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When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

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Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#131

Post by quesera »

ohazi wrote: post #23
t0mbstone wrote: post #7

I was homeschooled until the age of around 10, and then my family adopted a new approach called "lifestyle of learning", which is just another way of saying "unschooling". Basically, I was allowed to skip schoolwork, as long as I was doing something productive. I hated schoolwork, so I started spending all my spare time tinkering with stuff on the computer. I wasn't allowed to play video games (since they aren't prod…

I can see homeschooling being potentially more interesting/engaging for a certain kind of student after the basics are out of the way, but this: > He didn't even learn how to read until he was around 10. to me, is fucking terrifying . All of the people I know who did better on their own than in a classroom were able to do so because they could gobble up half a library in a weekend. I think you need to be able to read…

> to me, is fucking terrifying.

The non-intuitive thing about basic reading and math skills is this:

If you delay the learning, you learn it much more quickly.

So the (ordinary, with no developmental issues) kid who doesn't read until 10, can exceed his or her peers in just a couple years.

The very unfortunate corollary, however, is this:

The kid with developmental issues might go undiagnosed for a longer time than necessary, with long-lasting repercussions and follow-on effects. It's even possible to reinforce a mild issue and turn it into a larger one.

This then becomes a classical optimization problem. Optimize for the common case for broad benefit, or optimize for the rare case with significant negative effects. There is no right answer for everyone.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#132

Post by TaupeRanger »

jjcm wrote: post #127

I was homeschooled with my brother up until high school, and it was a mixed experience for me. Academically both myself and my brother were far, far above our peers in public school. The main difference was that especially with math, we had understanding of the material rather than just knowledge. Our parents flipped houses a lot so we'd often have to use our math skills regularly when helping out. How much area is a…

Exactly. Many parents just buy a homeschool "curriculum" and do an accelerated version of the public school lessons. Making various subjects interesting is a skill in itself for the parent-teacher. Young kids just want to play with their toys and friends for the most part.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#133

Post by mgh2 »

eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

This might work for outliers/higher IQ/elite people in the HN community, but consider this:

1. School is probably the best public invention to systematically distribute knowledge to the masses. Some like to point out "dropouts", "self-taught" geniuses or the "lucky few" as models instead of exceptions to the rule.

2. Not everyone is self-motivated to learn. Children, at critical developmental ages, are more prone to be led astray than "follow their passions" (at this age, really?). They will more likely be manipulated by vices if not constantly monitored. Note: Even adults struggle to find their "passion", good for the lucky few.

3. Not all parents are good teachers. Usually, responsible families understand the value proposition- they wish their children have a better future- and education is the most assured/common ticket that provides these opportunities.

4. School's purpose is not to teach obedience or even getting a job. It is there to teach us critical thinking, and consequently, how to be a good citizen. An educated population is also less prone to fall into totalitarianism. Ex: Nazi Germany and Mao's China burned books and persecuted the educated (1984 style).

Public schools, with all its flaws, are the best instruments to free the masses. Knowledge is democratized power to avoid the corruption that absolute power entails.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#134

Post by an_opabinia »

eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

> it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid

This has been touched upon elsewhere by other commenters. But to at least ask you personally, would you concede that if you were doing well on tests despite the absence of the kind of cramming / teaching-to-the-test that the average schooled student receives, you could have done any kind of education, and in many ways, there is nothing special at all about homeschooling? Or that if your structure re-enacts this teaching, but it's a lot less time than the average student, you definitely have a natural aptitude for test taking?

Are tests the only way we can robustly evaluate a kid's education, until they are 18? If so, will sports matter if you're getting bad test scores? What does?

Here's the crazier conclusion. That people finger parental income or cultural values as the biggest factors of education outcomes, and in reality test performance is mostly genetic. It might as well be, from a policy perspective, randomly assigned - God rolls a 100 sided dice when you're born, and if it's a 1 or a 2 all standardized tests are easy for you. If you roll the other 98 numbers, the best thing is to cram.

We don't need alternatives to traditional schooling. We need a way of evaluating kids that rewards genuine learning. Kids who are learning should be scoring poorly sometimes, and that's the exact opposite of how children are evaluated, and poor scores are the exact opposite of what most parents of high achievers want.

Earnest parents are really seeking true learning. On the flip side, parents who send their kids to cram school or kvetch about college admissions not being fair because colleges consider factors other than totally and utterly gameable, zero-learning standardized tests - they are the antagonists. They are ruining our education system, they make school look the way it does, they are seeking a completely worthless advantage for their children (high test scores in the absence of valuable learning via cram school) for some cynically, utterly selfish devotion to values like making money and buying expensive things. Values so primitive and debasing that human cultures around the world have refined, multi-thousand-year-old refutations of materialism - opposition to materialism (asceticism) may be the most mature philosophy of all of history, at least as dominant as family values and theism. And then, to rationalize all of this, they find the least privileged and disadvantaged families and blame them instead! All the while pretending that there's some sort of equivalence of shittiness in their situations, because of some fucking number like income, between their families and the Other. It's complete and total bullshit.

Some changes to the school system can help everyone live happier lives and learn more, like different children spending longer (or shorter) times in class.

But really, we have to throw out tests. Or invent a test so sophisticated that it avoids being gamed by cramming.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#135

Post by eloff »

BugWatch wrote: post #122
eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

Would you mind revealing your brother's nom de plume (assuming he writes under one)?

I can't reveal that here because it's easy to identify me from my HN posts and thus tie his pen name to his real identity.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#136

Post by hellisothers »

somethoughts wrote: post #78
ohazi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see homeschooling being potentially more interesting/engaging for a certain kind of student after the basics are out of the way, but this: > He didn't even learn how to read until he was around 10. to me, is fucking terrifying . All of the people I know who did better on their own than in a classroom were able to do so because they could gobble up half a library in a weekend. I think you need to be able to read…

I think a safer approach would be "home after schooling" or to follow this new terminology "unafterschooling". Basically give kids time for unstructured learning using the hours after school/after homework study time that are currently effectively used up toiling at zero sum, super structured activities strictly aimed at getting into college.

I would have thought this too until the pandemic forced my wife and I to see exactly what our first grader was “learning” at the 10/10 school. It was shockingly below his abilities, hyperbolically shocking. Forcing him to do that work and then expecting him to do actually enriching work is at best unfair. We’re trying to figure out what to do next but both private and homeschooling are asking a lot :p

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#137

Post by eloff »

jsnk wrote: post #111
eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

Thanks for sharing your experience. Were you home schooled by your mother or your father? And whoever was home schooling you, were they working either part time or full time? I am interested in homeschooling as well.

My mom stayed at home and my dad worked. But really because we could read well and follow the lessons, it wasn't a large burden for mom. She had a lot of reservations when we started, but soon realized she could handle it. I don't see how it would work if both parents are working, you'd need a nanny or something in that case.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#138

Post by eloff »

waterhouse wrote: post #115
eloff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to say of course. But I think at the least we would have led more conventional lives. For myself, maybe a darker outcome. I was struggling with peer pressure and getting into trouble. The family that owned our house before lost their daughter to overdose. She went to my school. I wonder sometimes how my life could have been had things been slightly different and we hadn't changed to homeschooling (aft…

I suspect it would depend a lot on whether you were allowed to accelerate academically, and the answer would likely have been "no" or "not much". You might take a look at the following study, and see if it rings true to the school you did experience, or to what you've heard from others you've met: "The considerable majority of [the subjects: young people with 160+ IQs in Australia] who have [skipped 2 or more grades…

I am above average intelligence, but not 160 level. My hope when we started homeschooling was to complete the grades faster, but it was still school and didn't hold my interest enough for that. I ended up finishing later than normal, mostly because I got side tracked with my newfound passion for computer programming. I took two years before college to explore that, and went to college reluctantly. When I got there I soon realized I had gaps in my knowledge, but generally was ahead of the 4th year students assisting the professors. I didn't want to spend 4 years and a great deal of money pursuing just a piece of paper, and dropped out.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#139

Post by abnry »

mgh2 wrote: post #133
eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

This might work for outliers/higher IQ/elite people in the HN community, but consider this: 1. School is probably the best public invention to systematically distribute knowledge to the masses. Some like to point out "dropouts", "self-taught" geniuses or the "lucky few" as models instead of exceptions to the rule. 2. Not everyone is self-motivated to learn. Children, at critical developmental ages, are more prone to…

There is a lot of bias towards homeschoolers so the wild success stories often get touted to counteract the prejudice.

I was homeschooled but agree that it isn't for everyone, mainly because not everyone has the resources. It decidedly requires a middle class lifestyle. Also, parents need to have something of their life together beyond just financial resources.

But people overestimate the competence required of a parent to teach. Probably the biggest thing I learned was learning how to learn, and in particular, doing that on my own. So reading the textbook in college was hardly a shock. If my parents didn't understand a subject, they could learn it with me, or find the resources I needed (including community college, online courses).

Unschooling, however, I am not too sympathetic to. You need some structure.

Re: When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion

#140

Post by eloff »

mgh2 wrote: post #133
eloff wrote: post #87

My brother and I were homeschooled, but it was quite structured and we wrote the same provincial exams as every other grade 12 kid. My brother did the SAT as well. We had excellent scores. We both dropped out of college with near perfect GPAs. Today I'm a successful self-taught software engineer now starting a SaaS business. My brother is a famous sci fi author. He makes even more than I do. I think homeschooling let…

This might work for outliers/higher IQ/elite people in the HN community, but consider this: 1. School is probably the best public invention to systematically distribute knowledge to the masses. Some like to point out "dropouts", "self-taught" geniuses or the "lucky few" as models instead of exceptions to the rule. 2. Not everyone is self-motivated to learn. Children, at critical developmental ages, are more prone to…

I would say public schools are so much better than nothing. But they're not the best option by far.

Not everyone can do homeschooling, not everyone who can, will do it well. Many kids are not able to handle it either. But it can lead to much better outcomes. Like most things, general advice doesn't apply to everyone.

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