Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Would You Unschool Your Child?

unlimitedmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 121 posts

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#51

Post by fr0sty »

joshkaufman wrote: post #32
marknutter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met a home-schooled kid who wasn't social awkward. I really hate the current education system, but I also recognize that the social skills developed there are almost as important as the formal education kids get.. perhaps even more so.

I think a child's social skills are very influenced by the type of environment at home. Many families homeschool because they want to intentionally "protect"/isolate their children from the mainstream. This is very common with religious families that choose to homeschool so their kids (1) are exposed to the family's values and belief system to the exclusion of others, and (2) aren't corrupted by the evils of the outs…

This is just as unfair a characterization of home-schoolers as the GP.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#52

Post by fr0sty »

tommynazareth wrote: post #50
fr0sty wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. The argument here is, I believe: "What is the best way to get children experience and exposure? A. Experience and exposure B. Lectures about A.

You can also share actual experiences. "Hey kids, let's climb this tree!"

as a homeschool/unschool parent, yes. As a classroom teacher with liability concerns, not so much.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#53

Post by fr0sty »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21

"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms." This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, So…

If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#54

Post by Kadin »

marknutter wrote: post #23
joshkaufman wrote: post #10

My wife and I are expecting in December, and we're planning on some variation of unschooling for our children, starting at an early age. Based on the research we've done, it's a straightforward way to get better educational results for your kids if done properly. We're planning on some variation of the "Robinson Curriculum" ( http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ ), which in essence is a simple daily structure of (1) a…

I've never met a home-schooled kid who wasn't social awkward. I really hate the current education system, but I also recognize that the social skills developed there are almost as important as the formal education kids get.. perhaps even more so.

Smells like confirmation bias to me.

Unless you go around asking people about where they went to school all the time, unless someone is so socially awkward that it causes you to question whether they had some sort of "different" upbringing, you'd never know whether someone was homeschooled.

It may be that a lot of socially awkward people were homeschooled, but that doesn't necessarily indicate that the other way is true. A kid who is struggling and obviously hating traditional school might be more likely to get pulled out and homeschooled by their parents, or families who are isolated for other reasons (politics, religion, etc.) may homeschool, but none of these demonstrate a causative link between homeschooling -> poor socialization.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#55

Post by kenjackson »

nickpinkston wrote: post #47
kenjackson wrote: post #27

If I was unschooled as a child, I think my every minute would have been playing basketball and Atari. It would seem to me, that children need a good deal of direction. I was curious as a child, but I don't think I was curious about math, until I learned about it. And I think this actually gets worse in high school. Where I'd probably do math/programming 24/7 and never read another non-technical book. Or study any his…

They say "not to say you abandon your child at the playground". Every kids plays the "why" game with their parents. They're naturally curious assuming they're stimulated. You can feed this curiosity and see where it takes them. If they love sports, see if they're interested in reading about the greats, or looking at stats, etc.

I get the playground line. But I really do mean something stronger. As a child, I may have asked why on occassion, but the most common question was probably, "why can't I play basketball?" or "why can't I play space invaders?".

I think you're arguing that children need to be stimulated. And I think this requires a fair bit of direction. And I think w/o a good deal of direction, most children will not learn things they need to. I suspect math and writing/grammar being two big areas that most children would neglect. Not all, but a huge number, crossing or approaching 50%.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

fr0sty wrote: post #40
tommynazareth wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the type of unschooling you're describing is that children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. There is no good reason to be an absent parent. The style of education I'd like to provide is what I imagine a PhD program is like: plenty of guidance and advice that ultimately enables the student to take responsibility for themselves and make original contributions. It sounds…

> children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. The argument here is, I believe: "What is the best way to get children experience and exposure? A. Experience and exposure B. Lectures about A.

[deleted]

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#57

Post by Alex3917 »

fr0sty wrote: post #53
Alex3917 wrote: post #21

"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms." This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, So…

If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?

I think you're comparing what I'm saying with the thesis of Illich's book.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#58

Post by crpatino »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21

"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms." This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, So…

I would down vote you if I could.

1) The article does not say that the main function of K12 system is to be scalable. It says that scalability was an important concern on how the system was designed to accomplish its functions. You are comparing apples to oranges.

2) What is FRPL in the first place? or your full 5 list for the matter. Most of your audience is not a M.Ed. but most are smart enough to follow your argument if you take the time to present it. Please spare us the letter soup.

3) The idea that only the pundits and experts have the right to express an opinion about the subject is not one very favorable in this forum. Do not disqualify the argument because it lacks the "proper credentials".

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#59

Post by bugsy »

A lot of the controversy comes from the reality that there's no single definition for unschooling so it can range from montessori style progressive education in which facilitators help the independent learner explore a curriculum of their own choosing, right through keeping the children chained in a basement and fed raw potatoes and water. Everyone would agree the latter is abuse and not really homeschooling or unschooling, but the minute fraction of parents with children chained up in basements are of course going to claim that the children are homeschooled in order to explain why they aren't in school.

In between there are parents who allow their children to play in meadows each day as Rousseau recommended, to run their own private web business at age 11, as well as those who feel that watching TV and playing video games for several hours a day is educational.

Overall, most unschoolers produce kids more educated and capable than public school graduates.

This is mostly possible due to the poor state of public schools in general, which comes from trendy theories and government muddling rather than any lack of funding or talent.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#60

Post by edanm »

mquander wrote: post #45

My contribution: If you're doing this, and you have a smart kid, for God's sake, buy a lot of books, buy every book you can think of and put it in your house. I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10. My parents had a lot of books, but even so, I ended up having to re-read the ones that were interesting to me instead of pushing further an…

This is the thing I'm most excited about for the future of the internet. Forget Amazon - anyone with an internet connection has access to audio and video lectures, notes and classwork from Harvard, MIT and others. Almost anything you want to learn can be picked up online, and (illegal though it is) any book you want to read can be found online.

But the best part is, this hasn't sunk in yet. So few people understand that the world has gotten to a stage where you can get a university-level education by yourself, based on what you feel like learning, from the comfort of your own home.

I love this for two reasons. Firstly, I imagine that 20 years from now, when this fact starts changing the world, that the world will be a much better place for it. And secondly, as a person involved in tech (and entrepreneurship), I have the ability to take part in the creation of this brilliant future. A great time to be alive, I think :)

Post reply on HN