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- Kerry McDonald, M.Ed.
- Boston, MA, United States
- Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org/kerry) and author of 'Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom' (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute and a frequent contributor at Forbes. Her articles have appeared at the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, NPR, Education Next, Natural Mother Magazine, Reason Magazine, Entrepreneur, and the Journal of School Choice, among others. Kerry has a B.A. in Economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives and learns together with her husband and four children in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Follow her on Twitter @kerry_edu.
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Dear Kerry: Your article on the Quiet Exodus delights me; although I call it the "bypass" phenomenon. I am now supposedly retired, from the daily grudge that is; but I was a pilot, ran aviation businesses, hardware chain, NTSB accident investigator, Director General for Aviation in Panama, founded one private aviation school and one governmental, associated with the UNDP... and so on and so forth... Now our consulting firm has a foundation promoting more open societies (https://www.isapanama.org/isapanama/), also (https://gccviews.com/). But more interesting from yous article perspective; my daughter (Jeanine) heard and read all my rantings on decrepit centralized education, my book on the subject, and was having real problems with her kids in school... Then one day she panicked, for she started considering earnestly of pulling them out from traditional schooling. Now she is on the other side of the fence, and wondering what all the fuss was about :-) And every day a new horizon opens majestically ahead. Las week she got a call from an organization in Israel offering personalized education tutoring. So, just thees lines to commend you and... never know, we organize all sorts of events... and since no one is a prophet in his own town, maybe some day we can call on you. Regards, John B
ReplyDeleteDear Kerry,
ReplyDeleteI am overwhelmed reading your blogs on unschooling and how beautifully you follow through it. I can't wait to try it out with my 6 year old. We are so done with the coercive routine and rigours of a school and I am inherently a believer in finding and following our passions as a path of happiness in life. And unschooling seems to gel most with my personal philosophy.
That being said, it's a big decision to break away from the norm. These are uncharted waters and I am responsible for my daughter's wholesome upbringing. So I want to ask you,
1. Will it be just to pull her out of a school environment where she has so many friends and where they have an established set of exposure to a variety of learnings? I would not want to limit her in any way- learnings, socialisation or options for higher studies.
2. If we don't follow a curriculum, how will she get her basic degrees in place. And will good colleges be ready to take her in without formal education, specially when the institute where you study from holds so much significance these days.
Looking forward eagerly to your kind response and much needed guidance.
Thank you.
Best Regards,
Kiran.