Homeschooling, Unschooling, Common Question: How Do You Know if They're Learning Anything?
When people find out you homeschool your children, you get some really silly questions (including the dreaded SOCIALIZATION question but don't get me started on that). When you try to explain unschooling, they really go nutso on
you. My aunt asked over and over: "How will they learn their ABCs?" To this day, I don't know if they "know their ABCs" but the only clear advantage I see in knowing your ABCs is that when seated alphabetically, usually in school, you know where to find your seat. Since they didn't go to school, this wasn't a problem.
People would ask me all the time how I knew they were learning. This one always gave me pause. How could I NOT know they were learning. Children are sponges, programmed to learn. They will even learn things you don't know. Scary stuff, learning.
Last weekend we went to the home of friends to bid them an Airstream bon voyage as they take off across country for several months. Rich, publisher of Airstream Life magazine and Tour of America blogger decided to have those in attendance write his blog for the day. After reading the blog, I'm thinking that unschooling may just work.
