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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

#141

Post by vivekd »

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…

That sounds good in theory but research seems to suggest that homeschoolers overwhelmingly perform better on every single metric. Although I'll grant that there may be data bias in that smarter and more devoted parents are more likely to homeschool.

https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/#:~:te....

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

#142

Post by h0l0cube »

People interested in unschooling, may also be interested in the discourses of Ivan Illich.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling_Society

L. M. Sacasas on his mailing list and podcast, 'The Convivial Society' recently interviewed one of Ivan's close friends, Gov. Jerry Brown. I've found the mailing list really worthwhile to read, and has surely affected the way I think about technology.

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/remembering-illic...

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

#143

Post by nicolas_t »

ohazi wrote: post #76
abfan1127 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the OP inferred that not reading until 10 was suboptimal. I argue that effectively, most people don't read in adulthood. So, if he's frightened by a 10yo not reading, he's in for a rude awakening when he gets to interface with adults. Perhaps they are unrelated. perhaps I drew a wrong conclusion. But perhaps they aren't hurried, they are just lazy.

Are you really trying to draw an equivalence between laziness and illiteracy? It's okay for an adult to be lazy. It's okay for a kid to be lazy. It's probably not great for a homeschooled kid to be lazy, but you can invent games and rewards and other incentives and make this work. But it's irresponsible parenting to allow your homeschooled kid to be illiterate at 10. You're not going to convince me otherwise with com…

I've often found that laziness in reading is correlated with difficulties reading.

For example, I know a lot of people who say they are too lazy to watch a movie with subtitles. When you dig deeper, they then tell you that it's hard to follow the movie because they have to concentrate on the subtitles or that the subtitles go too fast. That shows that they are actually not very good readers and.

For the specific example of the OP. You might be right, it might just be laziness but those parents do take the time to reply to the email to ask for clarifications. So, either the email was ambiguous or a lot of people just have a hard time reading a block of text. In my experience, the later is often true.

That said I fully agree with you that allowing a home schooled kid to be illiterate at 10 is criminally irresponsible. Reading is the key to knowledge and any parent homeschooling their kids should make damn sure that their kid will learn to read and see the value in it.

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

#144

Post by epr »

abfan1127 wrote: post #33
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…

having met a ton of fully grown adults who have offspring, near as I can tell, most people are functionally illiterate. While they probably can read, most choose not to read anything longer than a tweet. I coach in a local sports league. I send an email at the beginning of each season with nice bulleted sections about schedules, uniforms, etc. After I send that email, I spend the next week answering questions to resp…

> All answers are in that email they are responding to.

My gf works in inside technical sales for an industrial instruments rep/distributor, and therefore a large part of her job is passing information between customers and manufacturers while trying to keep both happy and process orders. On a good day, she probably is forced to send the same requests for information at least two or three times on average before finally getting an answer. People just refuse to read even extremely short emails asking for straightforward information like shipping addresses which simply must be provided to proceed with the order. I wouldn't last a month doing her job without losing my damn mind.

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

#145

Post by Exmoor »

sharadov wrote: post #45
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've noticed this with my son who has an ADHD diagnosis. Pre-covid I constantly heard from school, that he was not paying attention, getting distracted. But since Covid, his output has been phenomenal - his reading/math has improved, he does really well one on one, we have a nanny working with him,. And I've never seen him happier. I know homeschool would benefit him immensely in the long run from an intellectual sta…

I was homeschooled k-10th grade, after which I entered community college.

Certainly social contact and learning is something you want to encourage, but I would not let that hold you back from homeschooling your son if you feel it's working very well. It's complicated to do in the current situation, but playdates, sports, field trips with other homeschool kids, etc. go a long way. There are likely also co-op classes where your kid can meet other kids.

I'm still friends with dozens of kids I was homeschooled with. Most have had very good outcomes. I don't feel that the few who haven't would have done much, if any, better in a traditional school environment, but that's an educated guess.

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

#146

Post by bena »

brodouevencode wrote: post #118
numakerg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> famous sci fi author If it's the same author I found based on a cursory search from your profile, then "famous" is a bit of a stretch. > Where I think it hurt was we didn't do any group social activities and lived in remote places I got a similar feeling reading about Chris Paolini. Homeschooled, raised in a remote place. Fed a lot of his early life experiences, particularly travel, into his novels but felt alienat…

> then "famous" is a bit of a stretch. That's a bit rude. I did the same cursory search and realized my friends and I are big fans. Just because you don't recognize the name doesn't mean others don't.

My name is known in certain small circles, it doesn't make me famous. So just because you recognize the name, doesn't mean he's what one would classify as famous.

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

#147

Post by sigzero »

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…

We do the same. Our homeschool community is rather large and we have sports (you name it we probably do it). We even compete with other public schools.

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

#148

Post by tmaly »

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…

>It is there to teach us critical thinking

I believe the No Child Left Behind Act changed that.

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

#149

Post by barry-cotter »

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…

> 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.

Germany was among the most highly educated countries in the world in the 1930s. The Russian Revolution was an elite phenomenon. In a country of peasants the Revolution was of and by the intelligentsia. Whatever else you might say about them they weren’t uneducated.

The German ban on home schooling is explicitly to prevent the formation of parallel societies. It would be hard to be clearer that the purpose of the “education” system is indoctrination.

If you want to teach things the best and most efficient way to do so is explicitly. The enormous majority of people do not generalize learning beyond its context. Whether transfer of learning even exists is a hot topic in psychological research. It is certainly not a strong effect. If school was to teach critical thinking it should be doing so explicitly. It doesn’t and there’s little reason to believe it’s especially good at it.

School is excellent at inuring children to boredom, obeying authority and pointless busywork.

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

#150

Post by dgentile »

sfink wrote: post #120
somethoughts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So you're going to send kids to 7 or so hours of being pressured into paying attention to stuff they're generally not that interested in learning, then some amount of time doing mostly make-work activities, and you expect them to be interested in exploring learning opportunities in the minimal remaining bits of time? (And for older grades, they're also getting up well before their bodies want to.) Would you be able t…

High Schooler here. I've been teaching myself Vulkan and am writing a videogame, but I'm so exhausted on weekdays from my course-load that I only work on it on weekends and breaks. I wish I could put more time into it but trying to program after 6+ hours of school and then homework is a nightmare, and that code usually ends up being buggier than my normal output, with low productivity.
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