The worst education idea of the year turns out not to be a new idea at all. "Unschooling" has roots in Rousseau, in Summerhill, in John Holt and Ivan Illich and any number of other progressive/romantic/libertarian nihilists. It takes an acceptable educational alternative--home schooling--and turns it into a parody. I kept being reminded of tales of babies raised by wolves and other wild beasts. While I do not doubt that some few parents have the knowledge and imagination to embed the acquisition of important skills and knowledge in enjoyable activities that don't feel much like school (so do many veteran kindergarten teachers, by the way), for most, I'm pretty sure, "unschooling" resembles the Taliban's idea of education for girls: Keep them home and keep them ignorant. Make sure they don't learn the parts of speech or multiplication tables, the causes of the War of 1812 ??or the election of 1912 or the concept of separation of powers or why Lady Macbeth kept washing her hands. The co-founder of the "Family Unschoolers Network" estimates that ten percent of home-schoolers are really unschoolers. If true, that's close to 200,000 kids who deserve a proper education so as to succeed in the modern world but who almost certainly aren't getting it. Not to mention that it's going to make people even more suspicious of home schooling. As Teri Flemal, director of Quality Education by Design, puts it, "I'm reading e-mail from unschooling parents who think having their kids remodel their house with them is 'school.' I'm sorry, but it's not."
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