Many homeschoolers are teaching their children through an approach called unschooling. As the name implies, it is opposite to all that traditional schools do. Some people believe that unschooling is unchristian. I dont think so. Let me explain why.
When people ask me what unschooling is, I tell them that it is where we "create a learning rich environment and then let the kids go." Kids are naturally curious. I believe God made them that way. Let them loose and they will rush headlong into learning.
We don't need to do anything to get children excited about learning. The only reason any child doesn't see learning as a pure joy is because we make it a miserable experience. We take a child who was made to be active and tell him or her to sit there for six hours in the name of learning. Then we wonder why they dont like to learn.
Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicin...
Latino Children Play Swing
Children at N.Y. Zoo (LOC)Its like taking ice cream, pouring used motor oil on top of it, and wondering why a child doesnt like ice cream.
Around our home, our learning environment consists of three components. First, we have a compulsory component. We are not pure unschoolers because we do force our children to learn certain things. But this is the smallest part of our educational experience. We only do this in areas where the child might not see the educational value before the learning experience. Perhaps I am of little faith, but I can't see our children memorizing their multiplication tables "just for fun.
Second, there is an environmental component. We create a learning rich environment. Everything in our home has educational value. Some of what we have fosters creativity. Other material presents facts. There are shelves and shelves of books. We have many educational CDs for the computer. Our...