I’m a poor defender of things I believe in. So when I read something that says it well, I have this desire to “pass it on.” Hence this blog entry. Heather and I unschool our kids (age 5 and 8.) We’re asked occasionally how they will handle college. My stock answer is that if they want it that bad, they’ll figure out a way. I will certainly not force them to college, as I think you can do just fine without a college education. Especially in the business world.
For those who don’t know, unschooling is another name for child led learning. The kids are never “taught.” We use their natural curiosity from birth to only answer questions THEY ASK. Everytime they ask a question, it’s very important as parents to answer it fully or find someone who can. These are what’s known as “learning moments” and are taken very seriously.
Thanks to Pam from the “AlwaysLearning” yahoo group.
Question:
How do home/unschooling parents prepare their kids for the curriculum and scheduling of college if the kids have never participated in an actual “classroom” setting?
Answer:
What specifically are you thinking of?
How to show up at classes and on time? How to take notes during a
lecture, take a test, or write an essay?
Or do you mean that they need to have studied certain things in order
to be prepared to understand the material taught in the college classes?
Contrary to popular belief, college courses do not assume any prior
knowledge in a subject because the professors (I am one) are perfectly
aware that students do not come from high school with much, if any,
retention of whatever courses they supposedly took. We assume nothing
and start from scratch in all freshman courses. Unschooled kids
typically have broad general knowledge and far more retention of what
they’ve learned than kids in school who have “studied” certain subjects.
I’d say that the biggest problem new students have, in college, is
UNlearning bad habits they’ve developed in high school. By this I mean,
for example, that they have the habit of relying on a teacher to tell
them EXACTLY what is going to be on a test and they expect to just
memorize whatever it is they are told and spit it back out on an exam.
Some college courses are like that, too. But in some courses, they’re
expected to read and THINK about material and understand it far beyond
just regurgitating it for the test. Many of them just can’t get to that
point – they’ve spent many years perfecting the art of reading a
chapter, answering the end-of-chapter questions, and spitting it all
out on a test and forgetting it. THINKING is not part of the repertoire
they’ve built up in high school. THIS is the most frustrating part of
teaching college freshmen, for me.
Unschooled kids might have poor handwriting (G). And they might have
idiosyncratic ways of doing arithmetic. And they might need some
instruction on how to write a standard essay (they’ll get that
instruction in their first semester “College Writing” course). But the
one thing that is important in college is that they are willing to
actually engage – think – wonder – make connections between material in
a course and what else they know or are learning. For unschooled kids,
this is how they live – it is as natural to them as breathing. For
schooled kids, this is the HARDEST part of college and it sometimes
takes a Herculean effort for them to throw off the weight of bad habits
formed in response to their previous schooling.
-pam
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