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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

#231

Post by OrderlyTiamat »

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. Ex: Nazi Germany and Mao's China burned books and persecuted the educated (1984 style).

Frankly, this sounds absurd. Having just been through this educational enlightenment I can tell you that's definitely not what schools do. Higher education like a bachelor's or master, sure. Definitely, even. But high school? Not at all.

It's a lesson in rote memorisation of the _true truth_ which we know is true because _the teacher said it_. It is the opposite of critical thinking. And if I were a totalitarian vying for my own state I'd leave the high school system exactly as is, perhaps change the history books a bit.

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

#232

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

JeanMarcS wrote: post #208
srg0 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid that unschooling correlates to parents being antivac, anti 5G, etc.

Well, for example in France, the category where you can find the most antimask persons is high educated women in their 50s.

This says nothing about population of people who homeschool.

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

#233

Post by moonchild »

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…

Chric Crawford's argument[1] is that video games can provide the same sort of interactivity which makes 1-on-1 teaching so effective. I don't agree with this argument, but it's a very interesting one.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaBte1cBi5U

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

#234

Post by marcus_holmes »

Foobar8568 wrote: post #204
hndamien wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My teacher daughter was shocked she could read at 5,diring our first meeting she asked us : "do you know she can read?" I replied, "yes I know", she followed up with a "like an adult" almost frightened haha. Well I did tell her that she could read and write, I guess she was used of parents bullshitting on their kids achievements. Remove a screen and a kid can have crazy skills. Screens are really the opium of the peo…

I grew up before screens, and we didn't have crazy skills.

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

#235

Post by phobosanomaly »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #229
phobosanomaly wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno, I haven't see a whole lot of bearing at the DMV, but there's not an epidemic of concerned citizens showing up with molotovs and burning their local branch to the ground. Minneapolis' third precinct, sure, they burned that sucker right to the ground. But not the DMV, the icon of pointless bureaucracy.

And no matter where I've gone, from Honduras to Pakistan, to Germany, to San Bernardino, folks have been waiting in lines for things, and doing stuff that didn't really matter.

Doing stuff that sucks seems to be an unfortunate consequence of social organization for all of us normal folks who can't pay to skip the line.

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

#236

Post by cyberdrunk »

halad wrote: post #221
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…

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…

It really depends on what you compare with. Before the spread of public education, people were commonly believing in magic, witches and, based on that, could be sold on all sorts of non-sequiturs. Now, they're more or less aware of the scientific process, understand most basic concepts of natural sciences, know a bit of history, can write semi-coherently, have a bit more rigour in forming arguments etc. Of course, they aren't all Oxford-educated intellectuals but, to elevate a big fraction of population to that level, I'm guessing we would need a ton of 1-on-1 tutorships, which would be extremely costly.

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

#237

Post by StavrosK »

freshhawk wrote: post #192
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?

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.

You hear something from someone who's been talking to you for 10 years, and from someone you've just met. Whose lie is easier to detect?

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

#238

Post by smsm42 »

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?

> is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one

Good question. Depends on how the education is done. If the education is done to instill the idea that one must "believe in science", instead of learning the facts and questioning them skeptically, if one is convinced that expressing dissent is harmful and akin to violence, if questioning the dominating framework is actively discouraged and dissenters are viciously attacked, if people are taught that there can be no honest disagreement, and any different of opinion is nothing but a power move in an oppression framework, if everybody is assigned their places and recommended opinions in advance, if they are instructed that any non-conforming opinion must be silenced and suppressed - then such "educated" people are much easier to manipulated than the illiterate ones.

An illiterate person knows they are illiterate - there's no way to hide that fact from themselves. They know there are places they must tread carefully for their knowledge has obvious limits. A mal-educated person thinks they know all the answers, and learned The Truth, and thus hold the keys to the universe. Moreover, they feel a moral duty to lord over lesser creatures and guide them to The Truth, for their own benefit. This is an ideal human brick for building the totalitarian barracks.

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

#239

Post by nvarsj »

halad wrote: post #221
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…

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…

You just recited the unwashed masses dogma. I don't really agree with you at all. The vast majority of british people I've interacted with, even the "uneducated", all have reasonable, well thought out opinions even if they don't always agree with my own. I think it's much better than you seem to suggest.

The real issue is with the politicians, and the fact we don't have proportional representation. There is a significant percentage of the population with no real representation. I do not relate with either Tories or Labor and I don't think either has my best interests at heart.

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

#240

Post by moonchild »

Nasrudith wrote: post #157
brigandish wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend of mine had children that went to Steiner schools and they weren't taught to read until they were 7, and he said they could read adult level books by 9. It appears there's evidence that this is true in general[1] (though the author suggests they could go even faster if they updated their methods further) I also remember reading in a Tony Buzan book his speculation that learning to read too early interfered w…

I personally learned to read as early as I could recall (around four) but lacked much attention span to actually crack open a book then and found being read to more fun. Not as a matter of personal bragging but to point out that kids in absense of formal teaching methods may absorb many things. Immersion learning is used and studied mostly for foreign languages but I wonder about how effective it proves in general fo…

I learned to read at a similar age, and quickly started reading (relatively) long, complex books. I have difficulty focusing on things, but I think the many hours spent on focused reading at an early age helped significantly; I would probably be in a much worse state now if not for that.

Just providing another perspective.

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