So, I just got done reading Heather Burditt’s review of the Radical Unschooling segment of the show on her blog here.
This is the reply I left her and how I felt about the segment in general:
“eh. It was alright. I highly agree that only portraying one radical unschooling family was a poor choice. While I am a fan (maybe that’s not the right word) of the ‘Clan of Parents’, seeing a variety of families, especially at least one with older or grown unschoolers, would have been better. I also didn’t like how the ‘experts’ didn’t have to support their (what seemed like) opinions with any research, statistics or examples. I also didn’t like that the Parents weren’t able to speak back to the experts or that there wasn’t a pro-radical unschooling ‘expert’ to offer counter arguments. In all, I didn’t see it as really balanced…not to mention that the way it was cut up seemed kind of staged and almost like it all happened in one day. An entire hour with equal time from both sides of the argument and at least two more families, might have made began to make a difference.”
Sarah Parent and her family were representing Radical Unschooling and I think they did a fine job, given how the footage was cut and the fact that they really didn’t get to speak to anything that the ‘experts’ said.
Did you watch it? What did you think? Did you write a review (leave me a link)? Were you one of the people mysteriously contacted by Discovery Health prior to the airing?
I did watch it. I wish it would have been an hour long segment on unschooling. I also would have loved to see experts who do unschool. It would have been great to see a range of families from young children to adults, and how unschooling looks for their families.
We are coming up on our first year of unschooling. I wrote a post on my thoughts on the show.
http://themahoganyway.blogspot.com/2010/03/discovery-health-special-radical.html
Thanks for the link Darcel. I liked your post and how you shared your husband’s opinions and reactions as well. Both my husband and a friend who was over didn’t think that what was portrayed was all that radical. As my husband said, “it could have been our family, our son…he sure is a genius, but fouled mouthed…”. And my friend said, “I didn’t see children running around with knives or anything”. I don’t think it seemed radical to us, because we’re all living it to some degree or another.
I watched, and it was OK. It actually came at a good time for my family. My 10 year old had a bad experience at a neighbor’s house where an older child (14) attacked her on homeschooling (how come you can’t spell well, you aren’t learning anything at home, how are you going to go to college?) I immediately showed her the program (I recorded it) as a validation that there are many other families like us and to look at how happy they are! She rolled her eyes at the “experts”, lol. I did not like the title, though (the word “radical” has become rather cliche). I believe that these types of family models will become more common. I was OK with the show having a variety of families since we also practice attachment parenting with our 2 year old.