Unschooling: How Students Learn
In every classroom there is that one student that stares out the window, that looks between the clock and the chalk board. How many can say you have been that student? What if an alternative way of learning were proposed? What if we started letting students learn naturally? A system of learning where students can learn what they choose how and when they choose. This concept is called unschooling. Unschooling usually is taught in homeschooling.However there are twenty schools in america that practice unschooling. More should be done so that unschooling is practiced more frequently because unschooling has benefitted Ben Hewitt, his sons, and the students of Sudbury Valley School more than standard teaching.
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Children want to learn about the world around them. The current education system often takes a the natural curiosity that children have, and crushes it. Education is meant to be valuable. Unschooling is a way for kids to learn organically, so they do not have to the weight of class ruining their love of knowledge. Unschooling can happen in any environment, whether it be in the country, in the city, or even a museum. Unschooling is a better solution to education than the current common core. This method can prove to be slower for some students, however they still learn on their own merit. Unschooling is slowly gaining acceptance among homeschooling. Ten percent of 1.8 million homeschooled children are unschooled (Wilson). Unschooling is a better alternative to standard teaching, because standard teaching methods stifles creativity and eagerness to gain knowledge. In Massachusetts students 12 hours or more in class, as directed by state law ( Hewitt). The amount of time spent in class stifles a student’s want to learn on their own. Students are forced to sit through hours of education that may not have any meaning in the future. Unschooling allows students to get away from the harsh education system. Once students begin to hate learning they no longer wish to, unschooling a alternative that allows students to learn
Although the reason some families choose to home school is because they want a stronger, more personal education for their child, it has been seen that some children simply drop out of school and say that they are homeschooling, when in reality they are not studying anything since tradition education is not required in the Un...
According to Mary Griffith, author of the book The Homeschooling Handbook, the concept of homeschooling is nothing new to society. It is only in the past 150 years that public school system as we know it came into effect (Griffith, 1999). Prior to that, “…the family was the basis for social life…the home was where children learned what was necessary to function in their community” (1999). By the mid-1970s, there were barely any people practicing homeschooling (Ray, 2004). However, over the past twenty years there has been a resurgence in people choosing homeschooling (2004). There has been a 500 percent increase in homeschooling from the 1990-1991 school year to the 2002-2003 school year (2004). The National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) estimates “that between 1.7 and 2.1 million students were being homeschooled in the U.S., in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade…Indications are that the growth rate is between 7 percent and 15 percent per year ” (2004).
“On the fringe” education has become increasingly more popular since the 1970’s while public education has been around since the 1600’s (Davis). “On the fringe” is what some parents think homeschooling is because they think schooling their children at home is “backwards” (Drenovsky and Cohen). However, homeschooling is more beneficial to students than public schooling.
Homeschooling offers flexibility and can be a stress reliever for many. Home school gives children the opportunity to learn when they learn best, whether that be in the morning or in the afternoon. Some children prefer to work alone others with their peers. The parents will determine what their child’s learning style is. If the child need more or less time on a subject then they will have the chance to go over the subject as many time it is necessary for the student to learn it, or in the other hand if they completely comprehend the subject they can make a decision to skip it. A flexible schedule gives these options and many more to students compared to public or private schooling.
According to Gretchen M. Wilhelm and Michael W. Firmin, in their article Historical and Contemporary Developments, the Department of Education found that over 1,700,000 students are homeschooled. That’s 3.4 percent of all school age children (304). Homeschooling is defined as an education that contains less than twenty five hours of public school teaching each week and is based out of a household. The earliest forms of education were originally taught from home, then later developed into public schools (Wilhelm and Firmin). Homeschooling not only affects the students taught, but also fellow Americans in the race to advance a nation. Homeschooling needs to be understood in order to revise education into a better and
According to Jim Rohn, “Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins.” Education plays a major role in the every society, which can hinder one or enhance one’s mind. The key to learning is staying focus and wanting to grasp information that will help one pursue higher education in the near future. Home and public schools both have their pros and cons, but they both instill knowledge within the students. When it’s time for kids to go to school, parents must decide what type of educational environment would be better for their child. The best solution is to find the perfect learning facility that the individual
Homeschool is a verb is defined as “to teach your children at home instead of sending them to a school” (Homeschool). This means that a child is not taught at a public or private school; But the child is not necessarily just taught at home. Many homeschooling students participate in learning with other homeschooling families. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, and in the United States alone, it is estimated that there are between 1.7 and 2.1 million homeschooling students. However, it is hard to know the exact number of these students since some states have different laws and do not require reporting (Frequently). Perhaps in the years to come, states will become more regulated across the board about reporting.
Homeschooling offers students a more time efficient education that allows the student to focus on education in which is the sole purpose for school. Homeschooling also gives the teacher a thorough evaluation of a student’s strengths and weaknesses by visually seeing what subjects they excel in and what subjects they are weak in. At this point students can increase their individual progression in each subject. Homeschooling permits control of the environment a student learns in to retain the focus of the student. This will reduce the chances of drug usage, bullying, and violence. Samuel Blumenfeld said this on the importance of homeschooling “The home is a safe haven for the children in a world awash with drugs, sexually transmitted diseases, violence, and moral corruption” (Cindy Mur et al.76). When parents come to realize that the home is the safest place for their children, then will they act as Blumenfeld concludes “I look forward to the day when the public schools will be virtually empty not because we have abolished public education but because the parents will have abandoned it” (Cindy Mur et al.
For the past 4.5 billion years, the society and the world have been changing constantly. Imagine the earth as a ball of pudding. Every and each slight movement shakes the pudding, leaving an imprint and making an impact. Now think about people who live in this world. Individuals have been developing and improving by education from the very distant past to make impacts in the world, and those impacts, such as improvement of educational system, changed our world. Education has been reformed so many times to establish better methods of education. According to Cathy Davidson’s “Project Classroom Makeover”, Davidson described her arguments to reform the educational system in which methods of “unlearning” could assist students be more successful.
Throughout the world, students are encouraged to attend high school and continue their education. However, many students find it worthless and become uninspired. They blame the faculty, school policies, and fellow students, when they should be blaming themselves. Unchallenging course work is most likely a sign that the student isn’t taking a hard enough course. During my high school experience, students had the opportunity to take college courses through our high school. This gave the more advanced students a chance to practice the same routine as “normal” students, but still challenge and educate themselves. Abolishing high school would not solve any problems in our educational system. There are many ways to improve upon our school system; however, we need to start at the beginning.
No classrooms. No teachers. No rules. Just you and library. Everyone has questions about their education, so what if education is taught in hundreds of different ways, and you never knew about it? There are charter schools, private schools, and Sudbury schools. Wait what are Sudbury schools? Sudbury schools are run by tuition like private schools, however this is where the student learns what is interesting to them. These schools run on honesty, independence, maturity, and motivation.
In today’s American society, quality education is important for one to succeed. Without proper education, a person will find it extremely difficult to apply for college, a job, or to pursue his or her dream. Typically when Americans think of education, public education is the first to come to mind. Public education has been around for centuries and is provided to most children throughout the United States. Due to this fact, public education has been the go to education source for years. Though, this trend is slowly changing with many parents deciding to home school their children instead. Many factors are the cause for this issue, but the common arguments arise from a certain few. For students, public school provides many opportunities ranging from social connections, school sports, and the exposure to teachers who are experts in their fields. But homeschooling is often superior because it offers additional time for students to participate in various extracurricular activities and community service, allows for more individual attention, personal character development, and it offers less exposure to discrimination that is received in the public school environment.
As the population in public schools increase, the problems in these schools are also on the rise. These changes are leasing to the way parents are schooling their children. Many parents are leaning towards homeschooling as a solution to this problem. This increase in homeschooling can be directly related to an increase in school violence, the offering of a lack luster curriculum, and lack of student teacher interaction.
“Is getting a good education important to you?” Most people when asked this question would answer, “Yes.” This is because it teaches us valuable life skills and prepares us to communicate and engage with others in the world. Education has taken on many forms over the years, and one of the more successful components of education has been homeschooling. Once considered a criminal act of defiance, homeschooling is now legally an option in all fifty states for parents to consider, and it has a substantial
Today, many parents are homeschooling their children. A U.S. Department of Education’s report shows that approximately 1.5 million children were being homeschooled in 2007 (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). This is almost 3 percent of all school age children (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). A private researcher, the National Home Education Research Institute, estimates 2.5 million children were being homeschooled in the 2007 – 2008 academic years (Lips & Feinberg, 2008). By either count, homeschooling is growing exponentially.