When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by PeterisP » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:05 AM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #20

joncp wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you and your brother are highly intelligent and maybe didn't really need school to absorb the stuff you needed. I wonder how that approach would work with a more average child.

Intelligence is not hereditary for the most part, and there's a huge environmental component to it. Clearly this household had the right mix of freedom and strictness to encourage development of creative intelligent thinking. Probably rubs off of adults with same attitudes. Of course it's not 100% I'm pretty sure if OP had more siblings one of them would be bound to be dumb as a rock.

Well, environmental components (such as the style of upbringing e.g. 'mix of freedom and strictness', and simply socioeconomic status, which affects quite a lot) are also quite heritable and shared between siblings, so we'd expect their intelligence to be even more correlated. However, intelligence is hereditary for the most part compared to that shared environment - for example, adoption studies show that the IQ scores of adopted children show higher correlations with the IQ scores of their biological parents than with those of their adopted parents.

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

#122

Post by BugWatch » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

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…

Would you mind revealing your brother's nom de plume (assuming he writes under one)?

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

#123

Post by GhostVII » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:12 AM UTC

Sounds like a bad idea to me, at least for most people. The reality is that if you want to be able to get a good job in an area you are interested in, you will need to be able to work with others, and get up on time, and work at a task you might not be as excited about. And you need to have a basic understanding of math, language, writing reports, etc. Most kids aren't going to learn any of that if they are free to sleep in and browse the web and learn whatever they want. Sure some kids might be motivated enough to learn that on their own, but based on what I have seen from my parents grade 5 class, most of them will just spend all day on Fortnight.

And maybe for some people it's OK to never learn those things, and be stuck working at lower skill jobs. That's legitimately an option, there are probably many people who are happy with a simpler life. But for me, I'm glad I went to a proper school and learned everything that I did there, and didn't have the opportunity to have a great career taken from me because I didn't go to a traditional school.

I find the reason for the family in the article to be pretty poor

Fear of school shootings and concern over “the racial bias in schools, the school-to-prison pipeline,” as well as many schools’ stunted curriculum in Black history, drove the McQueens to begin their experiment with at-home learning in 2015

Fear of school shootings is obviously a bad reason to avoid school given how many people die in car crashes each year, statistically the risk is negligible. And if you want more black history curriculum it's not hard to supliment it at home. I think you are much more likely to go to prison if you are uneducated. Racial bias concerns is a legitimate reason to avoid traditional schools though.

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

#124

Post by TheAdamAndChe » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:13 AM UTC

sfink wrote: post #120

somethoughts wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a safer approach would be "home after schooling" or to follow this new terminology "unafterschooling". Basically give kids time for unstructured learning using the hours after school/after homework study time that are currently effectively used up toiling at zero sum, super structured activities strictly aimed at getting into college.

So you're going to send kids to 7 or so hours of being pressured into paying attention to stuff they're generally not that interested in learning, then some amount of time doing mostly make-work activities, and you expect them to be interested in exploring learning opportunities in the minimal remaining bits of time? (And for older grades, they're also getting up well before their bodies want to.) Would you be able t…

Kids learn through play and curiosity. I learned vast amounts after school from video games, and I read before going to sleep.

Personally I could have used more socialization, but there is plenty of time after school to learn.

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

#125

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

Kednicma wrote: post #2

I wonder whether maths really can be self-taught for more than about two generations. It has been known since the beginning of maths that it must be taught by teachers who understand the ideas to students who challenge the descriptions.

Newton famously taught himsef Calculus. As did Leibnitz.

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

#126

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #114

I was homeschooled 1-5, private 6-8, public 9, homeschooled again 10-12. A couple observations: - homeschooling is efficient. I only needed a few hours per day of school. - homeschooling is a religion for some people (who end up in articles) but there are lots of cool people. - “homeschooling” is often way less “sitting at home with mother learning math” than people think. We took tons of trips, did cooperative schoo…

[deleted]

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

#127

Post by jjcm » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:27 AM UTC

I was homeschooled with my brother up until high school, and it was a mixed experience for me. Academically both myself and my brother were far, far above our peers in public school. The main difference was that especially with math, we had understanding of the material rather than just knowledge. Our parents flipped houses a lot so we'd often have to use our math skills regularly when helping out. How much area is a deck that's 15'x40' with a curved section at the end that has a 7.5' radius? Applied geometry was reinforced heavily. In addition we were able to do more community activities, which boosted our ability to talk with people older than us. The disadvantage however was in our ability to socialize with our peers. The trope of homeschooled kids being weird is 100% true, and is a factor of a lack of a peer group to test social norms with. When you have an insular network your set of social norms only evolves around what's acceptable within your family. I personally struggled a lot with socializing and I wasn't really able to properly integrate until I was ~25 or so.

I disagree with Amanda's statement that you have to have faith in a child's wonder to facilitate their development. I would say the onus is on the parents to provide things to wonder about. This is a hard task, one that my mother worked endlessly on. It was a 50 hour a week job for her to educate us. Even with that though there are still the social downsides. For parents that are considering it, I would still recommend it, but know that you're taking on a significant responsibility and that you'll need to find after school programs for your kids to have a chance to socialize with other kids their age. This can be hard to find, especially in earlier years.

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

#128

Post by timwaagh » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

Kednicma wrote: post #2

I wonder whether maths really can be self-taught for more than about two generations. It has been known since the beginning of maths that it must be taught by teachers who understand the ideas to students who challenge the descriptions.

thats mostly a romantic fantasy. reality is poring over books and practicing by doing the exercises.

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

#129

Post by mgh2 » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:29 AM UTC

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 be led astray than "follow their passions" (at this age, really?). They will more likely be manipulated by vices if not constantly monitored.

3. Not all parents are good teachers. Usually, responsible families understand the value proposition- they wish their children have a better future- and education is the ticket that provides these opportunities.

4. 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.

Public schools, with all its flaws, are the best instruments to free the masses. Knowledge is democratized power to avoid the corruption that absolute power entails.

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

#130

Post by TaupeRanger » Tue, Oct 20, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

xtagon wrote: post #11

hereme888 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's impressive, and sounds like what I was thinking for my future children. I just have no idea where to start. Got any resources for me to learn how to do these things for my children?

My story is similar to that of the parent comment and I would say the most important thing is to be supportive of the activities and interests that your future children are driven towards. If they're into computers, let them tinker with computers. If they like to take things apart, give them your old electrical components and teach them about electrical safety and soldering. If they like making things, show them some…

It's not that simple for the parent-teacher. For 90% of kids, their "interests" are video games, playing with toys, and TikTok if they're older. The hard part is getting your kids interested in things that can lead to an actual education. If you are waiting for your kids to become interested in History in order to teach it to them, most of them would never learn it. You have to do the hard work of making it interesting in the first place.