New York Times has an article on unschooling, in which they repeat the hoary estimate of 1.1 million home-schoolers, stating the unschoolers form a fraction of such. That's just plain nonsense. Why? Because you, gentle reader, are unschooling yourself right now. Why shouldn't you be counted in those figures? Why should only children of government-school age be counted among home-schoolers? Why shouldn't every child between the ages of zero and school age be counted as an unschooling home-schooler?
The answer is simple: because people who come up with those numbers wish to diminish home-schooling and thus unschooling. It must be seen to be something only a minority of people do, or experience. It must be seen as something risky; something scary; something with "scant data"; something with "little knowledge"; something other than "regular school"; something where "experts worry".
I don't want to argue from anecdote, but I am proud of my unschooled daughter, Rebecca Nelson.
posted at: 07:37 | path: /economics | permanent link to this entry