{"id":609,"date":"2010-07-21T15:04:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T15:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/2010\/07\/21\/news-story-on-unschooling-families\/"},"modified":"2010-07-21T15:04:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T15:04:00","slug":"news-story-on-unschooling-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/?p=609","title":{"rendered":"news story on unschooling families"},"content":{"rendered":"

click here to watch some families who unschool their children<\/a><\/p>\n

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Is Unschooling right for your kids?<\/h1>\n

BOSTON (FOX 25 \/ MyFoxBoston.com) – For most kids, school is out for summer, but for the Martin family, every day they are in session. The Martins are \u201cunschooling\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnschooling is not doing school. It\u2019s not un-educating, and I think that\u2019s a big thing. People hear we\u2019re not doing school, and they think that it\u2019s just like a free for all, and you\u2019re not involved,\u201d says Dayna Martin, who along with her husband Joe, have decided to keep their kids, 11 \u00bd year-old Devin, 8 year-old Dakota, Ivy who is 5, and 2 year-old Orion, out of school. According to Dayna, the kids learn what they are curious about when they want to learn it. They say everything is a potential learning experience. Their American Girl dolls, teach about history, the family bunny, teaches about animals, and even Joe\u2019s toy-making business has taught Devin how to work with his hands. \u201cThere\u2019s learning in everything and if you only value the things that are like educational, you can miss out on so many wonderful learning experiences,\u201d Dayna says. <\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t just keep your kids at home. In New Hampshire where the Martins live, they have to get approval from the state after annual evaluation or testing to make sure the kids aren\u2019t falling behind their peers. \u201cOur kids did great this year. They were above average in most subjects,\u201d Dayna says. In Massachusetts, where Julian Baptista grew up, things are a little different. Like other unschoolers in the state, he and his parents had to get approval from the superintendent or school committee to prove what he was learning. \u201cLike any kid, when given the option, of course I played video games and stuff like that but past the first while, that doesn\u2019t really keep it\u2019s thrill when there\u2019s a whole lot of other things to do and learn,\u201d Julian says. He says unschooling allowed him the freedom to find his true passion, music. Now, he\u2019s 20 years old, released his first CD, and is studying music and social justice at Goddard College. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve really developed as well as I could have, and much better than I could have in school,\u201d Julian says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m not getting something when I\u2019m unschooled, I slow down, I focus on it some more, and then I wait until I\u2019ve learned it, and I move on to the next thing. At school, if you don\u2019t get something, well there\u2019s 30 other kids in the classroom,\u201d says 19 year-old Jeffrey Landale. His unschooling, was more structured. He covered traditional subjects, even studied Japanese at a community college. His parents made sure he learned what he needed to do well on the S.A.T.s. When he was 16, he decided he was ready for college, and now goes to Simon\u2019s Rock at Bard College. \u201cI needed grades to motivate me. I was probably one of the only people who went to Simon\u2019s Rock because of the structure. I was like, yes, structure, organization,\u201d Jeffrey says. <\/p>\n

As you can imagine, unschooling has its share of critics. A big part of going to school is having that structure of your day, and of the curriculum, along with the socialization aspect. \u201cIt really depends on the kind of structure and activities the parents are preparing for the students,\u201d says Dr. Barbara Francis of the Lesley University School of Education. Francis says it is important that unschoolers, like any student, are prepared for what the real world expects of them. \u201cI think that sometimes we have to do things that are on somebody else\u2019s schedule, and it\u2019s not the world where you can go into work whenever you want to, and come home whenever you want,\u201d Francis says. <\/p>\n

Back in New Hampshire, Dayna Martin says she knows this is the right fit for her family, \u201cpeople ask me that, like do you have any doubts, and no even an inkling of one, because I see them learning. I see they love to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

click here to watch some families who unschool their children Is Unschooling right for your kids? BOSTON (FOX 25 \/ MyFoxBoston.com) – For most kids, school is out for summer, but for the Martin family, every day they are in session. The Martins are \u201cunschooling\u201d. \u201cUnschooling is not doing school. It\u2019s not un-educating, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[924],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news-reports","entry","one-third"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}