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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

#251

Post by krageon »

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.

Academia is (perversely) not incredibly enamored with novel systems from my experience. My theory was that it has something to do with most of the tenured professors being old and stubborn.

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

#252

Post by krageon »

afthonos wrote: post #227
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…

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”.

It doesn't have to scale, it just has to be possible. I would argue that it is, especially given how many people are in jobs that just don't matter.

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

#253

Post by krageon »

eloff wrote: post #161
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…

Well he's not JK Rowling famous, but he has sold over a million books which puts him in a pretty elite club author wise. Especially in sci fi, that's a lot. I'm very proud of my brother, he started down a very difficult career path and became very successful. All self taught.

It's great that you responded to something this rude in such a positive way.

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

#254

Post by phobosanomaly »

cheschire wrote: post #250
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…

You must be mostly exposed to those areas where the schools get mid-to-high ratings. Education is absolutely limited based on income level. At the lower income levels the only thing taught is boredom, authority, and pointless busywork.

As bad as you make it sound, they are teaching kids stuff, even at less-than-wealthy school districts.

Adult Literacy in the United States: https://nces.ed.gov/datapoints/2019179.asp

It's not perfect, but from the most remote deserts of Arizona to rural Appalachia, to Compton, to rural Colorado, our public school system chugs away.

By hood or by crook, or by underfunded inner-city/rural public school, we're teaching a hell of a lot of kids to read and write, multiply and divide. Skills that many parents can't teach on their own, and that most kids wouldn't go out of their way to learn if you left them alone.

I attended elementary through middle-school at a district too poor to offer a high-school chemistry class, and still learned my times tables and how to write a paragraph. I even went on to Community College, a state school, a state-school masters, and an MD on scholarship. Sure, I didn't get the chance to take AP classes, and I didn't have some fancy robotics class, but I just can't bring myself to bash the public school system that got me to where I am. Sure, I didn't get everything a kid growing up in Pasadena got, but California has a robust-enough public-education system through the Community Colleges and UC/Cal-State system that it wasn't a dealbreaker in the least.

I don't know what district you attended, but if you took nothing away other than 'boredom, authority, and pointless busywork,' I'm curious as to how exactly we are debating this point in written English.

I think it's a slap to the face of a lot of teachers doing their best, as well as their students, to say that kids in disadvantaged districts learn nothing other than how to sit still and listen to authority. I learned quite a bit, in fact.

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

#255

Post by Angostura »

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…

Speaking as someone with two children in secondary education at a "bog standard comprehensive" in East London, I think you are entirely incorrect.

I am very pleased with the level of critical thinking and lively argument we get over the dining room table about the issues of the day. My youngest daughter hs just started GCSE history and sociology and I am being constantly schooled on the ills of society.

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

#256

Post by cyberdrunk »

watwut wrote: post #246
cyberdrunk wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

And very little of what they did would be possible without writing and reading. Peasants did not entered Russian politics in meaningful way at all. Simply, being illiterate to the point where you cant even improve on super behind farming also makes you pretty crappy at anything politics. Peasants attacked local rules here and there, then being bloodily suppressed wherever things got tight. That was it. The monarchy,…

Intelligentsia does not mean "educated people". For example, capitalists or the tzar's family were not part of Inteligentsia. A lof of the military officers weren't either.

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

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

#257

Post by cabalamat »

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…

> It would be hard to be clearer that the purpose of the “education” system is indoctrination.

You call it indoctrination. Someone else might equally call it social cohesion.

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

#258

Post by cabalamat »

nvarsj wrote: post #239
halad wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 signifi…

> I do not relate with either Tories or Labor

Nor do most voters. They have to keep FPTP because they know that otherwise, most people won't vote for them; the last 4 times the UK had nationwide elections held under a more proportional system, most voters voted for parties other than labour of the Conservatives.

> I don't think either has my best interests at heart.

Most people agree with you!

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

#259

Post by tarsinge »

watwut wrote: post #217
JeanMarcS wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Source? In all statistics I have seen up to now, men were more likely to be antimask then women. So French women seems to be outliers.

https://jean-jaures.org/nos-productions/bas-les-masques-soci...

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

#260

Post by pibechorro »

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…

Schools teaching critical thinking? Hahahahahahahahah. Ok.
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