To anyone interested, I highly recommend the series of books by a pioneer in unschooling, John Holt. They are full of a profound love for children and their education. You won't be disappointed.
After reading them, my wife and I decided to unschool all eleven of our children and continue to do so to this day. It's not for everyone, but the rewards are unique and amazing.
You will find that apathy is nonexistent and your children will go after what they want, full force. We have a couple college graduates in the mix, so don't worry about higher education. If that's what they want, nothing will stop them.
I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have.
Thank you, Tess. Rethinking the way we approach education is a crucial part of restoring the mental health, critical thinking skills, and rationality of those who have been reared in mass indoctrination camps.
This piece sharing an article written by Cole Summers on his experience of unschooling is one of the most inspiring (and heartbreaking) stories I’ve read on the topic of education:
I also highly recommend “The Children’s Inquiry: How the State and Society Failed the Young During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” a fierce indictment of the policies that have wreaked incalculable damage on a generation of children and teens.
If anyone is considering home schooling, you definitely need to join the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). They assist internationally. Cost used to be $100 per year. We were bothered exactly once by a social worker accompanied by a sheriff deputy about schooling. We called HSLDA and the attorney at HSLDA spoke to the social worker and the social worker left. HSLDA sent a letter to the prosecuting attorney with a copy to us. No more bother.
HSLDA provides legislative alerts to its email list and home school direct action lobbying via the Capitol Hill switchboards gets the attention of members of Congress.
We haven't home schooled for decades, so there may be more benefits and cost likely changed.
We homeschooled our 2 sons through high school and then they were off to college. We were members of HSLDA and I can highly recommend joining this organization if you are considering homeschooling your children. Our years homeschooling spanned the 90's to 2002 when our boys graduated high school. It is hard work but definitely worth the reward. It was the best decision we ever made for our kids.
I left my job as a nurse to raise and homeschool our kids the last 18 years . Biggest sacrifice, but sweetest of rewards, then and now. In senior high school we put them in a private Christian school . Now thriving there and in university.
We followed a top notch Christian Classical education curriculum, and I would advise parents to look into that before going the unschooling route... Kids need structure and it's ok to make them memorize and do math building concept upon concept, and not do math only at the grocery store, counting apples.🚩
We lived outdoors more than indoors , no wasted precious time watching tv or vid games, still to this day, by choice actually, to hike mountains , bike, ski ,swim , kayak etc and just enjoy nature ..it's doable.. but it takes time and effort to invest fully in their lives, day in and out.
So
Yes get them out playing and going to museums and sports with others and volunteering to keep them active and social and well rounded.and well behaved. We had activities with other kids almost daily. if you do that you won't end up with antisocial kids who stand out as peculiar, ( because let's face it, many do and are recognizable, but it doesn't have to be so. )
You can have a Classically trained education and still have them explore other courses they like, etc
and do all the crazy stuff kids do.. it doesn't have to be the unschooled route to make them experience it all.
And if parents can't homeschool then consider a solid Christian school.. and if that can't be done choose best public Christian school if possible, and still be invested daily in kids lives.. Be their first teachers, be involved in their education, scanning their curriculum , adding to it, correcting 🚨, and keeping them in the Word and prayer..
Keep the world out , tv and iPhones are devils greatest distractions and addictions. They will stay pure and innocent of the garbage that is constantly being pumped out. Give them a love of books by first reading much to them, daily, , no fluff books either, and you will see how they will become early, avid readers . We named our school Carpe Diem elementary, and made sure to school hard and play even harder!
Easy Peasy. But a preschooler IMHO doesn’t need a curriculum, just engage with them and have plenty of toys even pots and pans and plastic bowls with lids, with blocks to count, etc as they choose.
There are many great curriculums out there today. Online courses too but we didnt go that path.
We used Rod and Staff for language arts.
For math -- Abeka Math until grade 4 and then switched over to stronger Saxon Math for grades 5 and up ( many veteran homeschoolers do this switchover so we followed along, and loved it.
For science , history n geo and Bible we used our beloved Sonlight curriculum..( it is packed full and the lessons so well structured, for you and them. and you can pick and chose how much extra you want to do. We got all our excellent reading books from them too that tied into the curriculum. You can actually start your preschoolers with that and cover it all.
For science and experiments we also added courses from
Dr Jay Wile, a Harvard professor who noticed his students that came from homeschooling were stronger, more independent learners and he left Harvard to make curriculums
for homeschoolers ( or similar) He has great articles and data showing how even high school educated parents can homeschool. And do so well!
The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise is highly recommended in homeschooling circles as is iCharlotte Mason, a different style . See what suits you and your family best. Check out online homeschooling resources for latest and join some groups to pick their brain.. and don't forget to get connected before, and yearly with HSLDA( homeschool legal defence ) or whatever is in your area, who will help you should you need it, especially in this crazy day and age!
Many churches have coop learning and you can do some courses with them. Libraries and many sports offer courses in daytime just for homeschoolers .
We also had them in conservatory piano and they all are part of their church youth and young adult worship team, and may one day teach piano on the side of they care to.
We had time for competitive sports and travelled often bringing books along and sometimes not. But you can go on vacation and finish or start courses at different times.. Homeschooling gives you more flexibility to enjoy life and not be bound like in school. With the peace of mind of solid learning concept upon concept, line upon line and all from Christian standpoint.
I'd say more than anything today get them away from tv and iPhones , computer games and get them outside and learning skills of life. You will have time to cook with them and see them
shine in the kitchen all before age 10..
Knitting and sewing and building things and fishing with dad, you will always have something to do that's more exciting than watching tv.. the devils tool to lure them in.
All the best in your journey.. and lean on God daily.. some days can be rough but look up and look ahead.. the rewards will be sweet!
Helpful! Thank you. I knit and sew and we already have some rod and staff and well trained mind. We mostly just listen to audiobooks and do a little phonics lessons at this point. It’s always nice to hear from experienced homeschool moms
Thank you for your wonderful comments, for sharing your experiences of schooling and unschooling, and for your reading and viewing recommendations. So much wisdom and knowledge and heart from you all, thank you.
This is wonderful. I have just the littlest bit of knowledge about Maria Montessori, having taken child development classes in California ten years ago or so, when I just thought the gender obsession for preschool was just typical Californian exaggeration, but my intuition is that Montessori methods plus a little of the Nature Deficit Disorder/Forest Kindegarten method and Reggio Emilia project/community based methods could heal what's been damaged in kids through the pandemic practices, and prior to that, the phone/porn/video game/like button and algorithms that target kids. It would be great to interview Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein on education also. Montesorri worked with mentally ill kids, orphans and street kids, whom the world had given up on. Go Tess!
My favourite post yet. I taught ballet and dance for years and I'm at the end of a Masters in Teaching for secondary education and I can see how much transformative learning comes from the body and our relationships with the environment and the people around us. I had a horrible car accident as a 6 year old and at nine I was still struggling to keep up with kids my own age. It was my GP that recommended putting me in a ballet class to help me build strength. Best prescription he could have given. These days a GP would probably prescribe a medication regime. I am now looking at how dance can be used to teach language and social awareness and relate it to learning in maths, science and computer coding. I also fully appreciate the importance and the strength of immersion in the natural environment on the wellbeing of the learner. I have to say I have not fared well with the mandates on teachers and feel like walking away from teaching completely, but I am proud to say that I know my unconventional ways made a difference to some of the young people I worked with.
There is way too much political indoctrination in schools which is seen particularly in the curriculum in various indirect ways. The topics covered indicate the importance and the topics omitted indicate the unimportance. Thus, diversity, LGBQT, and gun control are important, while gun safety, critical thinking, and logic are not.
This is wonderful. We left traditional schooling behind as things started to ramp up in 2020 and we have been so grateful for the change. Initially our decision was (mostly) based on not being willing to mask our children, but as we continue to explore and understand the benefits, we are so thankful to have stepped away, even with the anxiety of the unknown. Writings like these help me remember why our intuition is turned towards more free range and unschooling methods.
What a vibrant and extremely well expressed article. Very refreshing and inspiring. You are so right on multiple levels, Dr. Lawrie. The State has become our abuser. It has become the enemy of the people. The government and the State do not have our best interests at heart. They have betrayed us all. They want our children to become bland engineered commodities. They want to battery farm the whole of humanity. So we must ardently defy them at all levels. We must embrace our innate sovereign spontaneity and tear up their Callous Contrived Robotic Script. Let's joyfully charter organic individualist pathways that celebrate creative spirited solutions. Let's enthusiastically thwart their snaggle-toothed tin-head technocracy. "They" don't own us! Not now. Not ever.
In Scandinavia, children don't learn maths or English until they are about seven years of age. They spend most or their younger years in creative and outdoor learning. Very young children are wrapped up warm and take their sleeping hours outdoors in the cold for the fresh air. They spend a lot of time outdoors exploring nature and their environment, and they spend indoor time baking and learning community skills. These countries have the highest literacy and numeracy scores when it comes to league tables! What does that tell you?
I love the saying 'if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid'. Our education system is a one size fits all meat factory that stifles creativity. Not all children learn the same way, or have the same skills and talents. If they don't pick a subject up, they think the problem lies in them and not in the system. They don't understand that they are not stupid and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with them at all, it is the metric of judgement that is wrong! And yet, these poor souls think there is something wrong with them and that they have an inability to learn.
An illuminating article as always Dr Lawrie. Thank you. What we have done to our children throughout this pandemic will haunt me forevermore.
To anyone interested, I highly recommend the series of books by a pioneer in unschooling, John Holt. They are full of a profound love for children and their education. You won't be disappointed.
After reading them, my wife and I decided to unschool all eleven of our children and continue to do so to this day. It's not for everyone, but the rewards are unique and amazing.
You will find that apathy is nonexistent and your children will go after what they want, full force. We have a couple college graduates in the mix, so don't worry about higher education. If that's what they want, nothing will stop them.
I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone may have.
Thank you, Tess. Rethinking the way we approach education is a crucial part of restoring the mental health, critical thinking skills, and rationality of those who have been reared in mass indoctrination camps.
This piece sharing an article written by Cole Summers on his experience of unschooling is one of the most inspiring (and heartbreaking) stories I’ve read on the topic of education:
https://www.commonsense.news/p/how-to-be-a-pioneer
I also highly recommend “The Children’s Inquiry: How the State and Society Failed the Young During the Covid-19 Pandemic,” a fierce indictment of the policies that have wreaked incalculable damage on a generation of children and teens.
If anyone is considering home schooling, you definitely need to join the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). They assist internationally. Cost used to be $100 per year. We were bothered exactly once by a social worker accompanied by a sheriff deputy about schooling. We called HSLDA and the attorney at HSLDA spoke to the social worker and the social worker left. HSLDA sent a letter to the prosecuting attorney with a copy to us. No more bother.
HSLDA provides legislative alerts to its email list and home school direct action lobbying via the Capitol Hill switchboards gets the attention of members of Congress.
We haven't home schooled for decades, so there may be more benefits and cost likely changed.
https://hslda.org/
We homeschooled our 2 sons through high school and then they were off to college. We were members of HSLDA and I can highly recommend joining this organization if you are considering homeschooling your children. Our years homeschooling spanned the 90's to 2002 when our boys graduated high school. It is hard work but definitely worth the reward. It was the best decision we ever made for our kids.
I highly recommend John Taylor Gatto...
https://www.pdfdrive.com/weapons-of-mass-instruction-a-schoolteachers-journey-through-the-dark-world-of-compulsory-schooling-e162898324.html
huge fan of Gatto!
He’s the best
I left my job as a nurse to raise and homeschool our kids the last 18 years . Biggest sacrifice, but sweetest of rewards, then and now. In senior high school we put them in a private Christian school . Now thriving there and in university.
We followed a top notch Christian Classical education curriculum, and I would advise parents to look into that before going the unschooling route... Kids need structure and it's ok to make them memorize and do math building concept upon concept, and not do math only at the grocery store, counting apples.🚩
We lived outdoors more than indoors , no wasted precious time watching tv or vid games, still to this day, by choice actually, to hike mountains , bike, ski ,swim , kayak etc and just enjoy nature ..it's doable.. but it takes time and effort to invest fully in their lives, day in and out.
So
Yes get them out playing and going to museums and sports with others and volunteering to keep them active and social and well rounded.and well behaved. We had activities with other kids almost daily. if you do that you won't end up with antisocial kids who stand out as peculiar, ( because let's face it, many do and are recognizable, but it doesn't have to be so. )
You can have a Classically trained education and still have them explore other courses they like, etc
and do all the crazy stuff kids do.. it doesn't have to be the unschooled route to make them experience it all.
And if parents can't homeschool then consider a solid Christian school.. and if that can't be done choose best public Christian school if possible, and still be invested daily in kids lives.. Be their first teachers, be involved in their education, scanning their curriculum , adding to it, correcting 🚨, and keeping them in the Word and prayer..
Keep the world out , tv and iPhones are devils greatest distractions and addictions. They will stay pure and innocent of the garbage that is constantly being pumped out. Give them a love of books by first reading much to them, daily, , no fluff books either, and you will see how they will become early, avid readers . We named our school Carpe Diem elementary, and made sure to school hard and play even harder!
Enjoy the grand adventure!
I’m a mother of preschoolers, what curriculum do you recommend please
Easy Peasy. But a preschooler IMHO doesn’t need a curriculum, just engage with them and have plenty of toys even pots and pans and plastic bowls with lids, with blocks to count, etc as they choose.
Our curriculum so far is baby chicks 🐥 my 3 yo already knows how to check for pasty butt
There are many great curriculums out there today. Online courses too but we didnt go that path.
We used Rod and Staff for language arts.
For math -- Abeka Math until grade 4 and then switched over to stronger Saxon Math for grades 5 and up ( many veteran homeschoolers do this switchover so we followed along, and loved it.
For science , history n geo and Bible we used our beloved Sonlight curriculum..( it is packed full and the lessons so well structured, for you and them. and you can pick and chose how much extra you want to do. We got all our excellent reading books from them too that tied into the curriculum. You can actually start your preschoolers with that and cover it all.
For science and experiments we also added courses from
Dr Jay Wile, a Harvard professor who noticed his students that came from homeschooling were stronger, more independent learners and he left Harvard to make curriculums
for homeschoolers ( or similar) He has great articles and data showing how even high school educated parents can homeschool. And do so well!
The Well Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise is highly recommended in homeschooling circles as is iCharlotte Mason, a different style . See what suits you and your family best. Check out online homeschooling resources for latest and join some groups to pick their brain.. and don't forget to get connected before, and yearly with HSLDA( homeschool legal defence ) or whatever is in your area, who will help you should you need it, especially in this crazy day and age!
Many churches have coop learning and you can do some courses with them. Libraries and many sports offer courses in daytime just for homeschoolers .
We also had them in conservatory piano and they all are part of their church youth and young adult worship team, and may one day teach piano on the side of they care to.
We had time for competitive sports and travelled often bringing books along and sometimes not. But you can go on vacation and finish or start courses at different times.. Homeschooling gives you more flexibility to enjoy life and not be bound like in school. With the peace of mind of solid learning concept upon concept, line upon line and all from Christian standpoint.
I'd say more than anything today get them away from tv and iPhones , computer games and get them outside and learning skills of life. You will have time to cook with them and see them
shine in the kitchen all before age 10..
Knitting and sewing and building things and fishing with dad, you will always have something to do that's more exciting than watching tv.. the devils tool to lure them in.
All the best in your journey.. and lean on God daily.. some days can be rough but look up and look ahead.. the rewards will be sweet!
Helpful! Thank you. I knit and sew and we already have some rod and staff and well trained mind. We mostly just listen to audiobooks and do a little phonics lessons at this point. It’s always nice to hear from experienced homeschool moms
Audiobooks are awesome! Seems you are on the right path mom! Your family will love the adventure! All the best!
Thank you for your wonderful comments, for sharing your experiences of schooling and unschooling, and for your reading and viewing recommendations. So much wisdom and knowledge and heart from you all, thank you.
This is wonderful. I have just the littlest bit of knowledge about Maria Montessori, having taken child development classes in California ten years ago or so, when I just thought the gender obsession for preschool was just typical Californian exaggeration, but my intuition is that Montessori methods plus a little of the Nature Deficit Disorder/Forest Kindegarten method and Reggio Emilia project/community based methods could heal what's been damaged in kids through the pandemic practices, and prior to that, the phone/porn/video game/like button and algorithms that target kids. It would be great to interview Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein on education also. Montesorri worked with mentally ill kids, orphans and street kids, whom the world had given up on. Go Tess!
My favourite post yet. I taught ballet and dance for years and I'm at the end of a Masters in Teaching for secondary education and I can see how much transformative learning comes from the body and our relationships with the environment and the people around us. I had a horrible car accident as a 6 year old and at nine I was still struggling to keep up with kids my own age. It was my GP that recommended putting me in a ballet class to help me build strength. Best prescription he could have given. These days a GP would probably prescribe a medication regime. I am now looking at how dance can be used to teach language and social awareness and relate it to learning in maths, science and computer coding. I also fully appreciate the importance and the strength of immersion in the natural environment on the wellbeing of the learner. I have to say I have not fared well with the mandates on teachers and feel like walking away from teaching completely, but I am proud to say that I know my unconventional ways made a difference to some of the young people I worked with.
There is way too much political indoctrination in schools which is seen particularly in the curriculum in various indirect ways. The topics covered indicate the importance and the topics omitted indicate the unimportance. Thus, diversity, LGBQT, and gun control are important, while gun safety, critical thinking, and logic are not.
This is wonderful. We left traditional schooling behind as things started to ramp up in 2020 and we have been so grateful for the change. Initially our decision was (mostly) based on not being willing to mask our children, but as we continue to explore and understand the benefits, we are so thankful to have stepped away, even with the anxiety of the unknown. Writings like these help me remember why our intuition is turned towards more free range and unschooling methods.
What a vibrant and extremely well expressed article. Very refreshing and inspiring. You are so right on multiple levels, Dr. Lawrie. The State has become our abuser. It has become the enemy of the people. The government and the State do not have our best interests at heart. They have betrayed us all. They want our children to become bland engineered commodities. They want to battery farm the whole of humanity. So we must ardently defy them at all levels. We must embrace our innate sovereign spontaneity and tear up their Callous Contrived Robotic Script. Let's joyfully charter organic individualist pathways that celebrate creative spirited solutions. Let's enthusiastically thwart their snaggle-toothed tin-head technocracy. "They" don't own us! Not now. Not ever.
In Scandinavia, children don't learn maths or English until they are about seven years of age. They spend most or their younger years in creative and outdoor learning. Very young children are wrapped up warm and take their sleeping hours outdoors in the cold for the fresh air. They spend a lot of time outdoors exploring nature and their environment, and they spend indoor time baking and learning community skills. These countries have the highest literacy and numeracy scores when it comes to league tables! What does that tell you?
I love the saying 'if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid'. Our education system is a one size fits all meat factory that stifles creativity. Not all children learn the same way, or have the same skills and talents. If they don't pick a subject up, they think the problem lies in them and not in the system. They don't understand that they are not stupid and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with them at all, it is the metric of judgement that is wrong! And yet, these poor souls think there is something wrong with them and that they have an inability to learn.
An illuminating article as always Dr Lawrie. Thank you. What we have done to our children throughout this pandemic will haunt me forevermore.
Thanks for this beautiful post Dr Lawrie. I am also learning a lot from the people who commented. So touching to see such dedicated parents.
I love free range chickens and children
Public schools are horrible. I didn't get what I needed.
Thoughts on Summerhill School?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ko7DGsf5s