Thread by @OnPointRadio

Live: The promise and potential problems with unschooling.

Unschoolers say kids should have total control of their learning.

@MeghnaWBUR speaks with Maleka Diggs, Peter Gray of @BostonCollege & Michael Apple of @UWMadisonMedia.

wbur.fm/2SvJCb1

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "It allows them the freedom to be able to explore ideas, thoughts -- whether it be read a book or kick off the day watching television," Maleka Diggs says of unschooling her children.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "Every day has a different tune," Maleka Diggs says of unschooling.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "When we got up to the school to enroll my oldest daughter, it was a very difficult moment because the principal there did not believe that I lived in that area, and she asked me for proof of my education and several things that were dehumanizing," Maleka Diggs says.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "For me, their experiences -- the idea of choice and freedom, I'm not sure why that's something that would be considered negative," Maleka Diggs says of unschooling her daughters.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "If it's about being in a classroom that's overcrowded, teaching for the test or prison pipeline mythologies, then I am happy to remove those from my daughters," Maleka Diggs says.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "'Unschooling' is not my favorite term because it's kind of a negative term," says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege. "I kind of prefer the term self-directed education. It's not that we don't believe in education. We just think it works best when children take charge."

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "If we require people to learn something, the first question is, 'Are they really learning it?'" says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "Think of all the things that children learn before they go to school," says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege. "Unschooling is this: What if we just let them continue to do that?"

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "We send them to school and then we wonder why they're no longer self-motivated," says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege. "Because we've taken away the basic motives for learning: curiosity, playfulness, sociability."

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "They've developed real interests, and then they've pursued those," says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege about his studies of unschooled students.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "To me the issue is what do we do collectively? The vast majority of students in the United States will not see a self-directed program," says Michael Apple of @UWMadisonMedia.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "To me, the alternative is not to denigrate unschooling, but to refocus the question into, where are the places where there has been lasting transformation for real public schools?" says Michael Apple of @UWMadisonMedia.

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "I think the important thing to ask, for anybody that wants to take this route is, 'Am I capable of trusting my child?'" says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege. "You have to give up a certain amount of sense of control. You have to trust the nature of children."

@MeghnaWBUR @BostonCollege @UWMadisonMedia "I do not think that home-based unschooling is the solution to our national educational problem," says Peter Gray of @BostonCollege. "I think it's a great solution for many, many families."