Unschoolers and Abuse
An article i wrote on unschooling, Unschooling: What is it and is it Right for You?, has suddenly picked back up. I’m not sure what the sudden boost in popularity is from, but it has been interesting nonetheless. With popularity, of course, comes the comments. For the most part the commenters have been very polite, even the ones who disagree with unschooling as a practise or who feel it will not work for them. However, I did have to delete one particular comment. His hateful speech declaring unschooling as child abuse and his veiled threats of contacting child protective services was too much for me to grin and bear. As someone who have known families affected by CPS, even a false claim must be investigated with a fine tooth comb leaving loving parents without access to their scared and confused children for days/weeks/months. It is not a claim I take lightly.
I have to wonder what could possibly make a person fear an educational choice to such an extent that they would prefer ripping a family apart? While some opposed to homeschooling claim that is can be used as a cover for abuse, the fact is that even children in the public school system can be abused at home and still overlooked. Clearly being under the watchful eye of the public schools does not prevent child abuse. But homeschooling is not abuse. And unschooling, no matter how you feel about it, is far from abuse. It isn’t a new attack for unschoolers. Dana from Principled Discovery beautifully took apart a letter that made a similar claim.
Outraged? About what? Who has greater cause to be outraged? The person who notices that someone has a different philosophy of education than they? Or the parents who are being accused of child abuse for having a six and seven year old who cannot read? This is not about denying a child an education. It is about differing views on what it means to be educated and how to best become educated.
I thought I would share a video from the unschooling YouTube guru.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:12 am
I was reading some things claiming unschooling was abuse last night. How can a philosophy be abuse?
I used to work wit the a foster care agency. Something I found interesting: all the children in our care were public schooled. Almost all of them attended daycare. In fact, when you looked at the schedule the parents made for the children, it was clear that they got rid of the kids as much as possible. They were involved in almost every free child care program possible.
In fact, if I remember correctly, one of the indicators/flags whatever, is abnormally high involvements in such things. I’d have to check that, so don’t take my word for it, but it makes sense.
A lot of abuse isn’t done the way we might think. Parents lose control and do things they regret. It is rarely done so meticulously that the parents would homeschool. Because most sincerely believe that that outburst will the last…at least in my experience working with abusive parents.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Preconceived notions as to “how things should be done” and ignorance as to the benefits which stem from the ways other people approach things always lead to allegations of abuse.
I’m a homeschooler, for instance, although I’m not one to approach it from a Fundamentalist viewpoint. Even so, in just about every copy of a Fundamentalist-oriented homeschooling magazine that I pick up I read between the lines that folks who approach education (at home or via public or private school) without their viewpoint are somehow inflicting “abuse” on their kids.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Well, unschooling is not for me but I know plenty of happy, healthy, intelligent children who are unschooled. Just like the Charlotte Mason, Montessori, and Classically educated children I know!
My mom was outraged when I told her that there were no laws requiring us to “check in” with a local authority. “What if people are homeschooling so they can abuse their child??!!” To which I said, How many publicly schooled children do you know, who TOLD authorities that they were being abused, and nothing happened? Plenty. And besides that, the only people who follow the law are people who do the right thing anyway. No amount of laws could prevent a parent from abusing their child if that parent is determined to harm their child.
Urg.