Homeschooling a Large Family? Unschooling?

Question

Which is your prefered method for learning at home with a large family? I only have 6 and we basically unschool here, or in other words do child led learning.

To the person that posted that my family wasn't big and that I needed to get organized, re read the question because I don't think you got it at all.

Answer 1

We have seven and unschool, and anyone who has done it will know that it is by far the most work any parent could do for their kids. If anyone wants more information, there is www.sandradodd.com, which has many links. Unschooling is awesome in a big family, because my kids are all working together and learning from each other, as well as me.

I don't even feel the need to defend myself against people who have no idea what unschooling truly is, and are basing their opinion on some ideal that they pulled out of one or two examples.

The idea that kids *need* to be with age mates is so ridiculous. Children learn much better when around people of all ages, because they have someone to mentor, someone who mentors them. It's actually the original means of schooling, until the government had the main responsibility of educating. Then suddenly it was much easier to group by age, standardize curriculum regardless of base levels of knowledge and suddenly have all these kids with learning disorders. I think Glurpy just addressed this on another question, and quite well I might add ;-)

Answer 2

I only have two kids, so my situation probably doesn't apply.

However, I do know some large families; a mix of approaches is used depending on the family. One does unschool, another has a more structured approach (although nothing like a school schedule) and I can think of a third family but I'm not sure what they do.

Child-led learning can work great. The former teacher who is complaining about Montessori and child-led learning doesn't really understand child-led learning nor Montessori (as I wrote in another response, Montessori kids usually do quite well and tend to be exposed to topics earlier than traditional schools). I'm guessing she would say that Thomas Edison didn't have a proper education, either--he had child-led learning. And Abraham Lincoln decided to learn to read at the age of 14 and still ended up becoming a lawyer--and President!

Answer 3

We have 5 kids and have gone through it all.. Unschooled one child, homeschooled one, one is cyber schooling and the 2 youngest are in public school (but for how long, I don't know) What we did depended on the child and what works best for each.

Answer 4

You could say we are more eccletic unschoolers.. But with most of our lessons we study the same topic just each child gets age appropriate work...

Answer 5

Leader student teaching is very highly favoured in T E F L Teaching.They can work at their own pace and determine the direction of other students. Teacher must always take the ultimate control though. Having a multiple choice programme is a good Idea this leads the students up the correct path.

Answer 6

I find unschooling to be a ridiculous excuse to avoid actually doing something. Nothing personal, but children NEED to learn that sometimes, life is not about what they want (in fact, MOST of the time, it's not about what I want!). Yeah, "child led learning"...As the parent, you're supposed to do the leading, not them. How can they be the leader, if they lack the experience needed to know where to go?

Children need structure. It's critical that they learn that different things happen at certain times...And that we as individuals don't necessarily have control over what those times are. We all have to accommodate deadlines applied by other people, or alternately, learn to apply deadlines to others.

I also personally feel that you're robbing them of certain experiences by keeping them out of "regular" school (whether that be public or private). Not everyone loves all of the things that come with being in school with others, but until they've had the chance to try it, how can they know how they really feel?

If you absolutely insist on keeping your kids out of the school system, I definitely would say, go with home school as opposed to unschooling. At least with home school, they're theoretically learning the things that kids need to know to get into college, and there's some framework to how the day progresses.

Answer 7

Plenty of good advice here.

Answer 8

that is not big! we know people with 12 and 15 kids.
and the average arround here is 8!
just get organized!

Answer 9

My question to you is why, with six children, are you trying to teach them at home?

Child-led learning is like a Montessori approach- neither of which are really very productive, even though the Montessori method has had a resurgence in recent years. That being said, six children will have six different developmental and learning levels that you would have to cater to on a constant basis.

As a former teacher, I would suggest that if you really care about your children's education, you get them into a real school. I'm sorry, but no single human being is qualified to each six children of different levels at the same time. They should be in different classrooms interacting with other children their own ages. If you want to be involved in your children's education, work with the teacher's at school, talk to your kids when they get home, do their homework with them, and take them on outings that will enhance their learning at school.

That is the role of the parent, to BE a parent.

Just my $.02.