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GMA and Unschooling

Good Morning America did a rather pathetic hit piece on unschooling yesterday that drew huge amounts of comment on their website. 

To their credit they had the family back on today to defend themselves and they were much more evenhanded this time around.

The best response I've seen so far though is on Jeff Sabo's blog Just a Bald Man.

Here is a teaser here from Jeff's longer post:

Let me start by saying that I am not the parent who essentially turns my children over to local and state-run school programs for ten hours a day while I go to work to earn more money so I can buy more consumer goods that give me pleasure. I am not the parent who doesn't participate in my child's learning. I am not the parent who places blind faith in an education system that all Americans know is broken and has lead us to lose pace with the remainder of the world. And I am not the parent who sits back idly and recognizes that it is broken but uses it anyway.

No, I am the parent who cares enough about my children to learn about how children learn and adjust my own paradigms accordingly...


... They believe that these indulgences are short-sighted; that we are choosing the easy path of least resistance by being overly permissive now, but setting our children up for long-term difficulties as they try to adapt to the "real world." I understand that.

But I think it's bullshit.

I think that when you truly adopt unschooling, you're taking a long-term view of your child's life and setting them up for success beyond your wildest dreams. How? By setting up an environment in which we model the pursuit of our own passions without expectations or conditions; by allowing and encouraging our children's passions and exploration without judgment; by trusting that our children will do what's right for them even if it's not what we would choose for them or for ourselves.

Yeah, it's like that. :-)

Posted via email from The Angry Gnome

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