Some may call it unschooling, I call it educational neglect

July 1, 12:54 PMNorfolk Homeschooling ExaminerSherene Silverberg

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     The ninja twins take aim to protect homeschooling

 UPDATED Wednesday 6:05pm.  It has become apparent that I need to put a disclaimer up front.   I know that there are unschoolers who give their children a fine education.  However, my issue is not with them, it is with those people w who hide behind the label of unschooling.

In my opinion, John Holt, the education reform advocate has a lot to answer for. He coined the term "unschooling" and actively promoted this form of non-education.

Radical unschooling says the following:

In general, unschooling is a form of homeschooling in which children follow their own interests and direct their own learning. Holt asserted that it is a child's nature to learn and that children learn all the time. He further asserted that coerced learning, as in schooling, inhibits children's curiosity and natural desire to learn. Unschooling is also referred to as free learning, life learning, and child-directed learning.

How can Holt, and unschoolers, say that if the child doesn't initiate the learning, then it is coerced learning?  This is the most ridiculous concept I have ever heard of.   I am forever meeting moms in real life and on the net who are proud of the fact that their 6-12 year olds aren't yet reading because they have not yet expressed an interest in doing so.

The mind boggles that parents can be so negligent.  When we have infants and toddlers, are we supposed to not speak to them and say to each other that we'll teach them to speak once they express an interest in doing so?  

Of course we aren't!  We constantly talk to them, we name objects in their view and we reward them with praise and attention when they start vocalizing.

Talking is a skill that comes naturally to humans and yet there are no parents, unschoolers or not, who don't help their little ones learn to talk. Yet these self same parents will pompously tell anyone who cares to listen that they would never coerce their children to learn to read.

When I think of coercion I think of the dictionary definition:  persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats .  I become quite miffed when I read the unschooling rhetoric that implies (and often states) that those of us who actually teach our young children to read are using force or threats.

I cannot understand hamstringing a child so much by not teaching them to read at a young age.  If you have a young child who is unwilling to learn to read, then it is your fault. You have not worked out how to best provide that instruction.   Reading is not an easy skill to learn. Children need to be enthused about it and you, as the homeschooling parent, need to find the method that works for your child.  Just because you are a failure at teaching reading, does not mean that your child is unwilling to learn to read.

I look at my 8 year old children who have been strong readers for over 3 years.  They feel empowered by their reading ability.   They follow all sorts of rabbit trails in books and on the net. This is only possible because they can read.  Their vocabulary is streets ahead of most of their peers, because a) they read so voraciously and b) I take the time to teach them Greek and Latin roots.  An unschooler would say that I coerced them into learning Greek and Latin roots because they did not express an interest in learning them, I drove that decision.

To those unschoolers I say that a child who has no knowledge of the world, has no ability to know what he wants to learn.  My children glory in their ability to read new words and to be able to break them down into their component roots.  Why would you deny this sense of satisfaction to your young child?

Not long ago my daughter asked me why a 10 year old she met couldn't read. She wanted to know if something was wrong with her.  I had to explain to her that this child's mother followed a different philosophy from us, instead of focusing on academic excellence, she was practicing a form of pseudo education called unschooling and that she was waiting for her child to want to learn to read.

Shira was horrified and sad.   She had tears in her eyes when she asked me why this mother was punishing her daughter like this.  She could not envision a world where she couldn't pull out a craft book and read the instructions herself when she wanted to do a new craft, or read a recipe when she wished to bake or read a book about her beloved horses.  Shira thought that the mother was being cruel.   Interesting thought from a so-called "coerced" child don't you think?

Over the years I've learned to pick out the unschoolers at a glance.   If you have a group of homeschoolers, the unschoolers are more often than not, the out of control ones. They tend to be the ones glued to a Gameboy instead of playing with the other kids because they allow their child to play video games morning, noon and night (because to have him do anything else would be coercing him.). They are the ones who are running amok and whose parents are proudly telling you that their children follow their bliss and that their children's inner spirits just shine through (shine through the dishevelment perhaps!  So many of the unschoolers I meet have this vaguely unkempt look about them.).  These are probably the people who proudly tell you that their children are Indigo children.  It makes you sick to hear this nonsense.    These kids suffer from a serious lack of parental involvement or boundaries.   A little bit of external and internal discipline will turn these monsters into children that are a pleasure to be around rather than the children we all pray will skip the get-togethers. 

I have met thousands of unschoolers, both in real life and online, and I have to be very honest and say that I have met a handful or two who have well educated, delightful, well-behaved children. They surround their children with learning opportunities and take an active interest in their children's learning. However, these unschoolers are not the norm, not in my experience at least.

The vast majority of unschoolers that I've met appear to me to be lazy women who don't want the work involved with sending their children to school. They don't want to volunteer at their children's schools or be bothered with homework so they unschool and call it homeschooling. 

These are the lazy women who don't want to take the time to teach their children useful skills in a systematic manner. Rather, they rely on chance and the hope that their children will become interested in something.  People, listen up.   Playing videogames morning, noon and night because that is what your child is interested in is not homeschooling.  Nor is practicing a musical instrument all day to the exclusion of all else homeschooling.  Neither is playing imaginative games all day homeschooling.

Homeschooling is providing a systematic and timeous education for  your children in the privacy and comfort of your own home.  Uschooling is merely a lazy mother's excuse for educational neglect!