Thinking long term for our children when they will enter the work force, or about our husbands working every day, are they able to go to work ‘when and if they want to’, (I know my husband has to be at work at 10am) a choice in ‘what they learn’ (my husband has specific job duties he must do) ‘a choice in ‘who they hand out with’ (my husband didn’t choose his coworkers). My husband also has to ‘follow directions’ from his boss and get along with clients he may not like or respect very much. This is the real world of working that we live in. I think it will be shocking for kids if they aren’t exposed to the real working world until they are forced into it. Not that young kids need to be exposed but at some point they need to gradually gain the experiences that will help them from age 20ish-60ish.

My husband and myself (and the majority of people we know) were able to choose our careers based on our wide childhood experiences, learn through college which opened more doors for us to get jobs that we love going to every day of our life. Instead of limited choices and settling with jobs that are not our passion but we have to earn a living some how.

You say unschooling is ‘forming relationships and choosing their own friends’ but with who? Unschoolers are with their family most of the time or designated play dates with parent approved families. Except for playing with neighborhood kids, unschooled kids are not exposed to a group of kids to choose and not choose friends (based on family values) to build and change relationships over a long period of time. Even art or swim classes are still a superficial friendship group because it is based around a single interest, the ability to pay, and a short amount of time (1 hr lessons 2x a week) and there is very little freetime to play with each other to form long term friendships within the structured hour class.

“taking their childhood experiences and forming their own new ideas based on the knowledge they have.” Sort of. These aren’t new ideas though. New to a lot of people yes, but it isn’t new to respect and honor the freedom of a human child.

I see what your saying, but school is a compulsory and coercive environment. Children do not have a say in when and if they go to school, what they learn, or who they hang out with. I completely disagree, school does the exact opposite of creating self-confident, independent thinkers. It creates children who can follow directions and children who think they are failures because they cannot follow directions. Oh and diversity? In school? I don’t think so.

Unschooling IS “forming relationships, choosing your own friends based on their… [own] …beliefs, experiencing diversity, being exposed to a wide range of topics and different ideas” without compulsion, coercion, and those nasty unpleasant experiences.

Children do not need to be taught how to learn, they already know how. School stifles real, natural learning and puts fabricated “methods” in it’s place.

High School Valedictorian speaks Out Against Compulsory Schooling

My husband has never been to college, actually worked FOR Middlebury College in VT, and got all his experience in his current field outside of school.

Joyfully Rejoycing

On the left side of Joyce’s Website you can find more math questions and well… a whole wealth of other things.