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Unschooling: The Case for Setting Your Kids Into the Wild

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

#81

Post by learc83 »

fred_durst wrote: post #66
learc83 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children in New Zealand who began learning to read at age 7 had better reading comprehension than those that started at age 5 by the time they were 10. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200612... Children in Germany who started school at age 7 performed better on standardized tests than those who started at age 6. http://ftp.iza.org/dp1827.pdf

Even if that were true, I would have learned much less as there were many things I and many children learned via reading far before the age of 11. So while they supposedly caught up on reading, they had missed out on several years of learning when the brain is most capable of doing so. And honestly, that study is so loose. It reminds of the good ol' days of Whole Word learning and how many kids lives they screwed up…

>So while they supposedly caught up on reading, they had missed out on several years of learning when the brain is most capable of doing so.

Reading is not the only way to learn, and before a certain age it looks like it's not the most effective. There are many more studies that show that a play based education up until age 7 is superior to a rigorous academic education at the same age.

The evidence shows that it is very likely that spending an extra 2 years playing, and exploring is better than spending that time in the class practicing reading picture books.

Older children also progress faster, so an 8 year old who started learning to read at age 7 is reading much more sophisticated material than a 6 year old who started at age 5. It's not like there is an equivalent 2 year loss of reading time.

>And honestly, that study is so loose.

Care to offer some meaningful critique.

>how many kids lives they screwed up with that experiment gone bad.

In this case starting school later is not the experiment. It was the way things were for most of human history.

Schooling at 4 and 5 years old is a very recent invention--the data doesn't back up its effectiveness--so we should eliminate it.

Edit: In response to the above edit. There is nothing inherently wrong with a sample size of 267. That's actually a fairly large sample size for studies like this. My brother is a grad student in applied linguistics. He'd kill for 267 study participants for his second language acquisition research.

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

#82

Post by samirmenon »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #68
samirmenon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the elementary educational system truly "damaging" to young minds? I think of my elementary education (which, mind you, was only 6 years ago) as perhaps boring or tedious in some areas (like math, for me), while also exciting and rewarding in others (science, learning to make friends, deal with gossip, etc). I certainly don't think I have a very 'damaged' method of thought now because of my elementary education. I…

Not sure how accurate your profile is, but if you're still 16 and thus in high-school you may not appreciate just how different the real world is. And that exactly is why it is so damaging. In school there are a small number of people that are given authority over a huge swath of your life completely arbitrarily. This affects how you act and spend your time. This is completely opposite to how things work in the real…

I'm actually quite hurt by this comment.

Firstly, I have worked for the past three years as a software developer. I've had to deliver things to a manager, figure out exactly what a client wants, and work collaboratively. I think that I've at least had a taste of the "real world".

Secondly, the idea that I lack some kind of mental capability to "understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school" is deeply flawed, and frankly unfounded. In fact, the condescension that arises from this statement is exactly the kind of attitude towards children that discourages them from taking risks and exploring independently.

I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world".

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

#83

Post by learc83 »

samirmenon wrote: post #82
OmarIsmail wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how accurate your profile is, but if you're still 16 and thus in high-school you may not appreciate just how different the real world is. And that exactly is why it is so damaging. In school there are a small number of people that are given authority over a huge swath of your life completely arbitrarily. This affects how you act and spend your time. This is completely opposite to how things work in the real…

I'm actually quite hurt by this comment. Firstly, I have worked for the past three years as a software developer. I've had to deliver things to a manager, figure out exactly what a client wants, and work collaboratively. I think that I've at least had a taste of the "real world". Secondly, the idea that I lack some kind of mental capability to "understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school" is deeply f…

>I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world".

Most 16 year olds in the developed world do lack an ability to understand the "real world" (by that I mean the adult experience) because 16 year olds lack adult responsibility by default. Having a part time job is not the same as working to provide food and shelter for you and your family. At 16 your parents shield you from the freedoms and consequences that come with being an adult, and with no experience of those freedoms and consequences, you can't really internalize what it means to be an adult.

In addition, the human brain doesn't fully develop until around 25, so your judgment at 16 is fundamentally flawed.

There's nothing wrong with being 16, but in 10 years you'll look back and laugh at 90% of what you know right now.

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

#84

Post by samirmenon »

learc83 wrote: post #83
samirmenon wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm actually quite hurt by this comment. Firstly, I have worked for the past three years as a software developer. I've had to deliver things to a manager, figure out exactly what a client wants, and work collaboratively. I think that I've at least had a taste of the "real world". Secondly, the idea that I lack some kind of mental capability to "understand or imagine what is possible outside of the school" is deeply f…

>I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world". Most 16 year olds in the developed world do lack an ability to understand the "real world" (by that I mean the adult experience) because 16 year olds lack adult responsibility by default. Having a part time job is not the same as working to provide food and shelter for you and your fami…

Absolutely. I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago. Is it the same for you?

The oft-repeated idea of an "underdeveloped" teenage brain is a bit old. Scientific American did a piece on it in 2007. (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-te...)

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

#85

Post by JDDunn9 »

baddox wrote: post #78
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…

> If unschooling were so great 3rd world countries would be dominating the world. Except that they don't have easy access to books or the Internet. And also food.

Yeah, all they need is a library and a food bank and they'll be ahead of Japan in no time...

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

#86

Post by PeterisP »

ejfox wrote: post #24
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…

I was unschooled, and I think that it really depends on what passion your kid has (which you can't predict, but can impact). If your child becomes really interested in the law, he will have unlimited time to pursue that goal. If your child is really interested in math, he will be able to study that in a much deeper way than someone similarly into math attending public or private school. He can learn not only at his o…

Much depends on the options that the kid even considers. If they're growing up on a farm environment, then their natural curiosity will drive them towards the skills that are useful and interesting in that environment - from the article it appears that they are learning a lot of skills that are useful for a farmer or a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, since it brings immediate feedback and is consistent with the opportunities that they have there.

Have they interacted with lawyers, saxophone players, programmers, art historians, ballet dancers or microbiologists in any meaningful way to practically consider it a viable lifestyle that they could understand and identify with, to consider it as a normal available option? Given their current situation, will they do so in any time soon? A few years in college would do it but that's a bit too late. You can't really understand if you'll like a profession if you haven't seen/felt how the daily life of it looks like, that's why this choice is often dominated by your local environment and public role models.

The point of general education is that kids are in the process of 'searching for themselves' and a large part of them don't and can't choose their future direction until near-adulthood or later. If at the age of nine you're consciously preparing to be an astronaut ninja fireman or unconsciously preparing to be a farmer, then it doesn't really correlate with "what your passion is" and what you'll want to do when you're 20 or 30. And at that time point, if you have significant gaps in key education areas, then it cuts off your options. If after puberty you figure out you'd really like to be a doctor, and you spent two hours per month (as the article states) on science and math, then you're simply not getting in med school.

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

#87

Post by NotOscarWilde »

fsloth wrote: post #48
fred_durst wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a lot of evidence that learning to read early can be detrimental in the long run. More and more of the educated parents I know are no longer focusing on teaching their preschoolers to read. That's horrifying. Can't wait for the rest of us to have to clean up their experiment.

My strong opinion is that educationally, THE most important thing you must do with your child is TALK to them. From the beginning. From year 0. Discuss things with them. Let them soak as much understandable speech as they can between years 0 and 2. This will have a far more profound effect in their life rather than did they learn to read at 4 or 8 years of age. Could you specify what is horrifying about the previous…

> Why would it be more important for a 5 year old to learn to read rather than, say, spend their time building Legos, practice crafts or climbing into trees?

The hypothesis that I think should be tested is whether there is correlation between being a child prodigy in a technical field (in math, physics, computer science or engineering) and getting to read early.

It makes sense theoretically -- if you learn to read by age 8, is there enough time for you to grasp all of high school math and computer science by age 14, like Manjul Bhargava?

While I can imagine my hypothesis being true, that doesn't make it into an argument against later reading age. It just means that for a group of kids this might not the best decision. (And since most of us think of themselves as the "smart kids", maybe that's why a lot of us here are opposed to it.)

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

#88

Post by learc83 »

fred_durst wrote: post #72
droithomme wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing cooler than rich kids taking all their advantages The author's father worked for the state department of education and his mother was a substitute teacher. What evidence do you have that they are rich as you claim? > I shouldn't be so sarcastic about child abuse Child abuse is a serious accusation. Please state the evidence you have that there is child abuse and the steps you have taken to report your perso…

I absolutely disagree that this type of "home schooling" should be legal. I do believe it is child abuse. These people should be treated just any parent that does not enroll their child in school. And I think they should have their kids placed in state custody and not even considered letting their children back in their care until they have had a full psychiatric evaluation. It's true that these parents are likely si…

>I think they should have their kids placed in state custody and not even considered letting their children back in their care until they have had a full psychiatric evaluation.

I can almost guarantee that these kids will turn out better with their parents than if they are raised in state custody. Outcomes are far far worse for foster kids than for unschooled kids.

Where do you draw the line. What about parents who don't pay attention to their kids, sit them in front of the tv and provide no education or emotional support other than putting them on the bus in the morning?

These kids can read and write, there are many kids in public school who can't. There are way more kids living in bad school districts with uninvolved parents who spend less than the 2 hours a month studying that these kids do.

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

#89

Post by glenra »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #57
fchollet wrote: post #13

The fundamental problem with the elementary school system in the west is that kids are given no room for self-direction whatsoever; school for them is de facto a part-time prison or "labor" camp. As a result they are trained by association to dread to that which the system purports to champion: learning, culture, reading, knowledge, even any demonstration of intelligence. It takes a combination of luck, will and posi…

I don't know if self-direction is really a good idea. When I was a kid I would have directed myself towards video games and cartoons. I probably would not have independently developed an interest in english grammer and math.

Video games and cartoons can be valuable learning experiences. We learn a lot through play. If you got into minecraft you'd be doing engineering. If you got into Wildstar or WoW or some other guild-based combat system you'd be learning leadership and social dynamics - how to keep a team together and happy - and also a certain amount of math. If you got into Quake-like games you might discover the modding community and get interested in learning how to be a level designer, a programmer, a visual artist, or an architect.

Or take "watching cartoons". You might discover stop-motion and start making your own. Or if you got into Anime you might get interested in learning Japanese.

The Sudbury schools emphasize the power of boredom. When you don't play videogames that much you might FEEL like you could play them all the time if allowed to. But if you were ACTUALLY allowed to, you'd eventually get bored and want to go deeper. And then you'd inevitably be learning stuff. A repeated discovery was that most kids eventually DO decide they want to learn math, in part because it's something other people can do that seems like it might be useful. And when kids are actually interested in the subject, they can learn it in a really TINY amount of contact hours and it doesn't harm them at all to have waited a few extra years.

The reason standard schools waste so much time teaching math is that they're trying to force kids who aren't interested at all in learning it on the school's schedule rather than their own.

As for "english grammar", you can learn that just by using some of your freed-up time to read lots of books.

Here's a story that involves teaching 6 years of math in 20 hours of class time:

http://sudburyschool.com/articles/free-last

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

#90

Post by learc83 »

samirmenon wrote: post #84
learc83 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I hope the next time you talk to or meet a 16 year old, you don't assume that they lack any ability to understand the "real world". Most 16 year olds in the developed world do lack an ability to understand the "real world" (by that I mean the adult experience) because 16 year olds lack adult responsibility by default. Having a part time job is not the same as working to provide food and shelter for you and your fami…

Absolutely. I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago. Is it the same for you? The oft-repeated idea of an "underdeveloped" teenage brain is a bit old. Scientific American did a piece on it in 2007. ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-myth-of-the-te... )

>Absolutely. I hope that every year of my life, I look back, and laugh at the things I 'knew' 10 years ago. Is it the same for you?

To an extent yes, but that slows down the older you get.

>The oft-repeated idea of an "underdeveloped" teenage brain is a bit old. Scientific American did a piece on it in 2007.

That article itself is outdated. There are numerous studies done since then that support my assertion.

Here's a few articles.

2011 http://www.edinformatics.com/news/teenage_brains.htm

2011 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dob...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1411647...

http://phys.org/news/2010-12-brain-fully-mature-30s-40s.html

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044371370...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1241194...

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