Story:
Westford, Massachusetts (4/19/2010) - The Biegler kids live life without school. They're at home all day, but they're not being homeschooled. They're being "unschooled." This means that there are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world. The kids just get to say what they want to learn.What's more, that hands-off approach extends to other areas of the children's lives: They make their own decisions, and don't have chores or rules.
Christine Yablonski and Phil Biegler "radical unschoolers." This means that they allow their teen daughter and son to decide what they want to learn, and when they want to learn it.
"They key there is that you've got to trust your kids to … find their own interests," Yablonski told "Good Morning America."
Yablonski said that unschooling is "living your life as if the school system didn't exist."
When asked how their children learn things like math, she said, "If they need formal algebra understanding, then they will, they'll find that information."
Asked by "Good Morning America" about how they could parent without any rules, Phil Biegler said, "We find that we don't need a whole lot of rules."
"They might watch television," Yablonski said. "They might play games on the computers."
"They might read," her husband added.
Most children will always choose television over reading every time, but Yablonski said that "the key there is that you've got to trust your kids to ... find their own interests."
She isn't worried that her daughter stays up all night, because "she's getting everything done that she wants to get done."
Questions:
1) Where did this story take place?
2) When did this story take place?
3) What is a 'radical unschooler'?
4) What are the names of the parents in the story?
5) How many kids do they have?
6) Do you think 'unschooling' is a good idea? Why or why not?
Info from ABC
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