unschooled kids don't learn what they don't want to learn

I got this great book out of the library.  Historical fiction, all three boys can read it, it explains about American History and the minutemen.  I had it in the house for weeks, all of them refused to read it and said it was boring.  I gave it to K, and she also declined.

I'm off to return it and I'm giving myself a little pep talk that when they are interested in the American Revolution, they'll learn about it.

A lot of made-to-be-educational materials don't go over that well here.  They are already out of duct tape and almost out of stuffing, though.

starting the college options route

Since K has been reluctant to learn math in the "classic" way that math is taught, she's been learning once a week with her friend.  On the IHIP under Math I've been writing "Preparing for SAT/ACT."

I had assumed, if K wants to go to college, that she'll have either the SAT or ACT, and a certificate of completion from the NYC homeschooling office, and I would make a transcript and she would apply, possibly writing essays about alternative education theory.

My neighbor came in last night (I've often joked, when people ask about socialization, that if possible, you should recruit your neighbors to homeschool with you, so that the kids can run back and forth for playdates all day long) to tell me about all the research she did for her son (who is entering high school) to do online college at HVCC.  It's a community college and part of SUNY, and the credits are "real, live" college credits, i.e. they are transferable and 24 credits is high school equivalency.  Meaning after 24 credits, you can transfer to college.  No diploma, no SAT/ACT.  Just simple go to college.

So there is a rigamarole of forms that are pretty difficult to understand and get through. Ari and I hacked through some of them.  To get proof of residency involves traveling into Manhattan (#homeschooltrip!) to present ourselves etc etc.

After showing K the list of courses (and hoping for a science, or a math, or a history, or an English), she chose...Russian.  She would have chosen German if she could.  Or Japanese, obviously.  So this unschooler is currently spending a lot of time on Languages.  And more languages.  We'll see if we can get her registered in time to take the online course in the fall.  That will be getting her feet wet in college.

the arts and crafts bin

Our giant A&C bin has been mostly emptied except for a bunch of cloth that someone donated to us.  I asked the boys to make a wish list:

clay

scotch tape

stuffing

staples and more staplers

light sensitive paper

giant paper

glue

and then I finally decided to go for

borax

and I threw in purple duct tape to hit free shipping

How 11th Grade Unschooler comes to learn Earth Science

It all started with the Office.  I looked for a clip of the scene but only found a picture:

Kiisu (going by her Japanese name these days because of her great love of Japan) was enjoying the scene but didn't understand the subtleties of this joke.  She decided she wanted to have a better grasp of clouds.  She then spent about half an hour researching clouds, how they are formed, what the different clouds mean and what conditions cause them.  She then discussed this with people online, telling them about what she learned and answering their questions, which led her to more research.

This is probably more efficient than classroom learning because it's very targeted and she will probably remember it better, since it emerged from her desire to know it.

She said to me, "I know you asked me to jot down when I do things like that, but it's pretty impossible because this happens all the time.  I don't even notice when I'm doing it."

That's because for unschoolers, learning and life are not two separate activities.  They don't try to avoid learning or have negative associations with learning because they generally don't learn what they don't want to.  The only reason I even became aware that Kiisu had studied some Earth Science topics is because we were walking on the beach and it started raining and she began pointing out all of the different types of clouds.

unlimited media

Anyone who wonders how unschooled children learn how to persevere and how to deal with disappointment has never seen my children weeping over video games #unschooling