved her from madness was intense personal tutoring and not just being left to her self. Presumably there is a dividing line in their between disabled and normal where unschooling becomes more suitable. Since unschooling is not a big thing in the modern era, there's few if any studies on results looking into these issues, only anecdotal data and what we know from meeting unschooling students.
I think you have a misperception of unschooling as being left on one's own. That's not what unschooling is, at least not typically. It is more just along the lines of learning through ways that aren't a traditional "school" approach to learning. I have to meet some friends for dinner, so can't elaborate more on what you shared above, but will try to do so soon (if not tonight, tomorrow). Thanks for taking the time to read what I shared (I had doubted anyone would see them as nobody had posted in days), and you are most welcome for the sharing - glad at least one person found them a treat! :)
Thanks for the response and the offer of more details. To clarify, I am fairly familiar with varieties of unschooling and unschoolers and terms such as facilitated learning and strewing.
I didn't mean to suggest going one's own way is the same as being left alone, though it can be if the child is ready for that. I hadn't attempted to respond to some of the comments here by others asking how unschooling works since it's not just one single thing or defined approach.
Anyway I wanted to clarify that, so you don't waste time answering the wrong question. I'm certainly interested in your further views on the topic.
How I interpreted your own story was that after 4th grade your son was able to choose his own path and you were available to facilitate and assist in acquiring needed materials and arranging requested meetings with scientists, going on trips, and what not. His choosing his own path and curriculum as it were is what I saw that you were presenting as consistent with an unschooling philosophy.
You just taught me a term, as I had never heard of strewing until now. I suspect that term became popular after 2000 (the year our son began college). We did indeed strew.
I'm not even sure I would call what we did after 4th grade "choosing a curriculum", which would mean to me having things more laid out (a syllabus and such) than I think we had. I just pulled his portfolio down for a period of time when he was 6 to 7, and it has things like this in it:
1) A letter he wrote to Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, Inc. noting that when he was reading their book "101 More Read Aloud Classics", the book went from page 96 to page 126 (only he described this much more cutely than I am here) and therefore was "missing 16 (or 32, depending on the way you look at it) pages" and he asked if he could have those pages, either in a separate 32-page book or in another complete book (and he received a new hardbound copy, even though his original was paperback, only 10 days later).
2) A list of books read (with start and finish dates)
3) Photos of things like his planning a lemonade stand with a girl, standing next to a Domino creation, riding a bike, using a continuity checker while fixing a hairdryer, taking a tap dance class, playing in a few handchime choir performances, getting an organ lesson (informal at the handchime choir director's home), visiting the Library of Congress and an airport museum, playing racquetball and ping pong, visiting Montpelier and Monticello, painting, working with an adult friend on a circuit for a robot costume, accepting s Multiple Scerlosis Read-a-thon top fundraiser award, singing at a Halloween campfire, attending a physics of flight class at the zoo, studying the steam engine at a railroad museum, visiting the FDR and Jefferson memorials, attending a university physics program, attending a van Gogh exhibit,visiting Savannah, etc.
4. His subtest and composite scores on achievement and aptitude testing at the end of 6th grade (where he hit the ceiling of 9th grade equivalency on reading, vocabulary, math problem solving, spelling, usage, capitalization and punctuation, science, and social students and scored a general aptitude in the 99th percentile (despite being years younger than a typical 6th grade graduate).
5. A list of examples of questions others posed that he knew the answers for, such as: an electrical engineer giving him a truth table to solve and his solving it correctly even though the engineer at first had the wrong answer himself; in a "Physiology of Speed" lecture given at a science museum that was attended almost exclusively by adults, the college professor asked, "What are endorphins?" and our son was the only one in the room to raise a hand (he had read about endorphins on his own somewhere); in a "Physics of Flight" class, where he was the youngest student, he answered "Who are the Mongolfier brothers?" (he said he had learned this from the software program "Museum Madness", a program he used when he was just two or three); when taking a Degas tour at an art museum, he answered so many questions with such clarity and insight that the tour guide and some parents on the tour felt certain he was planning to be an artist; while eating out at a restaurant, I noticed a picture on the wall of a man carving a statue and it coming to life and asked who the sculpture in the picture was and he answered, "Pygmalion"; at Physics is Phun, he helped solve an equation to find the speed of light using metric measurements, and in doing so, used scientific notation and converted nanoseconds to seconds, among other things.
6. Examples of other ways his mind was strong, such as how he continued to play things on the piano that he often had only heard once prior, and could pick up instruments he didn't usually play and start playing real tunes on them instantly (something that came in handy years later at the Media Lab when a graduate student invented an instrument that he thought would only make nonsense but interesting sounds when used to draw, but our son picked it up and showed the fellow student how it could be used to draw/play a real tune), and how when he was told to jump and risk breaking your legs if in a fire while in a second floor bedroom, he noted that this wouldn't be an issue when he was an adult as his home would have ladders that would automatically shoot out from upper floors when the fire alarm was set off.
7. Samples of some calendar (page-a-day) questions he knew right off, like one asked Fermat's theorem and he stated it perfectly (he had read it in one of his father's books).
8. List of classical myths, poems, stories, and speeches read.
9. Topics covered in grammar and literature.
10. Misc. other ways English was "taught" (seeing two Shakespearean plays at the Folger Library, keeping a journal, writing thank you notes, playing games like "The Play's the Thing", attending a writer's workshop, going to performances at theaters in the area, etc.
11. His making three-colored graphs (one made a flower image) on his new graphing calculator (he had to ask politely on and off for two years to get a graphing calculator), and other topics in math such as probability (figuring out median, mode, median, and range), special triangles, etc.
12. Topics discussed in science, such as internal combustion engines, Anton van Loeuwenhoek, Gregor Mendel, curved reflectors, acids/bases/chemical reactions, experiments with different rocks, adolescence and puberty (and it was good we covered this early as he went through it early; he also took the topic in college when he was 11), and a whole lot more.
13. Topics in geography (24 are listed), world civilization (25 items listed), and American civilization (18 items listed)
14. Health education (fire prevention fair at mall, AIDS, newspaper articles on zinc lozenges and cigars, etc.
15. Topics in art (25 listed).
16. Topics in music (things like Scott Joplin, shapes of melodies, how melody works with chords, attending a Peter and the Wolf performance,etc.
17. Spanish class at the elementary school and Italian class at the community college.
18. Good manners worksheet (one I typed up myself where he had to check off if it was a "Do" or a "Don't" (things like asking when a guest at someone else's home if they prefer you to leave your shoes on or take them off, and get this oldie..."rewind videotapes after watching them"!).
19. A letter to a local paper's editor that resulted in his being offered a position as a writer for the paper (not that this was his intent at all when he wrote).
20. The copy of an essay he wrote that won him $300 in U.S. Savings bonds in a national essay contest.
21. Lots of other stuff (I just scratched the surface there).
So it wasn't like we never used any textbooks (we used a few at times where we felt it made sense), but we didn't do much planning in advance, doesn't seem to me, so much as sort of went with the flow of what seemed interesting to delve into at any given time.
"Unschooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum."
I consider our son to have been homeschooled for K-4th grade as we were using a private school's curriculum at home and he was having tests graded by a teacher hired by the private school and paid by us. He went on field trips and did a bunch of other things (played with Legos, studied electricity and geography, etc.) with other homeschoolers and played with both homeschooled and traditionally schooled children. One day when he was 6 and in 4th grade, he was reading a college engineering book (friends of the family had given him when he was five, why I am not sure) when I came to him and said it was "time for school" and to come to the kitchen (where we typically "did school"). He looked up at me and responded, "Why should I stop doing what I am doing here, which is actually helping me to learn something new, to go in the kitchen a fill out a bunch of worksheets on things I've long since known?" Foolishly, I answered, "Because we paid good money for this program. But if you want to go it on your own once you finish the fourth grade curriculum, we can give that a try." I should have just ended homeschooling with a private school curriculum right then and there, but I am not as quick a learner as our son.
Anyway, after 4th grade, he learned using all sorts of activities and books, and unschooling was the most delightful part of my career as a homeschool teacher/parent (as really my son was more the teacher than I; he had started correcting my spelling and offering me more precise words for my business letters when he was only two). He went to Shakespearean plays since he was three or four, I think (we had a very smart entrepreneurial friend who owned a tech company by day and ran a Shakespearean group by night and weekend, and he still doing both today). And while I admit I feel history was his worst subject, he was still far better at it than most American adults, as supported by his score on the Culturescope test (where he scored higher at age 7 than most high school seniors) and his being a top student at age 11 and 12 in his university's Honors College upper level history and culture courses.
I don't see unschooling as meaning the parents can't provide any direction to the child's education, or use any textbooks, though I also don't think textbooks are necessary for learning in general (the only exception perhaps - and this is only a perhaps - being upper level math).