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bring court oral arguments and even a live interactive programs, washington journal and hear your voices every day, c-span now has you covered and download the app for free today. >> i wanted to you know the cover of this new book, "unschooled" and raising children outside wil of the classroom, it is written it by kerry mcdonald, and before we get into this essence of the book, tell us a little bit about yourself. >> thank you peter, i'm a senior fellow at the foundation of economics education it and celebrating our 75th year anniversary this year our country's oldest free-market think tank and the scholar at the students institute and a writer and as you mentioned, the author of "unschooled" and in

the spring of 2019, actually had quite a bit of that interested over the past and in the schools shut down and the interest in homeschooling as an alternative schools particularly schools who have been online. >> on a practical level, have you been a teacher and classroom where you have children who loves goal age. >> i have four children and i homeschool, the agent range seven - 14, and that sort of personal experience and i have traveled the country and i visited the other homeschooling families as well as learning centers and other school alternatives that are really suited to families looking for something different and something more compromised it for the children's education and i decided then the traditional

school environment and a background it is an economics and i went to graduate school at harvard and that's where i really put interested in alternative schools and education entrepreneurship, where the argument for numerous coming up with new learning models and new ways to meet the demands and something different for the kids. >> kerry mcdonald, you say your children have been "unschooled" what is the difference printed with homeschooling rated. >> the difference is alternative schools and conventional classroom and with unschooled income is really focused on effort education and if you think about on schooling, it is different than education from schooling including school and home methodists in homeschooling

and an stereo typical version of homeschooling where you have a parent sitting around the kitchen table with textbooks in sort of replicating school and challenge and a little bit and suggest that you go with even the homeschooling models, that you encourage the children's natural curiosity and creativity and then as aou parent, connect those interest and passion since her kids naturally have a and seen as a community resource and people doing things aroundce us. summa can you get to the basics of teaching math and english literacy to the children if they are unschooled. >> i make the clear in the book, that the parents are responsible and i argue that is true whether

you children are in school or they are not in school that the parents need to make sure that they actually are learning and educated and i think there is so much more family involvement in education because the parents are raising the children that in areas of interest and it is easier to then connect those resources and build upons the knowledge andes children have a natural curiosity. so we go through the book talking about the college approach reading and in math and the schooling in the on schooling of presidents important toan mention it that e unschooled, there no sort of anti- curriculum or anti- you know, the traditional learning, is just that the idea is that it is students are interactive as opposed to top-down signify the many unschooled children it will advocate to a curriculum and all subjects and many unschooled there's an app taking community

college classes in high school years and they been homeschooled and there's that psychology professor and an end schooling applicantng who a lot of this book, he and his colleagues discovered that the homeschoolers didn't spend time taking community college classes and often getting an associates degree at the same rate that their peers would be getting a high school diploma and then it a four-year university and saving quite a q bit of money ad so if there's a philosophy goal approach. >> it seems that the homeschooling in the unschooled, the movement has grown exponentially in the last 20 years, is that saying something about public education.

>> homeschooling has grown tremendously over the past couple of decades, the first year in the u.s. department of education it began tracking theg homeschoolers, was 1998, at the time 855, that number and forwarded about 2 million to just under 2 million in 2016, then over the past year, the school shut down since the pandemic it came in march of 2020, there's been a tripling of the homeschooling it from that pre- pandemic level so that the census bureau released an important event reported february finding more than 11 percent of the overall population of being homeschooled, over 5 million students, a tremendous growth in one of the things in the census bureau found in particular was that this i has been mostly drin in large part of the black homeschooling families, fivefold increase through this year just

ended, are black families, to now overrepresentation, over the overallf population of our black compared to about 5016 percent in the general in the school population pretty. >> is that sending message about publicc school. >> i think this year for sure, parents with a delighted school in the openings and the district schooling it is meeting the needs of many students and the parents started to introduce better so particular perhaps that what they're learning our we are not learning it in the classrooms beginning last spring and part of it is fast, and i think that the overall growth homeschooling and for decades has been really more of a desire to provide more personalized and

customized education from thede u.s. department of education since 2012, adding 26 team shows that the number one reason that parents are choosing to homeschool his concern about the environment of the schools including bullying, negative peer pressure and that sort of thing read the number two reason, the tent number two motivator was that desire for academics and summer reflections on the conventional school system that really lessons of te parenting be empowered to help guide the children's education learning. >> kerry mcdonald and "unschooled" you use the coercive schooling and what is the main. >> you are compelling the students who are in the compulsory schooling asch well s the course of the top-down

measures subjects it at this time in this way, very little customization and in fact really doubling down on the standards in the notion notion of learning over the pasthe couple of decad. and the no child left behind act in 2001, and it the style of it the new york times came out with an index article on homeschooling and iti found out some of the biggest homeschooling families is happening in urban secular families who are particular turned off by the standardization of the schooling it and the framework and so on. we could push for academic standards in the younger age anr the kindergartens to read and all of that the really turned off a lot of parents reading this idea of injecting education with more freedoms and over the

course unit and conformity's. >> what the role of technology and the unschooled in the homeschooled children it pretty. >> is so many online resources for the conventional schools and school and certainly the technology over the past year, i think that it is been a sort of bumpy at the district level of the schools afforded to implement remote learning in many cases and there are incredible cyber learning online learning programs and homeschoolers rely on and i think the families of the several past years which i'm thinking about the nonprofit academy organization that i have nonline learning videos that they're known for their math curriculum and a lot of homeschools have been using for the past few years i think most

families are with this year and there's this high-quality online learning resources to make the homeschooling and a seven schooling alternative, more accessible to more families pretty. >> and click onit this a little bit earlier, when you talk about natural learning and can you expand on that a little bit. >> the ideas that youngest children are naturally curious and exuberant and creative in their always asking why. in the really eager to export the world as imaginative who wrote the forward to my vote, he said that thesee natural drives in the learning and discovery, they turn themselves off when a child turns five or six years old, we turn them off with our court system of schooling pretty so the idea of separating the education from the schooling assembly thinking about schoolid

certainly not the only one and obviously not the best one for the reality of the 21st century the idea is to not shut off those natural drives were learning and discovery and curiosity andhe instead of a lot of drives to flourish anything about those 21st century where we are increasingly complaining and coexisting with robots and machines. kenneth human intelligence to artificial intelligence and seems relative to the curiosity and originality and ingenuity and entrepreneurs perez is often diminished and sort of trade originality for obedience in sc. nfin the conformity in schools d setting off as natural human

drives for discovery and learning is so critical now more than ever. >> so what is the downside doing schooling. >> i think conventional schooling certainly has not met the needs of the families from best year and it now more than ever, families are looking for alternatives, parents have been put back in the driver side and feeling empowered the children's education it and think of other options of an online learning programs, community resources there to step in and since support ways to learn pretty. >> raising children outside of the conventional classroom,

kerry mcdonald, thank you for joining us. >> cspan's online store, now for latest collection of cspan i thought her books and home decor, accessories and there is something for every cspan fan and help support our nonprofit operations, shut down anytime as cspan shop .org. ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪ ♪♪