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Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

outsideonline.com

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Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#31

Post by pyre »

crucifiction wrote: post #26
learc83 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you basing that on? There is evidence that not teaching children to read until age 6 or 7 has an overall net benefit. Many countries ranked very well for education, don't start formal education until age 7 (Finland and Sweden for instance). The children in these countries are taught to read later than in the US, but they do just as well or better on reading tests later in life. Children in the US weren't tau…

Care to cite some of this evidence? I was just reading about this and found zero evidence its somehow harmful and only anecdotal evidence that it is not beneficial and "evens out" later.

Do you have evidence that teaching a child to read at 7 years of age is a significant detriment to their overall learning? Do you feel like the parent post that not teaching them to read at 4 years old is 'child abuse?'

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#32

Post by quizzas »

crucifiction wrote: post #26
learc83 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you basing that on? There is evidence that not teaching children to read until age 6 or 7 has an overall net benefit. Many countries ranked very well for education, don't start formal education until age 7 (Finland and Sweden for instance). The children in these countries are taught to read later than in the US, but they do just as well or better on reading tests later in life. Children in the US weren't tau…

Care to cite some of this evidence? I was just reading about this and found zero evidence its somehow harmful and only anecdotal evidence that it is not beneficial and "evens out" later.

some references to start you off re the benefits of the Finnish system where formal education starts at age 7: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/08/287255411/what-the-u-s-can-lea...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Finland

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#33

Post by kennywinker »

JDDunn9 wrote: post #17

Seriously? If unschooling were so great 3rd world countries would be dominating the world. Creativity is domain specific. Walking around the woods won't help you be creative in solving math/engineering/science problems. You need a strong background in the subject, and to see how other people solved similar problems. I feel bad for these kids as their future is being pigeon-holed. Who's going to hire someone who's edu…

I think you're wrong on a bunch of points.

The reason developing countries aren't "dominating the world" is because of a bunch of things, and the life of a kid from a developing country is very far from the life of an unschooled kid in the west.

Unschooled kids (and I know a lot of them) in the west are usually fairly privileges. If not economically (which definitely isn't always the case) then they are privileged to have intelligent and thoughtful parents who have the time, energy and interest to try to nurture a love of learning in them.

I also think you're wrong in regards to creativity. Creativity isn't domain specific, but being able to apply your creativity does take a lot of domain knowledge. You can have endless domain knowledge, and not an original thought in your head.

There are plenty of opportunities for unschooled kids to enter the mainstream education system, if they need certification of some kind to work in their field of interest. I know a good number of unschooled kids who became biologists, computer scientists, etc. by going to college/university when it became relevant.

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#34

Post by AndrewKemendo »

chrisduesing wrote: post #25
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a urban parent who plans to unschool our three kids, I think this article only gives a single perspective to the unschool movement - namely a rustic one, which happens to be very popular with this movement. What is overshadowed in the article, largely because it is an outdoorsy magazine, is that the philosophy behind unschooling is the difference rather than the specific skills learned. Case in point, my kids will…

What you are describing sounds more like the author's definition of homeschooling than unschooling. That said, he is teaching them the skills to run a farm, so at what point are you exposing children to something rather than instructing them.

You have to do some instruction around the edges, but largely the idea is that you offer different avenues for exploration and then they choose which way to go. Homeschooling generally has a fixed curriculum, often as restrictive as traditional schools - so that is the distinction.

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#35

Post by quizzas »

rdtsc wrote: post #5

> Everything I learned felt abstract and standardized. It was a conditional knowledge that existed in separation from the richly textured world just beyond the school’s plate-glass windows, which, for all their transparency, felt like the bars of a prison cell. Tell that story to a kid in Africa who has to walk miles to get to school and the school might not have electricity or water and so on. They would say "So, yo…

Africa: is it possible he's walking miles to school because either his parents can't read or they don't have time to teach him?

There is nothing "elitist" about choosing what's best for your children. I went through public school, and looking back, it was a sorry affair. Math teachers were terrible. Science teacher had no clue. English teacher assigned comic books to make sure the slow kids didn't feel bad. Despite all these obstacles, I had a deep love for reading and spent about 2 hours a day after school at the library, going through everything that caught my fancy (my version of unschooling). However, the one redeeming value of my public school experience was the immense amount of open play given to me. Formal education sucked, but between recess and after school explorations with my friends, I learned soft skills that I still used today. Unfortunately, today's public school has eliminated recess; furthermore, parents are so paranoid that they no longer allow their children to be outside after school. There is a reason why the Finnish system focuses on open play rather than homework in the first 9 years of child hood. There is nothing elitist about demanding what's best for your children.

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#36

Post by samirmenon »

This actually seems astoundingly misguided and dangerous.

One of the unique, defining qualities of humanity is an ability to build on the knowledge and experiences of generations before us. Why throw all of the knowledge of the past 5,000 years of human civilization out?

When will they learn math, or science, or history? How can you become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer without learning these subjects? Can they really be postponed until college?

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#37

Post by nilved »

samirmenon wrote: post #36

This actually seems astoundingly misguided and dangerous. One of the unique, defining qualities of humanity is an ability to build on the knowledge and experiences of generations before us. Why throw all of the knowledge of the past 5,000 years of human civilization out? When will they learn math, or science, or history? How can you become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer without learning these subjects? Can they really…

No, you're fully missing the point of the article. The problem is people's one-to-one connection between schools and education. No such connection exists. A school is not the only place to get an education, and for many people no education occurs there. You can learn math, science or history on your own accord and in a way that is suited to how you learn.

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#38

Post by kaitai »

socrates1998 wrote: post #4

There are a lot of things I like about this, but I am do see some issues. I think the boys are learning a lot of very interesting skills, but I think they would struggle a lot with becoming lawyers and doctors like the author claims. My biggest concern would be their reading skills, and later, their advanced math skills. He says they read fine, but reading is something that must be done almost every day for years to…

G-d. If my college freshmen came in knowing how to add fractions and understanding the meaning of x^2+y^2 = r^2, they'd do pretty well in precalc or calc. As far as I can tell many American students learn nothing mathematically between 7th grade and 12th grade, except a big old mental block about math. These kids will be fine with math when it happens.

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#39

Post by pdonis »

fred_durst wrote: post #3

> At the time, my father—who earned his undergraduate degree at Cornell and his master’s at Johns Hopkins Nothing cooler than rich kids taking all their advantages they were given and use them to live like paupers with zero concern for the the world around them. > I can report that Fin and Rye both learned to read and write with essentially zero instruction, albeit when they were about eight years old, a year or so l…

> with zero concern for the the world around them

How do you figure that?

Re: Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

#40

Post by spiralganglion »

samirmenon wrote: post #36

This actually seems astoundingly misguided and dangerous. One of the unique, defining qualities of humanity is an ability to build on the knowledge and experiences of generations before us. Why throw all of the knowledge of the past 5,000 years of human civilization out? When will they learn math, or science, or history? How can you become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer without learning these subjects? Can they really…

These subjects can be learned from people who are actually passionate about them, whether in person or remotely.

My uncle is a University history professor, and I learn more about world history from his uncontrollable desire to constantly relate every event in our lives to some event historical, than I have from any in-school study.

No sense in having to spend so long covering the first eight years of school arithmetic — the material is achingly simple, and can be taught with colour and passion in an afternoon by someone who truly loves it, to someone who is truly keen to learn.

If you give a self-motivated and eager kid access to someone who actually cares deeply for the material (unlike most every school teacher I've known), they'll be able to convey the principals and tenets of the field quickly and effectively.

When facts are needed, we have the best source of facts ever in the history of humanity: the internet, and the all the world's experts it puts you in touch with.

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