UNSCHOOLING EXPLAINED : Adventuring Family of 11

okay guys today we are gonna be talking about homeschooling and specifically about unschooling but I want to say before we even start this video that I don't believe in good and bad parents I don't believe like a good parent sensible to public school or a good parent home schools them I believe that kids need parents who are parenting with intention and who are present and doing like our thinking about it and doing their best and so that could look like a lot of different things and so I don't want anybody to feel like I am declaring in this video how all people should either educate their children or parent their children I just want to show you how we do it and maybe you can gather some things from that but I think what kids need at the end of the day is just a parent who is intentional in helping them grow to be the best version of themselves and that can look like a lot of things so with that let's actually talk about on schooling okay [Music] [Music] Hey hello welcome back you guys today is gonna be a little bit different we do these you know everyone swirl on the channel here but do it a sit down oh sit down talk we're doing yes okay um it's sometimes it just makes sense it's the best way to answer you know what I'm getting a question over and over and over again or when we are it's just the best way to do it and I know it's pertinent for many of you right now that we talked about homeschooling and unschooling because it is the time of year where you're sending your kids back to school or wondering if maybe you don't need to send them back to school and or maybe you've already decided down to send them back to school but you're feeling a little nervous about it and I think there's also one other group and that's people who have been homeschooling for a while but are actually looking for more information about unschooling which is kind of a silly name but it it is the the name that's used to describe the type of homeschooling that we do and so we'll talk a little bit more about that today we're gonna gonna go through our journey and you know how when we started why we started and kind of how that evolved and then we will end with I asked on instagram on our Instagram account which is just north underscore and underscore south north and south I asked for more questions from you guys and I will if we haven't already answered them I look through the list and kind of maybe you know finish off with some of those questions so we do have nine kids and we have homeschooled all of them at least for a portion of the time and so what that means though is that we hope it's quiet and that we have no probably here kids in the background yeah because we work from home it's a weekday that's gonna happen first of all if you're new here this is Mike and I got again and we have nine kids and we have been homeschooling sins Elijah was in second grade yeah 2009 ish 2010 yeah so he's oh man when we started so he years yeah yeah um I wanted to home-school him from the beginning that was a new idea I wasn't home school than you were neither of us had that background and at the time we were living in a really good school district in Texas that everybody raved about and particularly like a really good elementary school and I wanted to home-school though for different reasons and I but my family encouraged me not to because they said that's something you do when the school systems failing you or you're living in a bad area right that was a last resort yeah and so I did not trust my own desires and I sent him to school it was young mm-hmm we were first and time to kindergarten didn't love his experience there but then first grade was better but we pulled him out after first grade and started homeschooling mm-hmm at the time how did you feel about it when we started in our home Scalia um I actually wasn't a fan at the time you were like obviously fan enough defin I mean I felt like I felt like I I refused it or something like that but I was questioning whether I I guess I wondered if we could actually pull it off like they would get a good education I wasn't I didn't know if you had the bandwidth to do that with you know being us because by that time we did have Andrew as well he was mm-hmm pretty young and so it seemed like a lot to bite off in my opinion at the time so I was I was apprehensive and and then also my family was not supportive of that move so that didn't help either so there was a there was a few things that from his making me hesitate yeah and I think both of us had to kind of go through a time period where we rewrote what childhood would look like because our entire right childhood and teen years revolved around the school year and so like you know you get all those experience yeah it didn't start when we started homeschooling you're like wait no senior prom and like wait no book there were no no school lunch and no recess and like all of those things that we kind of to work through and write and and then I had to validate for myself like okay they won't have that experience but they can have a different an equally valid experience in life and so that was that took years and it was and it took years for both of us to be comfortable with what we were doing and confident yeah and what we're doing and so anytime I was having a rough time I was feeling overwhelmed you're go to I know yeah I was always ready to throw out the homeschooling say this is just one thing to add stress that we don't need to let's send him back to school and let's let's remove this from yeah and I think did you were going to work at the time yeah what I was leaving I wasn't there and so I didn't really I didn't have that connection yeah and so also I think you were like I can help you solve this problem this is a big stress let's just get rid of it part of why I think we struggled in the beginning was that cultural thing but also I think what what a lot of people who decide to home-school do is they have their memory of public school and then they just try to do that at home which is what we did yeah in the beginning and because you don't know and really a lot of time you don't know any other way and we were using a program that was actually designed to do that called k12 it's available throughout the United States and I think maybe even outside of the United States and often it it's even free and it comes through the public school system and it is just essentially a public school curriculum at home right and you're registered still like with the state or whatever login to a website and you prove that you're doing stuff and you get books and I mean like you get everything right you get like all those little like counting cubes and stuff yeah you get tons of stuff and so that kind of helped I think both of us even though it wasn't wasn't what we ended up doing long term it did kind of bridge us and bring us into the homeschooling world but it was really difficult because it was a ton of stuff to do and record and to keep track of and it was not enjoyable work it was a lot of there was a lot of the kitchen yeah Elijah and I think by that point Andrew was yes by the time when we'd been doing it for a few years and I was struggling and they hated it so we're like constant battle and it was at that time that I went into a homeschool store and she said yeah most people start with that but they don't keep doing it because you can't do public school at home it it just doesn't work at home doesn't equate quite as well no it doesn't work at home and so it was that time when I really started to research even more into different ways that people learn different curriculums and kind of opened my mind up to that that is probably one of the number one questions we get about homeschooling is like what what books should I read or where do I start and that's a hard question to answer I just think the first thing is just start I think go to your public library there's gonna be a lot of books there on education and homeschooling and pull out the books that are interesting to you and that speak to you and don't feel like you have to read through all of them but flip through and find those things because I really have read dozens of books on homeschooling and some I've kept some I've moved on from and I think the reason why I don't want to box you in and say this is how you homeschool or this is how you what books you should read is because there are some people who have a totally different personality types in us and a totally different lifestyle than us and they homeschool completely differently than us and it works but if we were to lift up exactly what they did and come over and drop it in our home it would fall apart and so I did that for many years so we did lots of different styles of homeschooling and always had heard of unschooling mmm-hmm I always thought I'm not doing that I hadn't that was a when you brought it up those new concept for me maybe you thought about prior to but that was yeah it would at the beginning for me it was pretty radical idea yeah and especially what five or six years ago when we went to like we declared ourselves as unschoolers I I think in the homeschooling communities I was in unschooling was Cena's like how to ruin your kids maybe I'm not an unschool or that's like the worst right right that's for lazy moms or something but we kind of went through this phase and when Elijah was going into the seventh grade he was in seventh grade we had at this point we tried out a lot of things and I had read a book about unschooling it was really intriguing to me but I had read a lot of other books on lots of different types of home education and we were just about to bring home two of our daughters from China and we need we're gonna be gone for three weeks mm-hmm and family and friends were a little overwhelmed about having our home schooled for boys for three weeks with nowhere for them to go because I Peter national we're near miss cool yeah I know but I think they were overwhelmed because most parents send their kids away and they think I had barely make it through the summer and through Saturdays and holidays I can't even imagine how I'd have my kids at home and that's a question we'll get a lie and we'll address but um and so that we needed them to do us a favor in that favor was pretty heavy for them if they had to have homeschooled kids at their house cuz they thought they would have to like do worksheets with them and all this stuff and so they asked if we could put them in school during that time for three weeks for three weeks and I'm like oh my gosh that's terrible but it kind of evolved into a yes and then they went to school this was in February and brought that we brought the girls home and they stayed in school through the rest of that year into June and actually went they went back next year and that worked for our family it was really helpful for me bringing the girls home that was a huge huge life transition and it really helped to have school and those sorts of things yeah that kind of taken care of her system Meredith yeah but the reason I mention it is because before I would say for the year and a half before that we had really like we had just gotten have gotten so messy until well mning that we were probably having like two good days a month where I felt like we were doing homeschooling well yeah it was yeah and the rest of the time we lived on a like a little farm the rest of the time the kids were playing and reading and just messing around and so when we put him in I was it was a it was affirming to see and it was interesting to see that even though we weren't like like because I met home schoolers who were like hitting the books every day for hours we weren't doing that and yet they did really really well when they went back to school Elijah immediately had to take some tests and he was like at the top of his class in math and in science and all on all of them right and so I was like huh and I just read this book about unschooling and we will now talk about what it is but it it did say like maybe there is something to that and so we pulled them out and said we're gonna give unschooling a chance this was after that first one what's that that was after nope it was after they did that like year and a half in the public school system we weren't happy with it and we said okay we're pulling him out and we're gonna try it on schooling it with intention and because that would take off a lot of stress right shame and those sorts of things always like I was feeling and so we brought him home and said we're gonna give it it one year I think first we said six months but we said really we probably should give it a full year of trying this with intention and if they we just don't see them growing and learning and then we will go back we'll do something else but we need to give it a go yeah by this time how are you feeling about homeschooling do you remember um I was more on board yeah you were on board I was because I've seen like okay how public school was for the kids and how that was you know the negative sides of it and so I was on board for testing that out and I think another key was you started actually reading these books with me that's true yeah I sort of look into it because before it all been Megan and it's trying to communicate right always trying to convince me or or help me understand why that was so definitely I started getting bored when you kind of learned about it when I learned about it now I might be catching you off-guard here because I know you don't remember but do you remember what book was actually the most influential for you in believing in home school it was the dumbing us down book yeah don't mean us down that was a big that was a that was probably I would definitely pitiable moment for me because it really identified how the public school system fails in a lot of ways so yeah that was big girl yeah I think if I were to tell you one book to start with I think that's a really great one it's by John got oh no it's got oh no got - yes sorry say that again it's by John Gatto and he was like a teacher for hick like 30 years in the New York's public school system he wasn't sorry he won Teacher of the Year he was like you know all that and then he left and he wrote this book on how damaging he believed public school system is and he kind of lays it all out and as someone who went to public school you're like so true it is so true and I still feel the effects of these things and he just says and it's never gonna change like he's like it's difficult but very difficult for that change that to change it would be like an immense sea change you know and so I think we started there and started to build with intention what we wanted gosh this is so hard to communicate what are you trying to say no I'm just trying to give them the picture of what unschooling means for us so I guess what but in order for you to understand what unschooling means for us and there is no like actual definition and it's a huge blanket for many different types of home education but essentially I think it means child-led educate it does not unschooling is it's like it creates this picture that like you are on educating them or something literally doing nothing well or like yeah that where you're actually trying to reverse education but it means more its child lead and so it's trusting the child yeah and and and trusting that they will they want to learn and they'll they will kind of go down that path yeah and that's why we're willing to do it because we read books and we had thought about it and formulated some ideas about humans about children and adults and how people learn and what environments they flourish in and also also asking ourselves what we wanted our kids to become and what we wanted them to be able to do and in the throws of it before we actually went to unschooling I was talking to another homeschooling mom who had kids like in college getting master's degrees and stuff so I'm like whatever she did worked and she was like you know it was always a mess it was always a mess she's like but I realized that I just only have a couple jobs it's like or she said it really only one job and it's to teach them to be good people and that was really enlightening and so that's really when we did start deciding like well what is our job what do we feel like we are supposed to teach our children and I think we kind of added a couple more to that we said we want to teach them to work mmm because if you know how to work you always be able to make it we want to teach them how to learn yeah that's a big one right there so that and that or at least not get in the way of how they learn so that even if they come to an obstacle where they're willing to work if they know how to learn they can find the information they need and then move forward yeah and then the last one was how to be a good person or how to be a nice person or how to be happy it's probably the West best way to say that so once we kind of said those are the theory things we want to teach them how do we do that how do we build a life and build and invite where they can learn those things and so ultimately we did end up with unschooling or child-led which means after all of that which means that we let our kids choose what they want to learn and how they want to spend their time for us that doesn't mean complete freedom because you know I went to some people you know who are an advanced schooling to kids though yeah like some unschoolers want their kids to experience even like choose their bedtime and choose when they eat and choose what they eat um choose if they do chores or not yeah so that they can kind of learn open-book yeah we did not do that because I think partially our family size yeah and we did want our kids to understand that they're part of a community and that people rely on them and so they don't get to just sleep all day they do have Mike does wake the kids up and they we do kind of have set not set mealtimes about times a day when when you're in the kitchen and they do not have access to anything on the computers that they want right so that means that they don't in our family it means that they can't play games they can't do anything on educational which is pretty broad for edge what is educational right but they can't do anything on educational like minecraft even though they could argue that it is but they can only do that on the weekends and that's only for a certain amount of time and at any time if mom and dad say no more screens there's no more scrubs they're out so we do actually have that sort of structure because we feel like it helps us create a better environment to make them actually seek and do and become right but beyond that there are no requirements the only requirements yeah well the only requirement is that we see them learning learning or doing yeah but you're usually learning while you're doing something so then I will say that isn't easy for every child or every personality type because it is a skill it is a skill to learn how to ask yourself what you're interested in doing and what you would like to learn now I should say it's actually a natural skill you're born with it but if your kids have gone to public school they probably lost it most likely the compulsory education kind of kills that yeah because nobody at school says hey what are you interested what do you want to learn and what do you think about that and would you like to look into it further three-year-olds do that right or an 18 month old does that they open up the cabinet and they dig through it and they make something with it or whatever but I have noticed that our kids is specifically our kids who were in China where they did not ever get asked what they wanted or what they thought they were not empowered in any way it is harder for them to learn how to act with power and to move forward with some confidence mhm and so that has been a process to teach them how to do that again and so if your kids have been in public school you will kind of have to help them learn how to do that and that's through a lot of questions so we have done things where we just sit down with a kid who's struggling like some of our kids they got it they are just like always always doing new things learning new things and they don't really ever you know we let them kind of have time to process and things they don't always have to be on top of it but right there's some our kids where it's not hard but there are the ones that where it has been harder and that is not just life experience and is also personality type mm-hmm we'll sit down with them say well what are you interested in and they'll say I don't know and I will say okay well when you know we kind of have to go through this process with them to help them find something they're interested in it does not matter what it is you know some it does not matter because what you want them to understand is the process of learning something the process of you know acquiring a new skill or becoming entrenched in a topic and so it could be horses it could be robots it could be any yeah so for some people that's minecraft and I totally respect if that's what you want to go with it's just not what we do um but so we let them when then we say well where do you think you could learn that or whatever we might look on the computer and I'm showing them essentially what the other kids are already kind of doing naturally like we're gonna google it and we're gonna go to YouTube and we're gonna see if there's a course on it and then you know we're going to show them and they can start that course those sorts of things so that means some of our kids are using curriculums somebody was surprised the other day that Esther is using a curriculum for math Esther wanted to use a curriculum for math so we found one for her because she's interested in following a certain path and she wants to improve her math so that she can follow that path well this and then that's the core of how this works is that as a as a child as interesting as something as a setting something or they see like okay this is where I want to be they recognize that these are maybe the subjects I should focus in because we get a lot of questions from people who wonder like well how are they gonna how are they gonna learn math or how they gonna learn some of these basic skills that were benchmarks that the school is just sort of determined or are there for whatever reason but the reality is we want them to I guess that more have an angle on mine and then help then they figure out how they're gonna get there so if one of our kids wants to become an engineer that means they will figure out which math what math they need to learn to have the prerequisites to go to college or whatever is required so it's more that they have an end goal in mind and then they learn the subjects that they need to learn to get there yeah and some of you I wish I'm glad you mention that might because some of you might freak out and say but what about math I always think the math is always the question well and I think that's for two reasons one because the way you were taught math you hated it most likely what 90% of most hated man learner voluntarily you did not learn it voluntarily and so you think that every must everybody must be forced to do math that's not true at one time or another I've seen all of my children I yeah all of them doing math voluntarily like full sheets of math problems voluntarily and so does it applies to something else or just because it's interesting math like a little interesting little kids like math like even dude love doing a little math it's like a case yeah and so I think that's the first reason why you always ask about math because you think you must be forced to do math and then the second thing is oh this is a whole philosophy we have nobody thinks that every adult should do it be able to do any job because we know that's stupid everybody has aptitudes some people would be really happy doing one thing but would be miserable doing another thing or be really skilled and talented in doing one thing and terrible at another thing we know that because people are different but we don't treat people like that in education at all we expect everybody to be exactly the same and learn the exact same thing and so I get better excel at all those things - yeah or we're scared right and so if you had a child who was doing math and hated it and was terrible at it instead of saying oh no you might say okay guess you're probably not going to be an engineer right you're probably not going to grow up and be a mathematician because let's not waste our time let's not waste our time like you don't love it because in it but you're probably really good at something else it's just a clue on who you are now and you might say but but but but it's like but what you know for one thing I have a calculator in my pocket at all times where I can do complex math I for us I think it's helpful to know your times tables so I do encourage my kids like it's helpful you probably want to learn that they do they learn it because of just everyday like everyday life does involve addition subtraction multiplication and division yeah there's a division yeah so those things those things just happen because you're trying to figure out what half of a dollar is you know and I think that's really what we do it part of our unschooling is when our kids want to buy something you know we let them interact with the money and the cashier and all of those things we let them even though it's painful sometimes look at the money they have look at the total and like hand a bill over in the cash we will say I need more and they're like oh you know so they're learning mountings but I think I learned you know I remember being in school and how painful it was to learn multiplication of fractions in division of fractions and it didn't make any sense to me but then you get in the kitchen and you've got nine kids and you've got to multiply a recipe times three and I got fractions like that instead of letting your kids cook is math right there are some math is everywhere and in when you take all of the reality of math out and put it on into a curriculum it does become painful but when you bring math out back into the world it's interesting again it's fun again it sinks in yeah and so I guess we feel like our job as parents and this is not just for math but every subject is to give them opportunities to do things that will require growth right and to put them in situations and life does that a lot and so you know we plan on next year when we are building our house our kids will be very involved in that process because there's a lot of geometry in building a house right I mean do I remember you've got to figure out the area of a square well that is really uninteresting until it's we're talking about a room or a garden or a garage you know those sorts of things so I think oh we feel like we are confident that if you let children live and you let them follow their interests they will learn what they need to learn and if they hit something they don't know they know how to learn they know how to get on the internet they know how to go to the library they know how to phone a friend they know how to learn things and really whenever somebody challenges me about homeschooling I often ask them would you want to know something what do you do and so they say oh well I'm like oh well there's something you want to know what do you do it they say well google it or I'll call someone I know who knows about it or those sorts of things I say well that's how we educate our kids because that's how humans learn things nobody ever says well I go to a school I mean you might really if you're like okay there's a course at the Community College Oh like shirt it serves a purpose to do to do that but the other thing is when you're interested in you actually want to know something you learn like a thousand times better no sure you read I mean there's all sorts of research and having retain the information and how you understand the information and that when you ask the question you're ready for the answer right because sometimes that's just a developmental issue is there kids there they haven't even asked that question yet the question does it make sense for them so the answer is never going to make sense for them and that's different for every child because of their aptitudes their their strengths and those sorts of things and so we let our children lead with their strengths lead with her interests and we trust that it will all work out you know Elijah is in this position right now where he's trying to decide if he's gonna go to college that's a whole nother topic though well and when we should answer it everybody asks us what about college to us as you can see college is something that you go to when it gives you what you want when it answers a need if you don't you know we grew up everybody went to college in our family that's just what you did and you went to college having no idea what you're gonna do when you got well you knew it or not you're gonna I'm your and you're just like my inner peace is what your mater I'm not sure yet and in our mind declared that's crazy you should not be going to college if you don't even know what you want to do because it might not it's a waste of time I know somebody that's in that I know that's a little controversial but you go to college when college will give you what you want when it's a good investment for your goals and so a lie just trying to decide that right now and so he knows in order to go to college he's looked at the schools that he would go to according to his interests and his desires and he's looked at their requirements for admission and so he knows that if he wants to do that then there are certain things gonna have to do most colleges here in the United States are very supportive of homeschoolers and some require some sort of declaration of graduation from that can be from their parents some require that you have a CT or SATs but some very prestigious schools don't require either of those and just want to see life experiences see that you've been entrepreneurial see that you've been creative and maybe they that you get some letters of recommendation a few more than their other applicants the reason for that is that if you look at the data homeschoolers do better in college and if you look at home schoolers and you break it down even more unschoolers do better than most home schoolers in college itself live because they know how to be I think a self-starter and a reporter on their own and their complement yeah they don't have to be told what to do and they don't even I don't when Andrew went to school for a month he his friends were always telling you that he did that he did a little like experiment here with middle school he tried it out for a month and he said it was fine to him how often kids a vehicle you don't have to do that and he'd be like what I want to do that do what like an assignment oh they were just and he was like be reading something like oh you don't do that he's like I want to do it they're like no but you don't have to he's like but I want to you know and so that the system almost it's just human nature to do as little as possible it is part of us but in the school system it works against us and so we actually lose our desire just to seek knowledge into we're trying to do as little as unless you are a certain personality type that really flourishes and this right now there are some people are that way um we could talk for a million hours about that that idea that there are certain learning styles and certain personality types that actually really love going to public school I still think that they might be better served in other areas but that's just my opinion but I know there are certain personality types and certain learning styles that do not flourish in the public school system um so you know we do have some children who are interested in college we have some children who are not alright to me they may go end up going to college at thirty you know they might learn something about themselves and then say you know what I could really use this degree then they'll go and they'll get it done quickly and with intention and it'll make sense for them right and they but I think there are so many things you can do these days where it doesn't make sense degree if some of us some of our kids want to work in the trades you know where they go and get an apprenticeship or they go to a trade school that's great if they want to be an entrepreneur and maybe take a few courses that makes sense to UM I think the main thing is they want to be a doctor then obviously they would need to go to school and do that so there you go yeah I think the main thing is that they go with intention and they go because it makes sense so let's start looking at questions because sometimes we don't even remember does the state not have actual academic requirements well different states are different and we can't speak to every States requirements so it's you have to look into that for your sake but by and large no state I don't believe that any state has requirements like that you learn certain things or do certain things they might have a certain amount of time you're supposed to spend and how you let them know it might be very simple that some states do require state testing but I don't think there's any states that that there's any implications if your scores are well what they want to be but like when we did k12 in Utah we because we're doing k12 you're basically in the system they I did that remember taking the life it to do testing at placement we did have to check in with earlier yeah somebody said how do you keep track of what everyone is doing and learning in different subjects for records we don't keep records so we don't keep track we just make sure that they're getting better crazy right to use curricula Mol yes as we said what was the question of the universe re do you use curriculum at all yes when a child requests there might be a language curriculum that someone is using there might be like we said Esther's doing a math curriculum right now it just depends we seek them out and often they're boring so they quit we've kind of learned which websites offer better things I mean I shouldn't say that because I never was gonna quote website yeah but we do like great courses Plus has had some good things what in textbooks for math well no no I I mean I mean what is Elijah done a few classes in master class master class yeah yeah we've done some master clusters YouTube we have got a photography well also there's just there's people who there are there are places you can find classes like I should just got a photography class today that you bought online from a person who who does that and we pay for those and yeah we we put the bill for all this stuff but anyway so there's lots of different options especially in a very specific topic okay I would love to know how it unschoolers their day I would - no um we we and our family kind of have a structure a slight structure just because you know of what are the things we have been going on but if you are a scheduler and you like having a schedule then that will probably come naturally to you if you're not then you don't need to do it but the whole point of unschooling is kind of the idea that there isn't necessary schedule so we keep it pretty open absolutely right the only thing is schedule is like lunch hmm do they have to take the a CT or SAT depends on the school at what age did you see your kids really start to pursue their own interest that's a great question and I do think that it looks different at every age and for every kid though yeah but I think that it's and when kids are younger and they're unschooled it just looks like they're playing all day because and you need to learn to value play that's okay one of the things that in our in our research one of the things that we listen to as a professor talking about he was interested in unschooling and he did not think that the data would support it and he's like I'm a scientist I I did not have I just wondered and he said but it turned out the data did support it and he talked about indigenous cultures that have no schooling system and he said but yet every child by the time they're an adult knows the skills they need to survive in that culture and to the skills that the adults in that culture know he said and they almost always or not almost he said they always learned it through play he said so if you go into you know an indigenous tribe in Brazil the adults are hunting and making homes and fishing and you know creating things baskets and ropes and he said and if you go and watch the kids who are completely unsupervised he said they are roaming around playing at the skills that the adults are doing and learning them along the way really fascinating are you guys completely unschooling I think there's no firm definition I know some people are gonna have even more freedom than we do right but because we do require like chores like we said and we do have rules about screen time so we're probably not completely how are your children pick what to learn are you involved or are they on your own we usually once they get a hang of it they pick on their own I might have to or might might have to encourage them to do something but one of the things we've read and in I'll put a few books down here but the first unschooling book I read was called free to learn there's a couple of different ones so follow the link to that instead of just looking it up but she said what she learned through unschooling her kids was that they have intense learning times and then they have processing times and she's like at first she thought they were doing nothing in processing times and then she realized they needed time to assimilate everything they had just learned so she's like processing time might look like them riding their bike in a circle for two weeks she's like they're just thinking and they need it it's you know it's got to catch up but people do ask us all the time they're like oh so when you go to that museum that do you have them write a journal entry no oh no we don't we just go to the museum and we don't force them to learn anything when were there because we trust that if there's something fascinating to them there we might help them you know like get the resources they need or we all notice and be like oh look because it's fun that's what you do for friends and family anyways I know Perl loves with certain things when we like Perl look at this book and like look at this cool thing but know it because kids are smart and as soon as they see you taking the driver's seat of their education they're out they don't they don't they can't get in that seat at the same time as you so it's really important that you empower them by completely letting them lead but but we will say but I need to do something I need to see you in that driver's seat I'm not going to get in it but I need to see you in it is there anything from public school that you like or try to incorporate in your unschooling no yeah I was in the beginning we made a big chalkboard and we put up all the like posters and now I remember trying to set up like a schoolroom yeah didn't really work so this question is how long does it take them to do home school they never saw well it's okay here's the point and this is a point of unschooling is that learning is a lifelong pursuit and so we don't have a school year we don't there's no schedule so learning won't stop so it just it just continues right I knew we have bedtime and Friday I want to talk about just like I guess daily start and stop but no we don't and so people say you take off for the summer it's like no because it doesn't look any different we do like them we probably are a little bit more relaxed with an educational screen time in the summer but no and they're naturally they're playing with friends more in the summertime because the more kids are around but otherwise it doesn't really change yeah and I think that answers a question that a lot of moms have is like I think my kids would drive me crazy I can't do it I'm not a good enough mom everybody's kids train them crazy in the summer and on you know those sorts of days because there is no structure at all and their entitlement is the expectation for entertainment goes up in the summer time because kids are out yeah and so if my kids are driving me crazy it's either because I haven't communicated effectively on there what we're going to be doing meaning we're not doing anything you better go find something to do or there isn't enough structure in our day right where anything is possible at any time where I haven't communicated like so at those times when it's just gotten a little bit out of control we actually do kind of start to get more structure naturally and we'll say hey just so you know before noon you should be doing this I'm gonna be doing this I'm not gonna be able to help you with that right and they'll learn and they'll kind of settle in but my kids dragged me crazy just as much as public school moms kids driving crazy and summer I really think so and once school starts and we all just kind of settle back in so I guess there's no I guess there is a little bit of a reason it's just that summer man by the end I am like whoo um what values do you reckon or talk-through unschooling that may not be in public school that's a great question man we're gonna have to cut down a lot of a lot of maybe we want to do a part one and two but um I think that a lot of creativity and what's the word I always use innovation I and this is something that supports us but like a lot of big CEOs say that they the kids that come to them is like been straight-a students or the public school system and through college and things come to them with not that and they don't have the skills they're looking for those kids don't know how to think outside the box they don't know how to innovate and that's they don't all have problems solving skills and that's what we think we teach our kids more than anything and what's great about that we have at all information at our fingertips we don't need to memorize dates and figures anymore we don't need we can look up a recipe at any time we can look up an equation at any time but can you think outside the box can you innovate can you be creative that's really what is going to help you be successful in the future well and and most and I think I don't say all people but I think most people that comes naturally to the thinking outside the box are being creative I mean if they're left if they're left if we don't get in a way which unfortunately public school does get in the way and it kind of kills that good don't think differently do exactly what I tell you I don't want you to write your name on a different part of the paper I don't want you to color here I want you to do exactly what I tell you and when you do I'll praise you and when you don't you fail right and when we're done on this topic we're done on this topic and we move on and we can't spend any more time on that don't look over here don't look over there stay focused here and so all those things I think inhibit that creativity that is naturally there can unschooling go against your religious beliefs if so how and how do you handle it not for us what does that mean I guess they're saying are you worried that your kids will get into areas that teach them something you don't believe in no we're not worried about that well because we are very open to discussing different ideas and I don't think you prepare your children very well for life if if you try to like keep them I mean you obviously want to keep your kids away from like hot pans and you know drugs right but I think safety wise safety but I think you have to also let them as they grow older try some ideas out just like trying some situations out that might be a little bit more dangerous I guess you could say but like there's more risk involved so that they can learn how to stand on their own two feet in to navigate the sort of complexity yeah I think what anything where we're trying to with a home homeschooling unschooling because the kids are here we do have sort of we do have a sway because they come to you especially you would like them and discuss things that you are we're trying to teach them to take a measured approach to any information that they're taking in it's so important to recognize that that that information is coming from a source where there's a person or an organization that can't help but have some bias in that information and so we're not too worried about them being led astray as it were because if I think our children are much more prepared to recognize that all information come from a source that you you probably shouldn't place implicit trust in we always say like yes what are the sources on that and who what is their intention what do they of saying that and I think that's one of the most important things you can teach humans these days is to be reasonable in the face of challenging information right we all know I don't know if you know if you see this deep fake technology where you can make anybody look like they were doing or saying anything right in the video yes so that should tell you that you can't trust anything completely completely and that you have to be reasonable at all times and say does that make sense does that line up with other things that I've seen are there more than one source saying that is it have we had time to really think and investigate that and are definitely we're giving our kids the ability to do that and I can't think of many things that are more important than the ability to do that yeah because again a public school if it's in the textbook its truth which we all know it's not true so and but they don't they don't talk about that they're not gonna say like now let's take this with a grain of salt because we know that the author this textbook also wrote this or thinks yeah so I think what we're not worried about our kids going outside of our our faith because but they know how to think I don't know I'm not trying to say it but um okay the next question yeah if your kids wanted a more traditional curriculum would you support that there have been times where our kids were tired of the responsibility of what they needed to learn and so they said they wanted more traditional curriculums I'm thinking of a couple in particular and they went to that and lasted like six weeks yes but it actually was kind of good for them because then they realized well that's actually not what I want but it gave them they're like okay what do I want mm-hmm and it was kind of a sometimes it helps to see like to go down a road that's kind of a dead end in order recognize like okay this actually doesn't work for me and also that I think it's not the point is we allow our kids to shift gears and to change what the thing is that they're interested in so sometimes they will dive deep into a certain topic or subject and get really interested in that and then they they kind of move on to something else and we don't we don't force them to stay inside something do you want it to be good at this instrument or something we do right we don't we don't force them because once you start forcing they stop learning because they're doing it for for you this is a really good question when we have thought about it says how will they they adjust to a work environment where they must do things they don't want to do well even though we let their education be child let our kids get all sorts of opportunities if they don't want to do in our home and that's part of teaching them how to work yeah they do dishes they do chores they help out you know as a member of our family so I yes the kids have to do things they don't want to do on a daily basis because who wants to do the dishes but and as they get older like Andrew who's writing now he knows there some parts of writing he doesn't like and he's willing to do them but let me tell you something I don't believe that you should spend your life doing a lot of things you don't want to do but you'll if you go to public school you just kind of think that's life everybody has to do the things they don't want to do that's true to a certain degree but you choose to do them because you've seen that they help you reach your goals so it's not so bad I don't believe that we all should just be you know swallowing like life because that's what we have to do I think you should be seeking out a life that brings you joy and that excites you good point I guess the last nobody really asked us it's mostly about curriculums and courses and college and AC T's exams I think you know a best part of why Esther's doing this math curriculum right now because she does want to go to college and she knows that the college she wants to go to or the few she's looking at required a CT and she knows that for the a CT her weakest spot is math and so she is working hard to learn the things she needs to learn to get the score she wants to get so she can go to college but I think one of the things I think is so important if you are going to pursue unschooling is to create an environment and to model it okay somehow you guys can see this is not the same day because when we were editing the video we realized that it hadn't stopped recording the last stop recording it was like this video is too long we had this amazing like kind of stumbling up and finale it was like so it was emotional but we missed it so we're just not gonna be able to do like that we can recreate that sorry there's a one time thing for sure but I just wanted to say that's probably the most important thing you can do for your kids whether you're have them in public school your homeschooling them or you are unschooling them is modeling the learning process and that in showing them that learning is a joy and so that means having them come in find you reading a book or see you trying your hand at a new skill or researching a topic or or starting a new project all of those things they're learning from like those kids in the jungles of the Amazon they will model what they see their parents doing so I think that's the main thing and I think showing them that you feel so much joy in learning things and you know modeling for them that for them it'll create a culture in your home of continual growth and learning and education right so is there anything else I think that's it so that's the end and we you know that's how we doing and we didn't share this because we didn't really we knew that like everybody would have a lot of strong feelings and opinions on it we didn't share before yeah and we didn't necessarily want to hear it you know about how you don't agree with us but I think more than that we realize that there are a lot of people who would like to hear because maybe they're interested in it or it might lead them to find what they want to do with their kids and we just can't worry about it for all the people who wanted to talk about how they don't agree right all the haters I guess well I think the very least what we hope that you'll do is like we said the very beginning the video be intentional but your your kids education and not just do whatever just don't just put them on a conveyor belt but be conscious of how they're being educated and think about it and make sure you agree with how that's happening and that it's the best thing for them cuz like we said before we every family is different every situation is different but the hope is that at the very least we're all sort of thinking about it and willing to make changes where we will see that changes need to be made then we're not just feeling disempowered and stuck and unable to affect that situation but yeah or scared that it's that you could never take the education into your own hands I think that's mostly what we hear is that it's just I don't think I can do it and absolutely you can because learning is natural information is exciting to learn and as long as you take them on that journey you're gonna be just fine alright sorry there's lots of children we have a lot of kids turns out so my friends over yeah that's it for today that's what we do for homeschooling we love it I don't I think we're really really confident in that it took us a long time to find our place and our groove but I think we've we found our groove those that way yeah so if you have any other questions you can leave them in the comments and we'll try to answer them and yeah I will also try I it's gonna be hard because there's a million of them but I will put some of the books that I would start with em in the description or I'll put a link and have them on the website so that they're there forever and you can find them all right talk to you later guys see ya bye

Channel: Knorpp and South

Views: 425,634

Rating: 4.8544788 out of 5

Keywords: unschooling, unschool, school, parenting, homeschool, learning, teaching, learn, home school, john holt, radical unschooling, home education, home schooling, tedxtalks, schools, kids, family, news, natural learning, lesson, deschooling, education reform, montessori, homeschool mom, unschoolers, what is unschooling, no school, books, reading, motherhood, schooling, run free, freedom, curiosity, early education, personal education, progress, self improvement, alternative education, knorpp

Id: DxfeJxyi8Ls

Length: 55min 34sec (3334 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 20 2019