Unschooling
If you’ve read my About Lacy page, you probably know I’m homeschooled. 
I have always been homeschooled, and never attended a public or private school in my life.
We have went through a lot of different curriculums whilst homeschooling, the first being Abeka and the last used being Christian Light Education with a mixture of Rod and Staff. We’ve also done Paces and Switched-On-Schoolhouse (SOS). SOS was a computer based one.
According to grade level, I am in the 9th grade. I know the basics of math (subtraction, division, addition, multiplication, fractions, etc) English, Reading, Writing, and a bit of Science. I also have computer knowledge, and I know how to operate ‘The GIMP’ which is a image program.
In the schoolbooks, you basically kept repeating and doing over most of the same things you learned last year. Every morning we’d be hoping.. “Maybe Mom will forget about school for today!” As you can well imagine, that didn’t happen. 
The books called it “Review” I believe, but you did the review year after year of some of the stuff you learned years ago. How often do you diagram a sentence a day? Other than in school, how often do you use Algebra?
But now, our ’school’ will be different. Mom had finally found something that will work for us, and it’s called Unschooling (which you may have heard me reference to in my posts). Which is basically unstructured, freeform, daily experience, interest based learning. There will be no more waking up in the morning, dreading the upcoming ’school hours’, or begging Mom to let us have the day ‘off’. We will learn from our daily life experiences. Math, from playing Monopoly to counting money for allowance (or babysitting jobs!), and, well, just about everything can be put into a category.. LOL.
Or if there is some specific subject we’re curious about, we’ll look it up, and actually learn from it because we wanted to learn it! Somehow Levi and I have just never really learned anything from school books. If we need to learn something to complete a project or just to do something in life, we will learn it in our own way, and probably remember it a lot better than learning it from books.
So, I guess my highest ‘grade’ education will stop at 9th grade!!! That doesn’t bother me though, as I never could figure out that when you told someone you were in 9th grade or so, they automatically figured you had learned this, this, and this. Or, it was haven’t you ever done this yet? No? And you’re in 9th grade!? Or, “You’re in 9th grade? Neat, you only have a few more years of school left!”
Now people will ask what we do, since we don’t use textbooks or workbooks anymore. What do I do? Every day is full of different things and surprises. Mainly I am being trained by my mother on how to take care of the house, being a keeper at home, obedient, sewing, cooking, cleaning. I can learn these by watching her, helping her, and asking her. When I’m not inside helping, I can be outside managing the barnyard, making sure all the animals have food and water, letting some animals out, playing with my new roosters, taking the dog out for a walk. And if I’m not doing that, I can be riding my bike with my brother, reading books, or practicing my psaltery! The days are too different to be able to say what we do every day!
Shouldn’t I be more worried about studying the Word of God and hiding it in my heart, then trying to remember the formulas of algebra, nouns, adverbs, verbs, diagrams, and history dates?
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
1 Corinthians 3:19
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Proverbs 3:6
Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
Proverbs 3:7
10 Responses
Sunday, 13. July 2008
Lacy,
I think your mom has the right idea! We pretty much unschool around here too using a few workbooks every now and then. But it’s great, because it frees you to concentrate on the things that really matter.
Ms. Emmy
Saturday, 19. July 2008
Hi Lacy,
I guess I’m the only non-Christian to comment on your site (I do hope that is okay :-)), but I’d just like to say that I respect you for what you do and for your beliefs, and I was very interested to learn about your life and home schooling.
I am a teacher and have many reservations about most ‘curriculums’ - they are very prescriptive, usually some else’s idea of what is important to learn, and schools are strangely unnatural places to study! Learning in context/learning by doing is far more beneficial, in my opinion.
You life seems simple and refreshing, and you have plenty of opportunity to do good and little opportunity to do bad! Good on you.
Some people may think you extreme, but what is extreme in this day and age? Working in an office 10 hours a day, getting horrifically drunk at night to relieve stress, sitting in front of the TV for hours on end, and forgetting our traditions in favour of global culture seem more ridiculous and extreme to me!!! Why do we allow life to get so complicared?!?
Unfortunately, so many of us are disillusioned about the reality of reality! But your reality seems much more fulfilling than most.
Take care.
Monday, 28. July 2008
I know what you’re saying about God’s Word being more important than other school subjects, but aren’t those a little important, too? If God gave you a mind wouldn’t he want you to cultivate it with all different kinds of learning?
Monday, 28. July 2008
Hello Christine!
Of course they are a little important, but there’s more ways to learn than via textbooks. As I said above, I know the basics of most of the subjects I went through.
And there’s definitely more things to learn than just history, science, language and math! (Not to mention some of the things learned in textbooks you really don’t need!) There’s cooking, sewing, baking, cleaning, and learning how to care for animals ( which is most necessary in my situation.
), and a lot more!
I’m not saying that subjects and schooling should be done completely away with, if (hopefully!) I ever have children, I will also teach them the basics in the subjects. But after they know the basics, I think I would stop there. Unless it is to do some reviewing later.
I love reading my visitor’s comments! Thank you for taking the time to leave one!
Thank you for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it.
Richard ~ Of course it is okay for you to comment.
~ Lacy
Saturday, 9. August 2008
Interesting to read your view on unschooling. The beauty of homeschooling is really the freedom for students to learn in their own way.
Personally, I prefer reading textbooks and classical novels, becuase I need the structure of books.
Sunday, 7. September 2008
Lacy,
After reading your posts on unschooling, I thought you might find this link interesting/be interested in attending such a camp.
http://nbtsc.org/
I am interested in learning about various forms of education, and have found your blog to be very informative.
~Becky
Saturday, 22. November 2008
Hello Lacy,
Thank you for your information on your unschooling. I plan to school my children (when the Lord blesses) in much the same way. Our KJV Bible will be the main curriculum.
I did want to say something else though, I never took algebra, and have never had the need for it, although when I was working out of the home minded I regretted the decision to not take algebra. I don’t regret it now though.
But, for men, I think it might be wise for them to learn algebra, my husband is a handyman and a roofer. He uses algebra all the time. You might want to mention that to your brothers if they have interests in building, even just building their own future homes.
Peace be unto thee and thy family,
Laura
Monday, 15. December 2008
Hi Lacy
We use Rod and Staff and some Christian Light Education.I find that the reviews do get tiring as well so my mom decided that she would go through and let us miss out some of the review questions. I find that now I don’t try to get the day off school.We also try to do a lot more practical “school”like doing the garden baking and just learning things that will help us more than diagraming sentences!!
In Christ
Tamsin
Wednesday, 17. December 2008
Hi Lacy, I intend to homeschool my two sons who are ages 2 and 3 currently. I feel as though I already am, or atleast in the unschooling sense. I bought a lot of Abeka preschool and nursery curriculum for my kids a while ago and later realized I wasted a lot of money and it was totally unnecessary. I bought into the whole idea of trying to replicate a public school in your home which is a waste of time and not what homeschooling is all about anyways.
Recently I had thought about doing Rod and Staff because it seemed the most conservative and most affordable, but lately, I am leaning towards the idea of homeschooling. Up until very recently, I thought unschooling was way too unstructured and there would be no way I could give my kids a proper education. I now think differently.
I was public schooled all but a few years of my life and dropped out at 9th grade and later got my GED. I honestly don’t remember almost anything I learned in all those years of schooling, not to mention going to college for 2 years and a vocational technical school for 1 year. It was such a waste of time and money. It didn’t even do me any good when I was out on the work force, but now I am a full-time stay at home mom.
I think as the kids get older, and I see where their talents lie, I will use textbooks to supplement, but I think life skills is way more important. There are a lot of people out there who have a lot of textbook knowledge, but have no common sense and have no idea how to cook, sew, build anything, work in a field, or worst of all know the Lord. That is the most important thing is to teach our children to love and serve Christ otherwise everything else is a waste of time. Thanks for your article!
Melissa
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Wednesday, 24. December 2008
Im a psychology major at a university and we briefly discussed “unschooling” and I found it very interesting. There was even a student in my class whose parents practiced it when she was homeschooled. She eventually decided to pursue an education on her own and attended high school and graduated on her own accord.