Reply #18: Wow! You sound like an unschooler.....(it's a good thing)

[sense]

in that you're asking questions and not just believing that video.

Unschooling is about exposing your kids to all sorts of things, to spark their interests in different things and show them all the opportunities they for learning that you can find. Our house is filled with books on a huge amount of subjects and a lot of different levels. And of course, there are more at the library. We haven't used many textbooks as they're usually dry and full of errors. We've located classes in the community, online or with tutors who love the subjects they teach. Many of the resources are free and/or low cost. The internet is such a great source of information and groups doing the same things you're doing and able to recommend things that worked or didn't work for them. We exposed the kids to all sorts of sports, arts and more academic subjects and offered them choices about what to study or explore. They got to make a lot of choices with guidance and insight we provided because they didn't yet have the experience to know about many things. My oldest loves puzzles and was extremely good at them from the time he was small. Languages, to him, are puzzles to be solved. Since you spend a lot of time with your kids, you know them well, know how to lead them in different directions and to foster their natural love of learning. I used to leave books around that I thought they'd find interesting. I told my son I needed to store some books for when he was older in his room......at 9 he was reading about all sorts of things he'd never have had the opportunity to learn about until college....and understanding them. Whatever he didn't understand we'd talk about and research and perhaps find mentors for him to interact with.

He was involved in the decision to leave school, but I made that decision (he was 8) and he was welcome to go back if he chose. My youngest has never been to school, but would like to try high school next year and we've set up certain goals.. things he'll need to learn before then so that he won't have any gaps. He's been on a different path than regular schoolers and has a wider base of knowledge, but there are certain things he hasn't been interested in, so we'll bring him up to speed on those things. An enormous amount of time is wasted in schools waiting in line, waiting for the teacher to get the class under control, and waiting more when it falls apart because the 1/30 ratio just doesn't work. What is taught in k-12 can be learned by almost everyone in a much shorter span of time, if you're not constrained in a room with 30 other people your own age. Plus there's the whole socializing problem. Who wants their child socialized by a bunch of 5 year olds? When you're not locked up all day and are out in the world, you interact with all different ages and you learn how to get along in the real world.

It is complicated and there are as many ways to "home school" as there are home schoolers. Most people seem to start home schooling with a curriculum, but since that model doesn't work for all kids, you've got to be pro-active and find what does.

Thanks for the question!