An Unschooling “Success” – Meet Kate Fridkis Who Skipped K-12 and Is Neither Weird nor Homeless
By Lisa - Homeschooling Mom
I love the headline of this article “Meet Kate Fridkis Who Skipped K-12 and Is Neither Weird nor Homeless” .
this is from the artcile, Freedom to Learnand highlights the achievements of Kate Fridkis who was not only homeschooled, but unschooled as well.
“Kate Fridkis is 26 years old, is happily married, lives in New York City, has a master’s degree in religion from Columbia University, is a part-time chazzan (cantor) at a synagogue (a job she’s held since age 15), and is a full-time writer. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Salon. She’s working on getting her first novel published. She writes funny and insightful essays about body image on her popular blog, Eat the Damn Cake. And recently she has become a fellow blogger here at Psychology Today. “
I found it interesting that she says ” she generally tells people she was “homeschooled,” if they ask about her schooling, because most people don’t know what it means to be “unschooled.” We often didn’t bother telling people we “unschool” . Most times would involved a 10 minute or more conversation and more often than not people weren’t just curious- but I end up defending our choices or justifying rather than passing on information. I am sure most homeschooler and certainly most unschooling families have come across that! People asking you questions so they can tear you down.
I like to point out the “successes” of unschooling as much as possible. It does work if you trust it.
My dughter was unschooled until age 13 and is doing very well academically AND socially. She gets consistent 90′s and is on cheerleading team. I am not mentioning to brag- but to show that 1) She is considered an academic success and 2) socially well adjusted :-)
I have heard on occasion that she would be doing even better had she gone to school earlier. I totally disagree. I think she does well in school because she chose to go to school, chooses to get high marks and studies hard to get them AND most importantly she has a love of learning that I don’t think would be there if we had pressured her.
Curious to here from older “unschooled” kids and their families!
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