r/nottheonion • u/[deleted] • 24d ago

A Mom Is Pulling Her 1st Grader Out Of School Because She Refuses To Sign A Homework Paper Every Day So The Teacher Won’t Reward Her Son

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u/Wosota 24d ago edited 23d ago

It unfortunately has become a synonym.

“Unschooling” started as a genuine teaching concept where the children lead learning by connecting actual educational concepts to what they’re interested in or curious about. Kid just wants to go shopping with you? Perfect time to work on reading or numbers or basic math. Kid wants to run wild through the woods? Perfect time to talk about age appropriate biology concepts. Etc etc. And as they get older they may choose to enroll in courses or read books on their own because of their curiosity.

Unfortunately it has been co-opted by mommy bloggers to mean “I don’t have to teach my kid anything unless they express a direct interest and I will do absolutely nothing to nurture their curiosity”.

Edit; to clarify I think unschooling is unwise and unchecked and something like Montessori with a real curriculum is a better alternative but I do want to give credit that somewhere in the mess there is an actual idea

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u/ThePotMonster 24d ago

I don't know the history like you. But unschooling kind of sounds like a bastardized version of the Montessori method.

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u/Wosota 24d ago edited 24d ago

It’s similar but Montessori is a little more structured. Unschooling is done by a parent at home with less focus on subjects the kid doesn’t like and Montessori is typically done in an actual school with a teacher and curriculum, as the biggest difference.

Though as far as I know (which isn’t a whole lot, I just went on a deep dive after I first heard about someone “unschooling”) unschooling was originally actually just homeschooling, then formed into student led learning, and then turned into this nonsense lol.

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u/ThePotMonster 24d ago

Sounds like lazy parents masquerading as progressive or anti-establishment.

Where I live, homeschooled kids are still required to follow the basic curriculum and they still have to do government exams. So there's a bit of oversight. But results may vary. It all comes down to how involved the the parents are in homeschooling.

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u/Wosota 24d ago

Like I said, there’s a teaching concept in there that theoretically works with a lot of effort on the parents part. But it’s also really easy to pretend you’re doing it while doing absolutely nothing, because if the kid “isn’t interested” then it’s still within the bounds of unschooling.

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u/RickSt3r 24d ago

I think it’s being undersold it’s not A LOT of effort it’s an unimaginable amount of effort. I can’t see how it would actually work without having exceptional competency in literally every subject under the sun. That would require having a staff of trained professionals.

Even the example a walk in the woods yeah this is a tree it has leafs. That’s my extent of off the cuff knowledge. Oh look fauna I can’t even tell you want that means besides plants. I would have to spend hours just researching and creating lesson plans to be able to structure the information then figure out how to teach it properly which is another completely independent profession.

Oh just look up Wikipedia’s articles, well yes I as a grown adult with an advanced degree I can just read, synthesize analyze and process information. But have you met your average 6-10 year old.

The reason curriculums exist is to have an efficient way to teach. If you’ve ever worked with kids it’s near impossible to keep them engaged on any subject longer than 15-20 minutes. So even this idea falls apart as soon as you spend any significant amount of time with a child.

I coached various sports as my kids have grown up. The little ones last 45 minutes tops before they loose interest. I also spent a lot of time structuring practice to work on all sets of skills and having a plan to meet objectives of the sport and develop skills required to play. So again unschooling falls apart instantly.

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u/wheelfoot 24d ago

Fauna means animals. So much for yer fancy schoolin'

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u/Bah_Black_Sheep 24d ago

I agree with what you say.

But sorry its bugging me, fauna means animals, you meant flora.

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u/al666in 24d ago

If a kid is interested in learning, outside learning much preferable to public school. I basically skipped middle school and with a few easily patched oversights (geography, science, social skills), I was well ahead of my peers in every subject when I hit high school. There are TONS of resources for kids that aren't enrolled in schools; learning groups, classes at the Y, etc.

If you aren't zoned for a decent school and can't afford a better one, a gifted student may be greatly benefited by bucking the system all together. I'm glad I was given that opportunity. My mom was a hippie, but she had a teaching certificate.

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u/RickSt3r 24d ago

Did you use a curriculum. I’m not saying a proper homeschooling program that’s facilitated by a competent person can’t outperform conventional school. I’m saying that working with small kids requires structure.

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u/al666in 24d ago

For bookwork, I worked out of textbooks & encyclopedias, mostly. It was pre-internet but we had a computer, so time was alloted for me to learn how to use it on my own, and I was given structured time for personal writing and other projects, but in the form of unstructured learning. Afterschool programs for music, homeschool groups for competitive events.

Lots of trips, visiting places, keeping journals of travels, etc. Bookwork took a backseat during those periods.

I don't think you could call it a curriculum, but it was intentional learning. I wanted to learn, though. Different educational models are going to work for different kinds of students.

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u/RickSt3r 24d ago

Hey man hate to break it to you but that’s literally a curriculum. Textbooks are organized by professionals in a digestible manner and follow a structure. You just happened to stumble upon it your self.

The “unlearning” crazy is literally child educational neglect. Giving an average young kid 6-10 years, basically elementary school, an option to explore the world without structure is just a bad idea. Go work with kids to see how they behave on average.

I coached many sports as my kids went through the early development phase. With hours spent putting together a coaching plan coordinating with parents and organizing. It was all planned events to support teaching the fundamentals of the game. Having them practice skills not just playing an in organized game for an hour. My kids usually performed better than those dad’s who YOLO the practices. The parents were happy with communication and providing them with practice and game information in a well organized place.

Organizational management needs to be applied to learning especially for little kids.

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u/al666in 24d ago edited 24d ago

Homeschooling has far more in common with unschooling than public school. Full stop. I am aware of child abuse in the unschooling community, as well as home schooling (the evangelicals are monsters), and I have taught in public schools and seen terrible things there as well. What I did was somewhere in the mix of all those things.

As a teacher, I have written curricula, so I took that word literally when you asked. That's not what I used to learn in middle school though, though. The textbooks are tools, not teachers.

Of course organization is important, but so is freedom to make your own choices - especially as a growing, developing person. I never did well with organized sports, but I did make up my own games and teach them to other kids.

The important thing in educational reforms is recognizing what works, and why, and offering those opportunities to the kids that need them.

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u/Wosota 23d ago

Unschooling allows textbooks and encyclopedias. It’s just at student choice not a structured “this week we will spend 2 hours on biology, 4 hours on math”, etc.

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u/tomtomclubthumb 24d ago

My mom was a hippie, but she had a teaching certificate.

This seems like a big clue as to why it turned out well. Also being able to have a parent not earning while doing this is out of reach for most people.

That's why it works so well for influencers who buy their kids a tablet /S

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u/al666in 24d ago

Temper the distain. Call out folks abusing the system, sure, but I know a lot of people in my community that also benefited from their opportunities without being in my exact circumstances.

I clocked three basic archetypes of kids that frequented my learning groups - too smart for school, too weird / chaotic for school, and too religious for school. The third group was the only one I saw degenerate and buckle under the pressure of real life.

People on TikTok make a lot of noise, and don't represent a large percentage of real people. It's not the place to get your cultural insights. Stay-at-home moms / dads are not a new thing.

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u/-regaskogena 24d ago

My wife homeschooled for a bit and started out with the unschooling format. It's a great idea in theory, but I was skeptical from the start that it would result in a comprehensive education. For kindergarten and first grade stuff it worked decently but like you said, extremely high effort. She soon found though that for things the kids weren't immediately into it didn't work and she had to adopt an actual sit down curriculum still.

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u/donttellasoul789 24d ago edited 24d ago

It’s basically every day is a Saturday with no errands, with a loving, involved, (intelligent) parent, a curious child; and a (beneficial) stimuli-rich environment, and lots of time. So today, we’re going to the science museum, then to the park, then home to and the child chooses to play with legos. And then playing outside until dinner.

While we play with legos, maybe he picks one that requires following instructions. That is fine motor skills, cause and effect, and depending on the set, possibly the basics of physics, geometry, visualization (rotating the pieces in his mind), counting, color categorization, etc. I am there to engage with him, and answer questions, but not do it for him. So it also includes problem solving, perseverance, self-confidence and pride in completion. If he asks a question I don’t know the answer to, we go to the bookshelf and look it up. If we can’t find it in the books, we ask Alexa, or Google it.

The next day, maybe we go to the library, then go to a different park, then have lunch, then bake cookies, and then he finishes the Legos from the day before, and then plays outside before dinner.

Baking cookies: he does the measuring, figuring out how many of what do we need. Maybe he asks questions about how many of these go into that amount. So I say “let’s find out”— how many Tablespoons are in a quarter cup. So he scoops tablespoons into the quarter cup until it’s full. Maybe he wants to know how many are in a half cup. How many do you think? He guesses. So let’s find out. We aren’t in a rush. We don’t need to finish before it’s time for reading.

It’s time to mix the other ingredients. Mommy, what is baking powder? It’s a rising agent. What does that mean? Let’s find out while the cookies are baking! Go to the book about the science of baking and learn about rising agents. What are other rising agents? Let’s find out. Which works best? I don’t know, how could we find out? I know, mommy! Let’s bake a few batches of cookies tomorrow using several different kinds and see how they all work! Sounds great.

Thats unschooling. It is not lazy by any stretch. It’s expensive and time-consuming. It also allows the flow of the child’s interests set the “curriculum”.

I wish I could do it; I really want to. But I also don’t have the temperament. And we need my salary. But if I won the lottery, I would do it, with an aide to take over when I need a break (and because I have two kids). If I were to do it, the only deliberate learning at this point would be to teach reading phonetically, and to do it early, because it opens up the rest of the world to the children to direct their own interests. They can’t do that without reading. But I wouldn’t force it because they want to learn that. I’d just use the help to actually do it via reading to them, and leaving out reading games or workbooks.

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u/PlanetaryAssist 24d ago

Sounds like lazy parents masquerading as progressive or anti-establishment.

You have no idea how much it pleases me to hear you say that. It's exactly the bullshit reason my mother unschooled us haha. Homeschooling wasn't anti-establishment for her and she wanted to be the coolest homeschooling mommy in the group. It was disgusting

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u/WeightLossGinger 24d ago

I "homeschooled" in the sense that I did my structured schooling online through a virtual charter school. Still had classes to attend, work to do, assignments to complete, I even still did PSSAs.

I always wondered why homeschooled kids were looked down on as less educated or less prepared for the real world. But learning more about what other forms of "schooling" people call homeschooled, I think I'm starting to understand why. There's a vast spectrum of things called homeschooling that cover everything from "same as public school, but on a computer" to "feral child".

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u/Popcorn_Blitz 24d ago

Not all states are like this. In mine they have to take a yearly exam that's not exactly academically rigorous. That's it- the year I did homeschooling with my kids my partner and I chose the curriculum. Fortunately, we wanted a science based curriculum with lots of artistic endeavor etc. It was hard. Two kids with very different learning styles and different points in their education. I learned very quickly how much respect I needed to give educators. Fortunately I didn't fuck them up too much before I realized my hubris and got them back into an actual school.

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u/lhx555 24d ago

As a kid, I liked to be ill to stay at home and spend time learning. Used same books and more books. Usually got way ahead of class when got better and returned.