You Might Be An Unschooler If …

Karen M. Gibson

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… conversations held in the car include such topics as square roots, time and space travel, Native Americans and their participation in the American Revolution, the Roman Empire, mortgages, how retail businesses figure their profit, the latest scenario to a favorite computer game, constellations, basketball history and NASCAR racing.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …
Photo by Terry Vlisidis on Unsplash
Photo by Terry Vlisidis on Unsplash

… your child’s science curriculum includes:

  • Scientific American magazine
  • Sky & Telescope magazine
  • Membership in the local Astronomical Society
  • Emailing penpal professors from a nearby University
  • Books from the library
  • Science experiments at home
  • BUT DOESN’T but doesn’t include any textbooks.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your teenager’s music selections for the past month include:

, , , ,,, and , with a little jazz and classical thrown in the mix!

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your homeschooling friends simply don’t understand how you can possibly teach your children without any textbooks or even a scope and sequence.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your 8-year-old can’t read yet, but he can show you the geographic location of all the NBA teams in North America.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your extended family assumes that your homeschooling includes all the same subjects as the public schools teach and that you stick to a traditional curriculum, and you don’t tell them any differently.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your child’s favorite television channel is PBS.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your child reads Foreign Affairs and Popular Science instead of People magazines.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… you don’t tell your homeschooling friends that you don’t “teach” your child because you are sure they wouldn’t understand and that you would be thought of as ‘weird’ and ‘strange’.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… your child doesn’t understand the concept of homework.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… you don’t worry about what grade level your child should be or what a scope and sequence says he should be learning at that grade level.

You Might Be An Unschooler If …

… you trust your child to learn what he wants/needs to learn on his own timetable.

Photo by Adam Winger on Unsplash

These are examples from our own unschooling experience. Yours are guaranteed to be different.

Copyright February 1999, April 2021

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