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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

#141

Post by TeMPOraL »

deckiedan wrote: post #122

I was "home educated" - the typically British middle ground. Not "home school" (school at home) and not unschooling. But self-educated / family educated at home, for the whole of highschool level. We'd just moved country, and didn't want to jump into a new school system straight away. It worked pretty well for us. I spent a lot of time learning to program and play music, I joined a local drama group, played in the ch…

> I learned all the sine / cosine stuff around age 10, as I was trying to write a computer game and needed to move things around circles (...) I wanted to learn it, so I did. I can still remember everything I need to know about those because it was interesting to me at the time.

Just like me. I learned it around 13, because I wanted to figure out how to rotate sprites and move them around other sprites; I remember spending long hours looking at a math book and drawing pictures with a pencil. When I finally grokked the proper transformations, I was extremely excited, and I remembered that math forever since. Pretty much every other thing I learned for game development I understand well and remember 'till now.

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

#142

Post by TeMPOraL »

pikachu_is_cool wrote: post #123
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…

Just fair warning, most of the people who are responding to you in disagreement have never actually met a un/homeschooled person / person's parents in real life. The reason why unschooling is so bad is entirely social. Homeschooled kids are crippled socially. It sounds good, feels good, etc. but once you actually see it with your own eyes it makes sense why this hasn't caught on.

> It sounds good, feels good, etc. but once you actually see it with your own eyes it makes sense why this hasn't caught on.

I doubt that. To me a more plausible and equally good explanation is that schools are primarily places where parents can drop their kids off for half of the day to be able to go to work. Homeschooling requires someone to stay at home and do the schooling, which is becoming less and less affordable for most of the people.

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

#143

Post by TeMPOraL »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #132
kevinmchugh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess that HN users are typically people who performed well academically. I certainly did. Think about the kids in class who couldn't sit still, couldn't stop talking. Oftentimes they ended up with an ADD or ADHD diagnosis and a prescription. Being told that you act abnormally and need medicine to stop you from being you is understandably damaging.

Except if you consider that ADHD is a consistent syndrome with extremely predictable negative consequences. I believe this attitude about ADHD being some kind of "conformity issue" is almost as dangerous as "vaccines cause autism". It certainly is about as wrong...

I don't know. ADHD looks to me like a normal consequence of putting a small kid in a jail and telling to listen to boring stuff for half a day without moving or talking, or else. Think of how you'd behave in such situation as an adult.

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

#144

Post by ejstronge »

Lalakh wrote: post #128
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…

> I'm pretty sure that's closer to 4 or 5 for most kids who grow up in families from the Cornell / John Hopkins pedigree. If you met two 10 year olds, one learnt to read at age 4 the other at age 8- do you think you could tell the difference? Would it really matter? Actually more than likely it would- the one who learnt at age 8 is more likely to read for pleasure. An overly formal approach in the early years can be…

Thanks for linking to an article that at least mentions research - it's easy to go off of general feelings in conversations like this.

I just want to point out, however, that pages 16-19 do not conclude that children who learn at 8 years old have a greater pleasure than children who learn at 4. The conclusion, which isn't a hard one to agree with, is that teachers should find ways to make reading more exciting.

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

#145

Post by ejstronge »

learc83 wrote: post #43
crucifiction wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

You have to be careful with these studies - it's possible (and the authors of the research article are worried about this) that the later learners had parents who consciously chose to teach them later.

This sort of decision implies a level of involvement in a child's education that might, on its own, lead to better reading comprehension.

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

#146

Post by burntsushi »

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…

The existence of people like you---someone who would endeavor to rip children from their parents for trying an alternative education plan---is absolutely terrifying. It's the kind of terrifying that sinks deep into your bones and gives you a chill.

Coupled with the power of CPS, it's actually something that gives me some serious concerns about having children in the first place. Imagine, some nut and his insistence on conformity is enough to, at the very least, make my life a living hell.

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

#147

Post by xexers »

The author implies that self directly learning is always better than classroom. I can think of examples where this is not true.

For example, I know dozens of people who were never formally taught how to touch type on a computer keyboard. Most of them simply learned to type on their own by using the keyboard. They often type with 2 fingers on each hand (index and middle). They get to a level that they feel is "good enough" which is usually about 20-30 words per minute. However, with that approach, they will NEVER get up to 60-100 words per minute which you can easily do if you were taught to properly touch type. I often feel these people are hindered by the way they learned how to type.

I often prefer to learn from experts, which sometimes means forgoing learning how to do it myself and simply being taught the "right way". I know seeing the words "the right way" may make some people cringe, but there are a lot of things in this world to which that expression applies. If the kids want to challenge that after they have learned the "right way", be my guest... and I hope you find a better way.

my $0.02

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

#148

Post by Lalakh »

ejstronge wrote: post #144
Lalakh wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure that's closer to 4 or 5 for most kids who grow up in families from the Cornell / John Hopkins pedigree. If you met two 10 year olds, one learnt to read at age 4 the other at age 8- do you think you could tell the difference? Would it really matter? Actually more than likely it would- the one who learnt at age 8 is more likely to read for pleasure. An overly formal approach in the early years can be…

Thanks for linking to an article that at least mentions research - it's easy to go off of general feelings in conversations like this. I just want to point out, however, that pages 16-19 do not conclude that children who learn at 8 years old have a greater pleasure than children who learn at 4. The conclusion, which isn't a hard one to agree with, is that teachers should find ways to make reading more exciting.

Agreed- just think it is worth pointing out that there is no proven advantage in teaching children to read early,that there can actually be some concerns with teaching reading at an early age, and that there are also no disadvantages to learning to read later. These are worth a read to:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029435.000-too-much-...

http://www.otago.ac.nz/news/news/otago006408.html

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

#149

Post by judk »

xexers wrote: post #147

The author implies that self directly learning is always better than classroom. I can think of examples where this is not true. For example, I know dozens of people who were never formally taught how to touch type on a computer keyboard. Most of them simply learned to type on their own by using the keyboard. They often type with 2 fingers on each hand (index and middle). They get to a level that they feel is "good en…

Eh, not really. Most computer-typing professionals (programmers etc) learned touch typing by natural practice. People who don't type much and never practice don't get fast. School definitely not required even for intense practice.

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

#150

Post by nekopa »

bayesianhorse wrote: post #111
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'm all for making school more fun. But self-direction? Don't forget: these are children. Most (and certainly enough) of them won't have any natural inclination to learn even reading, writing and math. The whole point of having schools is to give an external sense of direction. I think schools need to be optimized and tuned, but please, please stop these extreme experiments.

Children don't necessarily want to learn,they want to do things. And sometimes their lack of knowledge stops them from doing what they want and therefore they become motivated to learn what they need to overcome that. These are other extreme experiments, and self guided learning has been used for quite a while and quite successfully (re montessori)
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