economic hardships and supporting the broadcast and plus book tv i recently as expensive, find the full schedule and program guide or watch online line printed on a booktv.org. cspan on the go, what today's biggest political events live or on-demand anytime anywhere but a new mobile video app, cspan now in excess of highlights and c-span radio discovered a podcast, all for free, download cspan now, today. >> i want to show you now president of this new book, "unschooled", raising curious well educated children outside of the conventional classroom and is presented by kerry mcdonald and before we get into the substance of the book, tell us a little bit about yourself.

>> thank you, i'm a scholar the ndfoundation for economics education and celebrating our 26thti anniversary the oldest free market think tank, scholar at the institute of and a frequent writer for as you mentioned the author "unschooled" in 2019, in spring of 2019, after c we had quite a bit of over the past year, the shutdowns and the ends of an interest in homeschooling it and the school shutdowns again and it reopening's. >> have you been a teacher in a classroom or children that who are school aged. >> i am homeschooled mom myself, ages seven - 14 and i end but a

personal experience but i traveled the country in writing about the visited of other homeschool families and why i became at the learning centers and other school alternatives. something more different and customized and i saw the traditional school environment and my background had a date with an economics that went to graduate school and then went to harvard and that's when i got interested in alternative schools and education entrepreneurship in their coming up with new learning models and new rules and wrote us to the meet the demands appearance at it as something different for the kids. >> okay you see your children have been homeschooled kerry

mcdonald, but have the been unschooled. >> both alternatives to school, and the conventional system but with an schooling, it is really focused on the education it is so if youlf think about an schooling, including home methods homeschooling so this stereotypical version homeschooling wesc have parents and textbooks in sort of a school and home in a challenge that a little bit that school at home even in a the models that u have the naturals curiosity as a parent, really connected those interest in the passions education is naturally have and use that community resources,

things around them. >> how do you get to the basics of teaching math reading and literacy. >> i point this out very clearly in the book, it is the parents responsibility to make sure that they will be an educator and not argue that that is true whether your children are in school or not in school, the parents it needed to known that they are actually learning and being educated and i think that printed because there and much more of a family environment and education because her parents are raising the children and they see their strengths and weaknesses and areas of interest in and it is easier to connect with them and grow up on the knowledge that the children have a andha the natural curiosity discovery and in talking about how to approach reading and math through unschooling printed i thank you so important to

mention that unschooling are not anti- curriculum or sort of the style of a traditional learning, is just that the idea is that it's a different way, opposed to the top down so many unschooled, many and up taking immunity college classes in high school years predict a survey was done it by doctor peter gray, psychoy professor at a college and it homeschooling advocate, he and his colleagues discovered that most schools did spend the time during the high school years at a community college classes and they often getting an associates degree at the same years that their peers would be getting a high school diploma and then enroll in a fourth-year

university transfer those credits and saving quite a bit of money was also another price particular now with skyrocketing tuition rates at universities. >> it seemshe like the unschoolg movement has grown in the last 20 years, to the seasonally about public education. >> it has grown in the last couple of decades in the first year that the u.s. department of education began tracking home schoolers, was 1998 and at the time they counted 855, and that number so hard to over 2 million or just under 2 million in 2016, and then over the past year, the school shutdowns since the pandemic began in march of 2020, tripling of the homeschool from the pre- pandemic levels so the u.s. census bureau released in february, now more than 11 percent of the overall school

age population and are being homeschooled, over 5 million students, a tremendous growth in one of the things in the u.s. census bureau found in particular was at that growth will be driven it in large part by homeschooling families. in march of 2020, through the school year that just handed it, the families are now are 16 percent of the overall population identifies as black compared to about 15 percent of black general the general public school population. >> is a sending a message about public school. >> for this year for sure, the school reopening's and district schooling and viewing it as not leaving many students and

parents during a better particularly ones that what some of them are learning about what they are not learning in the classrooms, really beginning last spring and part of it is that and i think that overall, the growth in the homeschooling has been growing for decades has been really more of a desire to provide a more personalized customized education in fact the u.s. department of education from 2012, and 2016, number one reason parents are choosing a two homeschool is concerned about the environment of his other schools including building negative peer pressure and that sort of thing in the number two reason it, and keep motivator was a desire for academic excellence. so that's a reflection on the conventional school system but really a sense of transparency and it to help guide their children to the army and give them a more robust education

that they could get than any where else. >> so this idea of compelling the students to be in school through compulsory schooling as well and the course of, that you will learn the subject at this time in this way, very little customization it and the trickle-down on the saturday morning as it has been for decades beginning at since 12001. and that is accelerated for the past couple of decades in the new york times is come out with an index homeschooling several years ago and they found that some of the biggest homeschooling families are happening in the urban families who are particular turnoff by

the standardization of the schooling in and the common curriculum framework and so on and talking about academic standards and everybody is expecting the kindergarten nurse to be reading it at all of that, in turn off a lot of parents in this idea of injecting more freedoms and consent over coercion and conformity. >> what is been the role of technology in the unschooling and i think that certain be bumpy at the district level another school that i'm trying to implement remote learning in many cases an incredible cyber learning online learning

programs that homeschoolers continually allow and i think others are discovering it over the past year, the nonprofit organization academy, on line in school learning, particularly known for the math cure your key mama and i think more families have discovered this and how online learning resources and other schooling alternatives more accessible to more families. >> you talk about naturalg learning and can you expand on that had little bit. >> children are always asking them why and eager to explore and discover and as i mentioned in today and in my book as he

rides, these natural drives and they massively turned off the child in terms them off at age five or so we do this of the idea with the unschooling, is thinking about schooling is one method of application but certainly not the only one and maybe not the best one for the realities of this country and that system would not shut off as natural drives to learn and discover and the curiosity and instead, and others drives to flourish and we think about this kind of moves in 21st century where we are increasingly computing with robots and machining itch and whether this shows that human intelligence and artificial intelligence.

in ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit and so often, they diminish and of course of schooling, they trade this for obedience in school and they traded creativity or conformity in school and that is shut off as natural human drives for discovery and learning it but are so critical now more than ever. >> i do think there is a truth outside of the movement of discovering conventional schooling is not meeting their needs and certainly not met the needs of many families over the past year many families are looking for alternatives for school choice over the past year and parents have been on the driver side and they are really tired.

they are seeking other options and there's online learning programs, and resources there to step s in and support these families looking for a different way to learn. >> kerry mcdonald is here and thank you for joining us on book tv. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪

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