The Biegler children live as though school doesn't exist.
Hands-off approach to education allows kids to make their own decisions.

They're at home all day, but they're not being homeschooled. They're being "unschooled." There are no textbooks, no tests and no formal education at all in their world.

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 of Westford, Mass., are self-described "radical unschoolers." 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 described unschooling as "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

"It's amazing when you broaden the scope of what you see as learning as opposed to worksheets," the mother said. "There is no hierarchy in our house, so there is no punishment, no judgment, no discipline. They get what they want for breakfast and eat whatever they want. It's all a matter of what feels right to them."

Neither child has any plans for college, according to their father. When asked if he felt it was his responsibility to teach his children to do things that they don't want to do, he said, "they will do what they need to do, whether or not they enjoy it, because they see the purpose in it."

DoctorE wrote:This is child abuse...unfit parents.

campermon wrote:If you don't teach kids stuff, how do they find out what they want to learn about?

Harmless Eccentric wrote:It doesn't sound like this family is a good example of successful unschooling, based on the article.

locutus7 wrote:Some republicans in the US are pushing for homeschooling to be the norm, and advocating the dismantling of the national education system, which they claim is poisoned by secularism. I guess they want to move america back to the 1800's.

locutus7 wrote:Some republicans in the US are pushing for homeschooling to be the norm, and advocating the dismantling of the national education system, which they claim is poisoned by secularism. I guess they want to move america back to the 1800's.

pcCoder wrote:I think any home schooling program should have a minimum set of standards for certain core courses. Math, science, reading and writing, history should be some core requirements, and perhaps a critical thinking and analysis course should be a requirement early on. After that, choosing what to learn isn't much different from elective courses one takes in high school. In middle school elective classes aren't chosen (at least for me) but instead you take them in a rotating fashion to become familiar with the courses, which also isn't bad as it helps one develop some roundness to their knowledge and provides them with more options of what is out there.

As for the core courses, if you just let them pick what writing or math skills they want to learn (if any), how will they cope in the real world if they didn't learn enough and possibly end up far behind others? Furthermore, how are employers supposed to know who is an eligible candidate if they haven't meet some minimum requirement of learning? Should employers start giving everyone basic reading and writing tests, basic math tests if needed, basic science tests if needed, just because a potential candidate may have been taught using some method where their isn't any guarantee that they learned the material needed?

melchior wrote:And as with any 'skill' - be it maths, music, science, art, sport...at some point you need to be 'taught' by someone who knows more than you do about the subject.

melchior wrote:
And as with any 'skill' - be it maths, music, science, art, sport...at some point you need to be 'taught' by someone who knows more than you do about the subject.

Warren Dew wrote:

campermon wrote:If you don't teach kids stuff, how do they find out what they want to learn about?

They surf the internet, read the books the parents buy them, go on trips the parents take them on, etc.

Harmless Eccentric wrote:It doesn't sound like this family is a good example of successful unschooling, based on the article.

I don't think we have enough data to know. It would be interesting to find out how they are doing on standardized tests compared to their peers.

Warren Dew wrote:

melchior wrote:And as with any 'skill' - be it maths, music, science, art, sport...at some point you need to be 'taught' by someone who knows more than you do about the subject.

No you don't. I learned plenty of math from textbooks without any instructor intervention.

"They might watch television," Yablonski said. "They might play games on the computers."

"They might read," her husband added