Unschooling NYC

Been thinking a lot lately about the things a person needs to know in order to function in the world.   As far as I can figure it, these things boil down to a list of five:

1.  Reading

2.  Writing

3.  Basic math (add/subtract/multiply/divide/ basic fractions/money & decimals/percentages)

4.  Computer knowledge

5.  Basic social skills

Now think about your kid.  With very few exceptions, most kids, and especially kids who have been trusted to learn on their own,  have a good handle on these skills by the time they are 12 or 13 at the latest.

This means that everything … Read more

It makes me cringe.

Parents, some of whom purport to be liberal unschool-y types, hovering over their child, forcing a conversation.

Maybe the kid is upset, maybe sad, maybe annoyed at their parent.

Maybe it’s not obvious what the actual problem is, right at this moment.

The parent finds this unacceptable.  They cajole, insist, beg or demand to be told “What’s wrong?”

If the child doesn’t answer there is anger or hurt feelings (!) on the part of the parent.

Which always makes things so much better!

Here is an example of how an actual conversation happened between a  homeschooling … Read more

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, based on my last two blog posts regarding slow living, that slow living equals not doing anything, or doing very little, I’m going to share a bit about our day today.

My kids slept till 10 and would have slept longer, but since Joshua and I were leaving at 10:30, they asked for us to wake them up before we left.   We had a meeting in Harlem.   They got up, had breakfast and did their morning stuff on their own.  After I left the Harlem meeting, I texted a friend to see about a … Read more

Yesterday I talked about my love of “slow living” .   I thought I’d focus in on one of my favorite things about it, which is the ability to be spontaneous.   If every minute of every day is not planned, you have the luxury of saying, at 1pm, “Hey, feel like heading out to the park?”  or whatever other destination appeals, and there is nothing in your way but your own enthusiasm or lack thereof.

The difficulty comes in finding other families who adopt an equally unstructured lifestyle so that we can invite friends at the spur of the moment.   Maybe … Read more

It’s summer.

In theory summer is like every other season for us unschoolers; just warmer and with more swimming.   Our days and routine remain pretty much the same.

However, everything around us changes.

Which is why summer is, in fact, not the same.   We live in the world after all.   The few classes my kids take come to an end in the summer.   Many of our friends leave the city for at least part of the summer.   People who see my kids out during the day stop asking “No school today?”

This summer for whatever reason, the disparity between the … Read more

Children are fearless until we teach them to fear.

Children are confident until we tell them they are wrong.

Children explore until we tell them to sit still.

Children experiment until we tell them there is only one right way.

Children are unique until we demand they conform.

Children are all self-directed until we convince them they must be taught.

The true nature of a child is one of boundless energy and an insatiable ability and desire to learn.   A child in a bi-lingual home will be fluent in two languages.  In a tri-lingual home?  Fluent in three.   No syllabus … Read more

People who have heard of unschooling but don’t know what it’s about, or who know just a little tend to stereotype unschoolers as uneducated.     This is because people wrongly equate school with education.

Dale Stephens is probably, at least at the moment, the most well-known unschooler around, having received the Thiel Fellowship and being the founder of UnCollege.    This can only be a good thing as I doubt there is anyone out there who would dare to label Dale as uneducated.

On the flip side of this issue, many unschoolers stereotype anyone who follows a path that leads them to … Read more

I had a different blog post planned for tonight; one that talked about Ryan Holiday and his new book, “Trust Me; I’m Lying.”

That blog post will have to wait.

Instead, all over the country people are trying to dissect and make sense of the massacre that took place last night in Colorado.

But of course, there is no way to make sense of it.  Not really.

There are those who are saying that tragedies like this are why we should all be armed; that if someone else had a gun on them in that movie theater, they could have … Read more

Life Learning Magazine and Natural Life Magazine, both published by Wendy and Rolf Priesnitz are two of the best unschooling resources anywhere.  Of course, you probably all know that already, but on the off chance that you don’t you should not wait but go immediately to their website and subscribe.

In fact, to that end I decided that tonight’s post would consist of two links,  both to free articles provided on the Natural Life & Life Learning websites.  At the bottom of each article is the link to subscribe to the respective magazines.   If you are at all interested in … Read more

What bias, you ask?

The bias that proclaims:

Damn those kids!  They ruin everything, and if you don’t recognize that, well, you are just living in denial.

Don’t you know that they are spoiled, pampered, entitled and unappreciative?  Just ask most parents.  They’ll be only too happy to tell you how they’ve martyred themselves for their children without so much as a thank you in return.

Or talk to the people – the movers, the shakers, the hip, the savvy – to whom children are a bit like some alien entity you wouldn’t want to touch. (They cling and smell … Read more