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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

#221

Post by halad »

barry-cotter wrote: post #149
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. 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…

Looking at politics in the UK on both sides of the political spectrum it is very clear that the public education system here is completely failing.

In the general population there appears to be very little critical thinking, ability to regulate emotions, cost benefit analysis, consideration of opportunity cost, probabilistic thinking, nor even a rudimentary understanding of the scientific method, political and legal system.

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

#222

Post by philwelch »

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?

What better way to manipulate a population than by “educating” them?

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

#223

Post by absolutelyrad »

craftinator wrote: post #178
absolutelyrad wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. NO ITS NOT! This is a lie. There were reports in 1960's when the congress asked for an experiment to different ways of teaching. The children taught in a 1 to 1 way performed enormously better c…

Cite your source. Provide some sort of corroborating information, such as a link to the article, or a link to a an article about the article. If it's a Congressional Report, it is available on the web.

Look up replies to my comment. You'll find them.

https://www.nifdi.org/what-is-di/di-vs-di.html https://www.nifdi.org/research/history-of-di-research/projec...

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

#224

Post by knaq »

Thorrez wrote: post #210
knaq wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, it seems obvious that the education industry (those journals) would have a bias against homeschooling. Getting published by people who hate your message is just not likely.

Do academia (universities) and high/elementary school have such loyalty to each other? I thought that most colleges were quite friendly to homeschooled students.

People who teach future teachers would have a vested interest, and they would be the ones running the education journals.

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

#225

Post by mssundaram »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #195
barry-cotter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Seems that even your post here was "cancelled"

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

#226

Post by ryanmarsh »

I’m surprised this was printed. Usually NYT is negative, or at best tepid, towards homeschooling.

There’s a diverse set of homeschool/unschool lived experiences. There’s a diverse set of challenges and opportunities that change on a family by family, child by child basis. Homeschool proponents aren’t trying to take anything from you, they just want the option to do things their way, in the privacy of their own home at their own expense with their own labor. That’s all. I’m glad you had a great (normal?) school experience. I’m grateful for your concern about the children of homeschoolers. Please do not confuse your concern with the correctness of the school system for our child. It’s well established the US is a follower in school performance. That should be all the justification we need.

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

#227

Post by afthonos »

absolutelyrad wrote: post #169
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…

> 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. NO ITS NOT! This is a lie. There were reports in 1960's when the congress asked for an experiment to different ways of teaching. The children taught in a 1 to 1 way performed enormously better c…

You are not making a counterargument. The operating word is “masses”. 1-on-1 doesn’t scale. The political reality may be that support for schooling would crater if the report were widely known, but the alternative isn’t realistically “modern schools” vs. “1-on-1 tutoring”, but rather “modern schools” vs. “nothing”, or, optimistically, “modern schools” vs. “something not yet invented”.

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

#228

Post by smsm42 »

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 is probably the best public invention to systematically distribute knowledge

But is it? There are many schools that fail spectacularly at the task, to the point of graduating people who are functionally illiterate. Maybe school alone is not enough for that.

> Not all parents are good teachers.

True. Unfortunately, even more teachers aren't good teachers. Out of all teachers I had, I have maybe one really great teacher I could name and two or three decent ones. The rest were nearly useless at best, and actively harmful at worst. And there were much more of those than good ones. Fortunately, school is not the only place one can find good teachers...

> School's purpose is not to teach obedience

Are you sure? Because everything I've heard about schools suggests it is. At least if we're talking about standard government-issue school, not special fancy educational project or independent private establishment.

> It is there to teach us critical thinking

Maybe in theory. In practice maybe 1% of teachers could deal with actual critical thinking from the students, and even less would like to. And most "critical thinking" education I've encountered was "question those other authorities in a way we prescribe to you as your only and true authority which you don't dare to question".

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

Given the absolutely disastrous state of the American academia, I don't think this argument holds any water. Yes, Cultural Revolution despised educated people. But turns out there's more than one way to indoctrination and totalitarian thought control. And being educated in never letting a dissenting opinion to be heard is no better than being not educated at all, at least when we talk about preventing totalitarianism.

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

#229

Post by TeMPOraL »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #176
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…

The point of our system is that (as much as is possible) education is not limited to the 'elites' and 'intelligentsia.' Rather, it is distributed in a (relatively) egalitarian fashion amongst not just those who call for war and revolution, but those who rot in the trenches and die upon the bayonet. School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society , including teaching it's boredom, authority, and point…

> School is excellent at building the cohesive fabric of a society, including teaching it's boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.

I have a feeling that pointless busywork always grows to however much people can bear, so maybe if school didn't condition people to be so tolerant of it, we'd have less of it.

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

#230

Post by cyberdrunk »

watwut wrote: post #211
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…

The point of Germany being highly educated is overdone. The country was also heavily militarized, violent and generally massive mess. Hitler was not representing educated elite, quite the opposite. Part of that all was backslash against modernity, against arts etc. In Russia, peasants were largely illiterate. As in, unable to read and write. The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obvious…

> The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that.

The did much more than coordination. The intelligentsia was basically 100% responsible for the revolution in every aspect, starting from conceptualization (peasants would never come up with the idea of trying to apply Marxism to the real world and wouldn't even be able to imagine world other than the one in which tzar rules over them) through managing implementation to the post-revolution power capture. Peasants were merely ants, necessary for revolutionaries' plans to install themselves as new rulers of Russia (obviously, some of them had more lofty goals, but as usual the worst scoundrels quickly took over and the idealists were disposed of).

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