Sarah writes:”How does this [unschooling] enable your children to get their diploma and college level education? I don’t know what it’s like in Vermont, but in Ontario certainly having some sort of post-secondary accreditation is necessary to get a decent paying job.
“I am for homeschooling to some degree, although I also see some benefits in public education for Christian kids, and also like the ideas of Montessori. I plan to homeschool my daughter for her first few years and then supporting and tutoring her through public school, but my main desires are to a) bring her up to know and choose God; b) to equip her for life and work in the world; and c) to give her a basis on which she can understand and relate to others to effectively be a witness in the world. If I can accomplish these goals, she will have the best foundation I can give her.
“While I understand the concept of tailoring education to a child’s needs, particularly as advocated in Montessori, I’m not sure how you can truly allow child-directed education without ending with gaps in their knowlege bank / skill set.”
First off, thanks so much for writing.
Ahh…the “decent-paying job,” it’s the foundation of our motivation for almost everything in our first 18 years isn’t it? Getting rid of the notion that I had to gear my life and my children’s life in order to get a decent-paying job is one of the first hurdles I had to leap. I have found that the majority of very unhappy people I have known in my life work in “decent-paying jobs.” I don’t want my children to have that as their motivation for living. I don’t know how else to say it. Working hard at something you love must be paramount. I’ve learned to be very frugal so that I could work for $12 an hour as a reporter for a daily newspaper. Without that experience, I would never have had the opportunity to publish books and articles with major publishers and publications. I’ll leave it at that for now…I have much more to write on the topic, but I risk losing the main idea behind this particular article.
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