Homeschooling

Posts Tagged ‘tx homeschooling laws’

Question: How do you follow the TX home school laws with "unschooling" if the law says you need a written curriculum?

I am starting to home-school my six year old this year and want to make sure I am following the laws in Texas. I know "unschooling" is a form of Homeschooling and there is not a law against it, but I need to know how to go about "unschooling" when according to TX laws, a written curriculum must be followed. How does one accomplish this?

Answer: Hello. I also live in Texas and homeschool my son.

Here's the bottom line - you need to follow state laws and regulations but that doesn't mean that you CAN'T teach the unschooling approach.

I am familiar with Texas homeshool laws - luckily, this state imposes very little regulations on homeschoolers and the regulation you're referring to is the one that states:

"A written curriculum consisting of reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a course in good citizenship while operating as a private school [is required]."

Ready for the most important paragraph of my response? Here it is:

No matter what teaching approach (classical, CM, unit studies, unschooling, etc.) you want to take is totally up to you, but...you...must..comply...with...state regulations...period.

The way you asked your question, I don't see a conflict between unschooling (from what I know about this approach) and having a written curriculum.

REMEMBER - the Texas law NEVER states how SPECIFIC you have to be in documenting your written curriculum so you have plenty of leeway on how you want to document it.

For example, I would just have a heading for each of the Texas required topics (reading, spelling, grammar, math, and citizenship), and under each one, provide some general bullet points on what you plan to teach - no need to produce an encylopedia here, just some general high-level points on what you think ought to be taught.

Some final words, don't forget that unschooling is more of a "how" to teach rather than a "what" to teach. Since Texas is asking you as the home school teacher to document "what" you are teaching, it is totally up to you on "how" you will teach the topics. Therefore, unschooling and Texas Homeschool Laws can co-exist without any conflict.

If you want a quick refresher on home school state regulations, I would recommend that you visit my website - Yahoo community group guidelines prevent me from posting that here, but you can easily get my website address by looking at my profile (just click into my icon).

To find the specific article I'm referring to, go my site and in the Articles section, read the article titled, "Home Schooling Regulations".

Hope this helps.

Sun Bae
Home School Teacher