Unschooling

Couchsurfed with an unschooling family of two tween-aged boys. They were sooooooooo polite, gracious, good with the kids, helpful around the house without being asked, set the table, made pancakes in the morning, cleaned up the kids' mess, helped carry our luggage - then spent their free time reading or working on their robotics stuff. Told us about living on a sailboat for three years, doing roadtrips around the country, going to museums, taking art classes and music lessons and culture lectures, can't wait to travel to Europe again, volunteer in the community maintaining the trails, etc. Was so awesome to meet a "real live unschooling family" and see how well its working for them.

I don't think I'll be able to do 100% willy-nilly unschooling - I need some kind of structure in my life. Even if its just a weekly checklist - did something related to math, science, history, arts/culture, language, etc. Will definitely do lots of museums and roadtrips, "projects" or "reports", reading, "internships", etc.

So exciting!

Unschooling Handbook: Book Club Discussion

I really love this idea of unschooling. Of course, it makes the whole homeschool co-op thing less feasible. I still think we should work something out where we share the responsibility of teaching sometimes, just so that we moms can get an occasional break! Maybe weekly field trips where only half the moms go, and the other half get to stay home and take a long bubble bath:)
Also, I think it would be good to create a database of skills, so if someone's kid is really into learning about microfinance, or building a table, or ancient civilizations, or creating a stock portfolio or WHATEVER then we know who to go to. And we could definitely swap things like that, like just have it be an open agreement where we'll teach each other's kids things that are in our areas of expertise.
And what I keep thinking about with this unschooling this is that basically you're just preparing them for life. Regular school prepares them for tests, prepares them for more school, but it doesn't necessarily prepare them for life. So, we have the chance to really show our kids how all that "school stuff" actually relates to the real world and they can learn it in context. Which makes me think that I'd like to make visiting places of employment, shadowing professionals, doing mini-internships, interviewing people, lots of volunteering etc. a big part of my kids education. What better way to help them see the relevancy of statistics and economics that have them spend a week shadowing or doing a mini-internship at a non-profit?
As for record-keeping, I'm kind of an organizational geek, so I definitely want to keep records for my own kids. And what better way than.... a BLOG! My favorite:) When the kids get older I think they should just blog what they're doing and that will serve as a great record and reminder later when they want to put together a more formal portfolio. I'd also like to have each kid do an end-of-year (or season or 6 months or whatever time period they decide on) portfolio project and presentation. It could take any form really, but would show what they had learned and accomplished and would be something concrete.
I'm only about halfway through the book, but I'm sure I'll have more thoughts before I finish it. What are you thinking so far?

The Unschooling Handbook

Christi's already reading this, so I'm joining her. I also picked up John Holt's Teach Your Own; I heard he's good. If anyone else wants to join in and read these so we can all swap ideas and impressions, jump right in!