Do you agree this should be standards of education

Home schooled kids are supposed to have regular testing to see where they place in their studies. If they fall too short something it supposed to be done. Though if the school system around there is in the sorry state that you claim it is, than the standards for home schooling in that area would likely be set on par with it. (Were you in that same school system years ago?)

All around it sounds like a bad situation. My guess is that the mother is not very intelligent herself, letting the boyfriend move in like that proves it, and thus couldn't ensure the daughter was learning at the proper level. Though to be fair, reading a clock is first to second grade material as is learning to use a phone book.

That's not home-schooling, that's called "no-schooling." No-schooling is a trend where parents let their kids learn if/when they want, at their own pace, from the world around them. Supposedly, the parents take the kids to museums, and day trips, and the kids learn all they need to know from day-to-day life. The parents are also supposed to be there to answer their kids' questions as they arise.

Of course, the core subjects get pretty much ignored in this method, and I'm not sure what questions kids can ask about subjects that they haven't even been introduced to... I'm sure the tvs and computers get a workout, though. One family I read about who supports no-schooling let their teen kids stay up all night if they want; the kids interviewed said they pretty much watch tv all day. One teen was asked "what grade would you be in in High School?" and she said, "I have no idea, and I don't care either."

You can't change how your friend is raising her daughter, but I have to say no-schooling your kids is putting them at a huge disadvantage in life.

That's pretty bad. Someone like that doesn't have a chance at life in the real world. Not being able to look up a number in a phone book at 18? That's unbelievable. I can understand not writing in cursive since computers are so mainstream now, all you have to do is type. And that's really the sad truth of it. People are relying so heavily on technology that such basic, mundane things like reading an analog clock have become something that people don't want to learn because they don't think they'll need to know it.

As someone who was home schooled through high school, I'd like to throw in my two cents. It sounds like the mother was not doing what is required of home schooling parents.

We were giving a curriculum and books to follow that covered all subjects normally taught in public schools and my parents had to correct my work every night and go over things with me that I may have missed. I also had regular testing to make sure I was on track. The program I got my school work from, also offered elective classes that we could come in for a couple times a week and get credit for. It also provided social interaction with other kids my age.

I don't claim to be super intelligent but I can tell time on any clock, use a phone book and I personally prefer to write in cursive. It always saddens me to hear these kinds of stories about kids being "home schooled" in this manner. Not only is this poor girl not prepared for life, but it adds to the negative stigma that comes with home schooling. I can't tell you how many times people have tried to tell me that I am a high school drop out or that I won't be let into college.

Sorry, rant over. Home schooling is a touchy subject for me. Like I said it saddens me to hear this girl is being set up for failure by her own mother and we never get to hear about home schooling success stories.

I've heard of this trend, well I saw an abc report on a couple who does this to their kids and it really interested me, because a lot of times the reports on the news are misleading so I researched it- it's called radical unschooling
http://www.unschooling.com/
And I think it's insane to let your kids do whatever they want, but the people who do this have really good points. For example they don't think we should be telling our kids "good job" for doing something, because they aren't animals that need to be trained, they have the ability to reason and they need to understand that everything kids do is either for their own benefit or in order to help others/make life a little easier on society as a whole.
I really just think they take the concept to an extreme- because the kids that are raised by these unschooling parents all seem to be kids in adult bodies- they never learn much of anything, and not only in the academic areas, in all aspects of life.

I was unschooled, I never cared what grade I was "supposed" to be in, and I certainly don't feel as though I'm disadvantaged in life . People (of all ages) learn what they want to to learn....there is no way to force someone to learn something they don't want to learn, and no way to prevent someone from learning what they do want to learn.

I know more public-schooled kids than homeschooled/unschooled kids who can't read a face clock, and I've met grown adults (people who presumably graduated high school) who can't use a phone book. I work at the Post Office, and I sometimes substitute in a college town. The college kids can't fill out simple forms.

One's schooling has nothing to do with one's level of education.

Personally , I learned the most in a school that you were able to work at your level on most subjects... IE : Special ed also had kids like me who had very high IQ s but could not spell ( I still have issues with phone books only because I cant spell, thank you for google and internet white pages)... As Willowy put it , schooling and education are two different things...For me I learned far more outside of school than in...

I would think that standardized testing would catch a lot of the Unschooling at some point... Today homeschooling is almost a mirror of the public school as most are going threw the states and cities vs religious training. From those I have met doing this they merely are getting threw standard school in less time.

I was anti-schooled -- not just un-schooled but had a lot of impediments to learning on my own thrown in my way.

And I'd still pit my level of education against the OP's any day.

LOL, I BLASTED the standardized tests. 99th percentile, every time. Even my brother, who is NOT a good test taker, passed respectably (do you know you only need to score in the 30th percentile to pass? I think he was usually around 50th percentile). The standardized tests are nothing really. They basically test how good you are at taking tests, not your actual knowledge.

People do a lot of things I don't agree with in raising their kids (like, your dad would really have hit you if you didn't know how to use a phone book at age 10? Because that would be abuse in my opinion). People do a lot of things YOU don't agree with in raising their kids. Right? Wrong? Who's to say? If it works for them, great.

And I'm pretty sure that relying too heavily on Mom is not specific to non-public-schoolers. Some families are just like that.

I got my GED. What's wrong with that? It's the same as a high school diploma. The test is probably harder than graduating most high schools. The school graduated my cousin (a straight-D student, only because it was against their policy to give Fs) just to get rid of him. I don't think a high-school diploma is so great.

Level and career wise, a GED and HS diploma are going to get you only so far. There is nothing wrong with a GED if one wants to go to college. With the way the school I went to was, we had several drop out at 16, take their GED and then go straight on to technical training or the nearby university. After they took their ACT or SAT of course. I really wish I had went that route myself instead (though my father completely refused to help me with college and would not let me get aid on his name, so it wouldn't have mattered anyways. ) since my HS was pretty bad.

I'm curious, those that have been "un-schooled" and in the US, what sort of grades are they making on ACT or SATs?

I should have retook my ACT, I took it back in 9th grade and only got a 30 on it.

Well, it wasn't you so much as the subsequent posters who were bashing homeschooling/unschooling. It needed addressing.

You know, when you think of it, back when we were that young we needed to know how to read a face clock and use a phone book. Now you don't. I can't remember the last time I looked inside a phone book. How often do most people see a face clock? These are not necessary skills anymore. Now, if someone didn't know how to find what they needed on Google, now that would be a problem!

I don't know what my score would have been on the ACT or SAT, because I never took them. I never had any intention of going to college, and if I had changed my mind when I did reach college age I could have taken the tests then . A homeschooled friend of mine decided to go to college when she was 20, and took the ACT at that time, along with the college's entrance exam. She didn't even have her GED or any graduation papers (the state had promised her mother that if she used the state-approved curriculum, her kids would be given a diploma from the high school, same as if they had attended the school. The state reneged, of course ), but I guess acing the entrance tests is better than a diploma. From what I've heard, most homeschoolers/unschoolers do pretty well.

I just looked up info about the GED. In order to pass, you need to score higher than 60% of the graduating seniors that year! That seems unfair! Anyway, I don't see how anyone could argue that it isn't as good as a diploma (and plenty of people do).

The home schoolers, no doubt, could because they have proper curriculum. I was asking about the unschoolers. How can one pass history questions if they know no history? In fact, could the unschoolers even get a GED since it does require you to know history, some conversions, basic algebra and some geometry (I helped a step sibling prepare for it), and a writing test. I wonder if many HS can pass the writing tests, anymore.


As for OP's questions about schooling in their area, period. No offense meant, honestly, but if you're a product of that region they must be lacking in teaching English. While you criticize what others do not know, take a look over your own posts. Unfortunately, this is a trend in many coming out HS in the last 10 years or so, so honestly it's not just you.
(And yes, I do know that my grammar isn't perfect)

Are you really saying that you think I don't know any history? Or math? Or any "school" subject?

Who said unschoolers don't know history? Just because nobody stuffed it down their throats doesn't mean they don't learn things. That information is available wherever you want to find it, it's not like textbooks have a monopoly on information. I was particularly fond of historical fiction as a teenager. The fiction led me to look up the factual information, etc. Sometimes I looked at actual textbooks (gasp!). Because I did it myself doesn't negate that learning.

Unschoolers learn BECAUSE nobody forces them to. Learning is the natural human way to live. The only way to suppress that natural instinct to learn all the time is to make learning unpleasant, as many schools tend to do.

And let's say an unschooler DID do nothing but sit around all day watching TV, reading comic books, and twiddling around on the internet. I doubt that describes a normal unschooler but let's just say that. I'm pretty sure I learned just as much from watching Jeopardy, nature programs, Law & Order, and even sitcoms, as I learned from "official" sources. The internet has all the info you ever wanted to know (and plenty you didn't want to know, too). I wish I had the internet when I was a kid. I had to take the bus to the library! And I KNOW I learned more from Archie comics than from any schoolbook. I'm sure that the majority of unschoolers do a lot more than just sit around. Museums, theaters, nature hikes, etc.--it's not like they live in a closet!

As for passing the GED, I never even looked at an algebra or geometry book. I had no interest at all. I fully expected to flub the math section entirely, but figured I could score high enough on the other subjects to make up for it. But! I scored just as high on the math section as I did on every other subject. I don't know how or why. I guess somehow, in my normal everyday life, I must have absorbed enough algebra and geometry to get by.

If I ever needed to deal with higher math, or know advanced chemistry for some reason, I know I could pick it up quickly. It's not like people stop learning once they turn a certain age.

Talking about the kids in the OP's first post and parents that don't do anything.

While you may have been driven to learn, a lot of kids are not. The US doesn't just lag behind other countries due to poor teaching, but also because a lot of kids now days are lazy.

The thing I can't understand is, I look at myself now as an adult, I have so many interests that I could learn about and want to learn about- like I'd like to learn Japanese for example- but I still would take a class in order to learn it, I would find it more difficult for me to just study on my own. I would also love to take some art classes and learn more about art history. But I still find it hard to just sit down and study art history on my own, maybe it's lack of self discipline. But don't we all lack that to some degree? So I don't understand how a child is expected to just sit down and learn skills to use in order to an earn a living in life or further develop their talents all on his/her own if I can't even do it as an adult.

I admit they're at a disadvantage if the parents don't foster a learning environment, but still, they don't live in a closet. They'll learn something. It's the way humans are.

And I can't say my parents did a lot, educationally speaking. I did it myself.

Most older kids may not be driven to learn, this is usually because they've shut down due to being in a bad school environment. Learned helplessness is a terrible thing. But most unschoolers have never been to school and are not shut down. The natural instinct of humans is to always learn.

And sure, sometime the best way to learn something is to take a class or to find an experienced person who can give private lessons. There is no reason an unschooler wouldn't do this. The point of unschooling being that nobody forces you to "learn" anything, but seeking guidance from people with experience in what you want to learn is not the same as being forced.

Well I'm sure they will learn something- my grandmother who only went to school until 8th grade is more intelligent than a lot of people with college degrees, because she has been reading a lot all of her life. So I understand that you can learn a lot on your own just by satisfying your curiosity. But she still worked at a factory practically as an unskilled laborer making barely enough to survive and lived a difficult life. So, while I agree that you can be intelligent you are still at a disadvantage in today's world unless you have some kind of either formal education or a skill that you learn by practicing and being taught.

Start working on it. You can fully learn katakana and hiragana in 2-5 days if you try. Kanji takes time, but you could learn several a week. Speaking is harder because you need someone to help you and practice with. That's where I was blocked - There are no classes I can take for it around here.

Learning is very dependent on learning style, which is where schools fail in some areas, too. They don't address that some kids learn very differently. However, say those that learn from actually doing, won't be able to pick up some information at home. If you tried to order the chemicals needed for some chemistry experiments, now, you'd get flagged by Homeland Security and who knows who would show up at your door.
Some things you simply have to learn from actually doing, period. You wouldn't want a doctor or nurse with just book knowledge and no actual experience, would you?

I have taken a few classes and read several books on learning styles and most schools only focus on one to two styles which can leave many to struggle.

Willlowy-As a radical unschooler, I'm loving your responses. My son is just three and a half, but it's amazing to see how much he learns everyday just by living life. I'd love to talk to you some more about your experience as an unschooler if you'd be willing to chat. PM me?

I was home schooled for most of grade 2 and grade 6. For me, it's not so much the education, but the environmental and social aspects that bothered me. I would never home school my future children, simply because I think that in a public school they'd have a better chance of being more accepting of others, more socialized and learning about other cultures, ideas and ways of life. Of course, a lot of that is up to me as a parent, but there's only so much you do when you're at home most of your life from a baby to adulthood. I think it's good to put children in situations where they need to develop social skills and learn and develop their own opinions that may just differ from their parents. I know that my parents and I think VERY differently. We have very different opinions on several different topics and I can't help but wonder, what would have happened if I had been home schooled my whole life? Perhaps I would have only known one way of life and thought that was the only way. Just my two cents.

Just out of curiosity... Is there some sort of statistic out there of the percentage of unschooled/anti-schooled kids that make into college, or graduate from Universities? Anything that compares them with kids from traditional education?

My son was bullied in school and I looked into a home schooling program for him.

I didn't feel that I was educated enough in math to provide him a good education. I told the agency who oversees homes schooling this. They keep sending me information and my son will be graduating public school in June.

In all honesty, I sometimes think parents do this out of greed. You get a computer and high speed internet paid for. I am not saying all parents do that but I bet a good few do.

There are things that are learned in school that some don't learn with home schooling. Social interacting is the big one.