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

nytimes.com

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

#191

Post by briandear »

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…

> An educated population is also less prone to fall into totalitarianism.

Citation needed. Plenty of “educated elites” advocate and advocated for far left ideologies that are at their core, totalitarian.

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

#192

Post by freshhawk »

mgh2 wrote: post #162
barry-cotter wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 intelli…

Yeah, I won't deny that even the educated can be manipulated- look at our generation affected by corporate and political agendas. Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. Given this prerequisite, is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one?

Obviously that depends. Here is another way to phrase your question:

You spend 10 years telling John some stuff every day for hours and Jane is someone you just met.

Which one is easier to lie to?

Sounds to me like it completely depends on a lot of different things, but if you know what lie you want to tell ahead of time: obviously John is easier to lie to.

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

#193

Post by [deleted] »

lostcolony wrote: post #39
chrisBob wrote: post #28

I am sure unschooling works out well for some people. I appreciate giving students some flexibility, but I think there really is a standard core that most people should learn. I went to a good engineering school for college, but they also require everyone to take 3 years of history, 3 years of english, 2 semesters of a foreign language, a psychology course, ... If it was left up to me I would not have taken most of t…

A lot of unschooling is predicated on the idea that if you're not forced to learn things, you will be more open to wanting to learn them. Certainly, in my own life that has held true. I learned to read when I was a kid because I saw my parents doing it, and engaging in it taught me to love it. A lot of math I learned early on just as I was growing up (I figured out multiplication on my own, for instance). But by the…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by fierarul »

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.

I'd say the plague of fake news shows that the current crop of educated population is not capable of critical thinking.

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

#195

Post by drevil-v2 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #164
mgh2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I won't deny that even the educated can be manipulated- look at our generation affected by corporate and political agendas. Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. Given this prerequisite, is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one?

> Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. None of the German Empire, Weimar Republic or Russian Empire were totalitarian states. If education is protective against indoctrination the effect is at best weak. A lively marketplace of ideas is no guard against organized thu…

Which is what is so depressing about "cancel culture" and radical redefinition of what is "hate speech". Liberals and the rational center are not defending those ideals which gave us our modern Western civilisation.

Even on this website, merely questioning the validity of some of the aspects of the politically correct zeitgeist will get your post flagged and hidden from public consumption.

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

#196

Post by ornornor »

fierarul wrote: post #194
mgh2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I'd say the plague of fake news shows that the current crop of educated population is not capable of critical thinking.

Not sure why you were downvoted: the traction fake news, anti 5G, and anti vaccine movements get clearly show that there is an issue where critical thinking is concerned.

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

#197

Post by legulere »

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…

Huh, most of the time I went to school in Germany it was 4 and a half hours (6 time slots, 45 minutes each)

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

#199

Post by freshhawk »

xkgt wrote: post #175
quesera wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 n…

// If you delay the learning, you learn it much more quickly. Is there any source for this?

Older children learn things faster than younger children, why would reading be an exception?

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

#200

Post by hndamien »

barry-cotter wrote: post #153
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…

> to me, is fucking terrifying. Why? It takes 40 contact hours to teach a nine year old to read, according to John Taylor Gatto. You can teach all of primary school Math in the same time to a 12 year old. What’s the point of doing it earlier? There are little or no compounding gains from doing so. Countries that start teaching reading at 4 don’t do better than those that wait until 7. See France versus Germany or Fin…

I taught a 5 year old to read to a 15 year old level in 20 contact hours for reference. Still room for improvement qualitatively but I think an observing scientist would say that they can read well, but not smoothly like an adult.
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