Again and again news about attacks on unschooling families appear.
This alternative form of education has been legal in my country more than 20 years! But now juvenile justice and its representatives try to make unschooling and homeschooling unavailable for families.
What happened?
On April 3, the Astrakhan Regional Duma adopted a special appeal to the Government of the Russian Federation and sent it to other regions seeking their support. The initiator (and, apparently, the author of the text) is the head of the local Committee on Social Policy, regional deputy from United Russia Inna Irdeeva.
At the beginning of the text it is almost directly written that parents are stupid and irresponsible. 😡
💬 >“parents do not understand the consequences of choosing the form of education for children and the form of their education, as well as the degree of responsibility for the education of their children.”
She gave stupid arguments about unschooling that have nothing in common with reality, but officials still use them:
➖ Children with families have a “low level of socialization.” They allegedly do not know how to communicate, make friends and resolve conflicts. They also don’t know how to work together with others.
➖ They have no discipline. You need a daily routine, and only school can teach this.
➖ They also do not have normal speech skills and do not know how to speak in public.
➖ They also do not participate in patriotic school events and do not study “Family Studies”.
Family studies?? A kid have to be inside of his family to study its life and essence!
The Astrakh Regional Duma tearfully asks the Government to change federal laws so that:
➖ It was possible to choose family education not just by the decision of the parents, but solely for some terribly good reason.
➖ Establish a mandatory frequency of intermediate certification - at least once a year.
➖ So that the law specifies how family members interact with schools, and that if they fail to pass certification, children are required to attend school.
Again and again violation of family rights!
This is an outrageous cocktail of ignorance, insults and anti-family juvenile ideology.
Why don't they pay attention to low level of school education?
Why don't they punish teachers and higher officials who create awful educational programms and textbooks?
Why do kids attend tutors after lessons more and more?
Why do they know nothing having state education??
WHY?
I was happy to see this news caused great outrage of unschooling families, who make petitions now and write to higher officials with claims for this anti-families attacks.
I will join them for sure and hope we will stop it.
Absolutely true. In fact, even a cursory glance at research into homeschooling results shows the complete opposite of all the claims - all of them, and many more, as well - made by the Astrakhan agency. Homeschooled kids are shown to be better prepared for professional life, or to proceed on to post-secondary education, than students in public schools, and many private schools as well. Parents that undertake that burden of teaching their kids themselves demonstrate not just increased interest and dedication to their childrens' educations, but better understanding of education, their kids' benefits from it, and love for them underlying a stronger work ethic that is necessary to perform the educational duties teaching their kids themselves requires.
My eldest son was headhunted by Georgetown University, one of the premier schools for high performing professionals in government, academia, and business in the world. He was Homecoming King, Captain of the football team, and was involved in many extra-curricular activities and organizations he participated in outside of the formal institution of education (debate, music, martial arts, and etc.), because participation in sports and other such activities was allowed homeschooled kids in our state, and I avidly enabled my sons to demonstrate their leadership skills and let their peers to enjoy their participation and the higher achievements they all attained as a result. My son led the football team in a very small school to 'State' for the first time in 47 years, attaining a level of competitive performance that school hadn't attained in generations.
While my own experiences homeschooling are anecdotal, statistical research shows they aren't atypical of homeschooling results, but rather reveal that homeschooling produces extraordinary results - and extraordinary adults. Your own active homeschooling of your kids shows you are extraordinary parents, that your kids are extraordinary kids, and will be equally extraordinary professionals that achieve the heights of whatever career they choose. Taking on that work that most parents eschew demonstrates love that isn't merely ordinary at all, and the results of such affection and hard work are greatly improved over merely ordinary effort, as we see in every class and type of endeavor in life, across the board.
Thanks!
thank you so much for your thoughts, which I totally support and share!
Unschooling kids just can NOT be worse than schoolkids because they:
a) have total freedom of their way od development, and it allows to open all natural talants the best
b) have their own INDIVIDUAL speed and curriculum that is always better than common way of studying of 30 students simultaneously.
and this list can be very long. Of course all these arguments have nothing in common with reality, but they still use them....Facepalm.