Life of a Substitute Teacher

Unschooling - The Art of Denying Education

Just online again reading the news, and here's an interesting tidbit that I don't know how I feel about. A new educational trend is sweeping the home-schooling portion of our population: unschooling.

Unschooling is a form of homeschooling that has no curriculum and the child sets his/her pace and what he/she will learn about for the day. There is an article at CNN about it, and it will be on Anderson Cooper 360 tonight as well at 9 pm central time. The article discusses the pros of this type of schooling, which is very flexible for the child. However, it doesn't really delve into the cons of this teaching style.

For starters, we are educating our children in a middle class setting that teaches our children to eventually live in a middle class society that values structure and rules. If you are not teaching a child to follow a socially-set structure, he/she will have a harder time adapting later in life. Another con of the system is that the lack of curriculum will hinder learning in areas that does not interest the child. If a child never studies math, he/she will never learn how to deal with numbers, money, or taxes. There are also problems with the child learning how to behave in social settings and problems with socialization.

The article mentions how this child in particular only studies certain subjects: Chinese language, reading, writing, martial arts, and playing piano. While some of the activities she is learning about can cause development in other areas of the brain related to math and science, there is no real effort to pursue these subjects other than watching documentaries on television.

As a public educator, though young, I cannot see how this type of learning situation would benefit a majority of students in our country. While this could work for students who are highly gifted and cannot fit into our school socially, it does not work for the average or below average child.

Public education opens minds to the possibilities of other subjects that could be of interest to children. I have never met a child who has not discovered something new at school that they would have discovered on their own through unschooling. Home schooling is one thing, unschooling is completely different and with the exception of the rarest of cases, should not be used as a model for good educational practices.

posted by Amanda @ 3:11 PM