Unschoolers

Personally, I don't like it either. If I waited until my kids told me they wanted to learn something, I'm afraid they never would have been educated. I wonder if this is legal in all the states. I'm pretty sure that here, even home schoolers have tests they are required to pass and I know that there are heavy penalties for kids who aren't attending school or being home schooled.

My son learned to read, long before he was "old enough" and before he ever went to school, and I never sent him to preschool. I guess what I like is "accidental learning" like that. My daughter was making up poems before she was ever able to read or write. I think for "unschooling" in its whole concept to work, parents would have to be very tuned into their kids, and with people struggling just to make ends meet they do not have time to tune in.

My daughter learned to read on her own before she started school as well. However, if I'd left math up to her to want to learn, I'm not sure she would have ever learned to even add.

My sister and I both were reading at 3, before school entered the picture. But this sounds a lot like a new age method are something. I don't see how children succeed at all without help from their parents outside the school. My sister and I would never have been reading so young had my parents not instilled in us a love of reading. But this kind of seems like a vague sentiment to me. Sort of like instead of learning why the tide comes in, let's just go to the beach and watch it...

My son's gifted teacher thought I was nuts, because I told her that his education was still my responsibility. I did deliberately expose him to the opportunities to learn, and did point out what he was learning. I am too much of a control freak to have let anyone just vaguely wander around and sort of learn whatever they picked up. When my son started Kindergarten, for fun his teacher had a lot of kids tested in reading. He read at twelfth grade ninth month level. I fully expect now that myLot members are going to come on and accuse me of lying about this, as it happens every time I say that. I have seen homeschool programs that produced very good results, but they generally were not what you showed us with your link to "unschooling".

I totally agree about the No Child Left Behind thing. The sad thing is that the brighter kids do get left behind, because they are held back at the level of the slower kids and get bored and don't learn a lot of things that they would otherwise.