The Organized Unschooler

An article at the privacy rights website Pogo Was Right (“U.S. Schools: Grooming Students for a Surveillance State,” August 28) argues that schools are “grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere.” Privacy violations include “surveilling students in their bedrooms via webcam … random drug or locker [...]

If you haven’t read Erica Goldson’s Valedictorian speech, go check it out.  Basically, she “calls out” the insane practice of institutionalized education, as she experienced it. SIDE NOTE- Kelly Hallordson, an unschooling mom and blogger, was able to sit down with Erica shortly after this speech hit the interwebs and recorded their conversation, at a [...]

I can’t even count how many times I heard this as a child. The underlying message was: 1- you’re not smart enough to know what’s good for you 2- the things that make you happy are bad for you 3- the things you want will end up hurting you because 4- you have no self [...]

After close observation of their own children, with a combined age of 61 years, observations of many other children in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Israel, Greece, Italy, Swiss, France, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, and the Bahamas, and numerous reports throughout recorded history, the authors have determined that a widely-distributed behavioral disorder has somehow been overlooked [...]

The Case Against Time-out by Peter Haiman, Ph.D. For generations, parents have sought a reliable and dependable way to handle childhood misbehavior. The most recent and popular discipline technique is time-out. Although time-out is better than spanking, it is not an appropriate way for parents to cope with the misbehavior of their children. Moreover, the [...]

Children Don’t Really Misbehave by Thomas Gordon, Ph.D. Most parents and teachers think of children as either “behaving” or misbehaving. ” This labeling of behavior as “good” and “bad” begins when the child is quite young. In our [P.E.T. and T.E.T.] training programs we try to help parents see that children don’t really misbehave. Interestingly [...]

What is Unschooling? I know there are different “types” of unschooling. Maybe the question should really be, what isn’t unschooling? Answer #1- byB- A child learns best about the world through first-hand experience Answer #2 – by C- Hmmm. “A child learns best about the world through first-hand experience.” What if their first-hand experience takes [...]

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, I absolutely love dressing up. I have, ever since I was a child. I love thinking of extraordinary costumes, and seeing what costumes my friends have come up with. I know that everyone doesn’t find Halloween joyful, and that saddens me, a little. I think it’s [...]