Bach’s ideas are radical, to be sure.  Many educators will cringe at the ideas of unschooling heralded by self-made individuals such as Bach.  As a librarian, I don’t find it such a stretch.  I strive to provide students  with an IDEA lab…a place where they can explore and learn what and through those subjects/ideas that draw them.  There are lots of people who agree.  Check out SelfMadeScholar, a blog dedicated to these concepts.

Two puzzles are continuing to rattle around…things I’ll need to think more about.

1.  Many of the individuals who associate themselves with unschooling actually promote it through the institutionalized concept of “home-schooling.”  It seems to me that doing so not only appears a bit converse to their own concept (why use the work schooling at all?) but also pairs these learning revolutionaries with others whose opposition to public schools is founded in very different ideals…fear that public schools are not strict, not structured enough.  Strange marriage.

2.  I’ve noticed that in schools that opportunitites to participate in the most motivating alternative learning environments (conferences, field trips, extra-curriculars activities) is generally limited to those students who are successful in formal school.  Those students who would most benefit from these opportunitites are either restricted or left unaware of their availability.  I wonder, are “unschooled” students presented with opportunitites for immersive learning.  As a professional, these are the places where one networks with like-minded people.  Should students who are self-educated be introduced to these opportunities, at the very least.

I had this discussion with my own teen daughter today. She is feeling less than thrilled about her own ACT scores at the moment. Being ranked 9th in a class of around 400 she’s simply convinced herself that her standardized scores should fall in a more impressive range. “I get so mad at a world that tests me and says that there is only one right answer,” she cried. “I think differently. I’m not a robot.”

Since her first foray into standardized tests in the 4th grade, my daughter has performed proficiently, though generally not as advanced as her sister or those peers with whom she shares high honors in the classroom. It is ironic, then, that she absolutely LOVED her AP Stats class last year…the very back bone of the data-driven world that demands standardized testing. She explained, “When Mrs. D asked us to identify research flaws…Mom, I could list 10 factors the researchers hadn’t taken into account. I love doing that…rethinking about each question DIFFERENTLY.”

As an educator, this would be the defining moment…the aha…when I knew my student could not only formulate an essential question, but that they had begun to think in this way as a matter of course.

Each year we are challenged with rethinking education. I have to wonder how we can possibly succeed in changing how we teach if we ONLY reconsider how students learn and never explore the many ways in which students express how they think, what they know, and when they imagine new ideas.

All I could do for my daughter was to help her identify the essential question…has she been a successful learner?…and then remind her to apply her thinking…this gift she has for seeing problems in a different way and imagining unique answers…to her assessment of herself.