"Unschooling" example in one school shows surprising results

[healthy11]

news.yahoo.com/no-books-no-classes-no-problem-students-teach-200044019.html

Daniel Mydlak, a Towson University professor and educator, who is also a documentary filmmaker, studied a student-directed school in suburban Washington, D.C.—and says he was astounded by the results. “I’ve seen every kind of kid—from kids that were on the autism spectrum to kids that were ‘gifted and talented’ to kids that were good basketball players—[succeed],” he said. “Art school kids, science kids, nerds, middle American kids, urban kids—they all thrived.”

[eoffg]

Though a crucial point that they note is: "While students are free to follow their interests, they still need a teacher to provide guidance and input."

[jisp]

My own children attended schools with that were student directed with strong teacher guidance in their early years. They were mostly happy places for them and I do credit their being exposed to this environment with giving them internal motivation and curiosity to learn. As adults they are self-directed learners and do not need grades or tests or rewards to motivate them.

BUT (and this is a BIG BUT)…..As my son's LD caught up with him the self directed school my son attended was a place where he could avoid confronting the challenge of overcoming his LD. Self directed schools can be nightmare places for bright kids with LDs. The thing is that because my kids had other talents and their LDs were not obvious it looked like they were excelling while they secretly were falling farther and farther behind. My son had the most gorgeous handwriting and parents and educators would come to the school and see his work on the walls and always comment on how amazing it looked for an 8 year old. What they did not know and what my son's teacher's struggled to understand was that writing was torture for our son. In fact our son was not writing his letters he was drawing them and that is why each letter was so beautiful. To the outside it looked like our son could read. HIs coping skills were so good that he often impressed other adults with his comments in classroom discussions and with projects. But when we finally had him evaluated the OG tutor we hired told us that our son needed to start with Wilson level 1 because that was where he really was in terms of reading ability.

As a parent who believed in every bone in my body in the self-directed school philosophy I cringed when I first toured LD schools. They seemed so structured and so traditional. And yet as I grew to understand my son's LDs and the challenges he would face if we did not get him the remediation he needed I grew to understand that there was a role for that structure. Some of my son's happiest school years were at his LD school. And although the curriculum was much more rigid than the self directed school….the structured learning gave him the tools he needed to self direct his own learning at home. It also gave him the time and energy to do that as he was not constantly stressed trying to keep up with his non-LD peers

[healthy11]

Eoffg makes a good point. In EVERY school environment (even homeschooling) the quality of the teacher can make a tremendous difference in the outcome of the students.

While "Unschooling" and Montessori approach are not the same, both are less structured than "traditional classrooms," and I concur that they are NOT ideal for everybody. We had explored Montessori schools, and ended up drawing a similar conclusion to Jisp: we realized that placing our "2e" Gifted/LD son in an environment that allowed him to concentrate only on his areas of strength and interest would mean that he'd fall further and further behind in his weaker areas. (He avoided reading and writing unless someone basically "forced" him to try, and that includes not just teachers in group settings, but even tutors working 1:1 with him.) Though it was far from easy at the time, I do think my son is better off now for having learned to deal with requirements of a more formal and demanding curriculum; we just made sure to allow him opportunities outside of school to continue to explore and foster his own personal areas of interest.

[Mayleng]

It would be a nightmare for my son.

[healthy11]

The Unschooling movement is growing larger, according to www.yahoo.com/news/free-range-education-why-unschooling-movement-growing-170611596.html