Following up on my recent “School Alternatives 101” post, I want to share some quotes from three great educational innovators who were “parents” (in this case, all “fathers”) of the three types of educational alternatives I talked about in my post. I want to focus on their visions’ of who drives the educational process, which I believe is a key way to distinguish these three approaches from each other. This may seem like “education-wonk” stuff to some of you, but I think it is really important, even from a parent’s point of view, when considering educational options for your and other kids. (more…)

So what the heck does it mean to be an “internally motivated learner”? Is such an animal the exception or the rule? And can internal motivation drive even formal academic learning? In a culture where conventional wisdom seems to think that most of formal education needs to be mandated and externally motivated to be successfully undertaken, I think these are very important questions.

Certainly infants and toddlers learn most or all of what they learn for internal reasons. Infants don’t need to be motivated or instructed in how to walk, they are driven to do so and through practice, trial, and error they figure out how to do so. Toddlers learn to speak with a minimum of instruction, by listening to people speaking around them and learning to vocalize words and put them together into phrases and sentences. They learn a myriad of other skills involving coordination of their bodies with their brains on their own as well. (more…)

Starting in third grade with learning the multiplication tables, our son Eric started having a problem with school. By seventh grade he would not do any homework, had been diagnosed with ADD, was taking Aderall, had been through an IEP, had had a number of sessions with an educational therapist, and resisted in any way he could think of going to school each morning. When he got to the point in eighth grade of writing “F**k Math” on his standardized math test, we pulled him out of school. (more…)

Lisa Stroyan commented on my “School Decision Makers… Revisited” post that she has a son who was in public school through fifth grade, but is now homeschooling, and moving toward the more unschooling end of the homeschooling spectrum. As an initial suggestion, I think she should check out www.unschooling.com, for some information and provocative thoughts on that educational path.

Lisa said she was also interested in my own experience with my kids’ homeschool/unschool journey during their teen (normally high school) years, maybe how or whether an unschooled kid learns traditional academic subjects like algebra. So here goes…

Eric’s Story

We pulled our son Eric out of school in February 2000 at age 14 because it had become clear that he hated going to school, and had basically become allergic to the conventional instructional academic environment. (See my earlier post on “Thoughts on Emily & Middle School Issues”). We had been considering doing it for a while, and my partner Sally (Eric’s mom) had done some research on homeschooling on the Internet. Sally and I had an initial strategy to attempt to guide our son in a homeschooling strategy including the four conventional academic subjects – English, social studies, science and math. Eric, as it turns out, had other ideas. (more…)