Secular homeschoolers in Northern Virginia?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Probably getting this wrong, but my impression of an unschooler is a child who isn't schooled in a formal way anywhere whether at home or at a school. They just learn through whatever comes their way in life. In practice I think it means a lot of teaching through doing and turning daily tasks into lessons. Unschoolers believe they are teaching differently by presenting more spontaneous, real life, and hands on learning verses formal school where you sit down at a desk. A lot of unschoolers seem to travel a lot to give children new opportunities for learning.

Unschoolers are when parents try to actively avoid preparing their child to function as an adult as a contributing member of society. It is the perfect schooling method for parents whose goal is to have adult children dependent upon them who cannot hold a job or do math above a 4th grade level. Unschoolers will have a 10th grade bake a cake then exclaim "They are working on math,,,fractions!"

Please do not confuse unschooling for homeschooling. Homeschooling parents tend to be very invested in their child's education and preparing them for the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did all these parents get teaching degrees?

Most of the homeschoolers I know use online school or purchase accredited curriculum once the kids move past early elementary school.

Or they rely heavily on coops, where the biologist mom supervises science and the accountant mom oversees math, etc.

Yes.

There are two types of homeschoolers.

Actual homeschoolers who use curriculums and co-ops, usually starting in mid to upper elementary, have their children take regular or periodic placement tests like the Iowa, PSAT, etc so they can monitor their kids' progress. They tend to highly value education, but either feel the public schools in their area are failing to challenge kids or give them the basics, or they are homeschooling because they do not like all the time wasted by public schools on anything from transitions to testing to social engineering to pushing one sided ideology.

Homeschool children tend to be very well educated, particularly if they follow a strong curriculum. They often enroll their high schoolers in community college for things like upper level math or science classes for example. They realize their limits and really try to provide the best education they can.

Then there are unschoolers.

Unschoolers are the stereotype most people have about homeschoolers yet they are far less common than homeschoolers.

These are the nut jobs that just let the kids do whatever they want while mom does whatever she wants, occassionally planting flowers and calling it "science" for their 12 year old or having their 10th grader grader double a recipe and calling it "math". These people are lazy crackpots.