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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

#131

Post by [deleted] »

lutusp wrote: post #117
bayesianhorse wrote: post #110

The case against abandoning conventional schooling: In developing countries, every month a child goes to school significantly increases final IQ and future earning power. You think you have an ADHD epidemic on your hand? Just wait until children who don't have ADHD don't have to learn to sit still and discipline themselves and their emotions.

> The case against abandoning conventional schooling: In developing countries, every month a child goes to school significantly increases final IQ and future earning power. That may be true, but it omits a control group -- a comparison with people who don't attend school. It therefore lacks a scientific basis for comparison. Therefore it's not a "case against abandoning conventional schooling", it is a case where mea…

[deleted]

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

#132

Post by bayesianhorse »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #60
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…

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...

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

#133

Post by glenra »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #118
glenra wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order to read you need to be exposed to books and also somebody to read with you until you can do it on your own. That's what parents do. You don't need teachers for that. You found reading "boring to start with"? That seems sad. Me, I wanted to read almost every minute of every day - I was always in the middle of multiple books, read while walking, read books held secretly under the desk during boring class lec…

I think you're making my point for me. Kids of above average intelligence with the right parents can do well with unschooling, but then they also do well with regular schooling. A kids educational outcome would become linked to that of their parents and other adults in their environment, even more so than is currently the case. In fact it's worse than that , because as soon as one generation messes up because for exa…

> Kids of above average intelligence with the right parents can do well with unschooling, but then they also do well with regular schooling.

That is not true, and is kind of what this whole discussion is about. My impression is that there might be some sort of happy middle that isn't too damaged by regular schooling, but towards both ends of the bell curve are kids who are poorly served by it. Smart kids are often bored to tears, lose intrinsic motivation to learn, lose out on the opportunity to make good use of their youthful energy and developing brains, lose the opportunity to REALLY LEARN and GET STUFF DONE because they're wasting all their time in classes being talked at by idiots. Or at least, that's what it seems like to some of them looking back (including me).

I think you're needlessly universalizing this. Nobody is saying that EVERYONE MUST unschool. People are advocating that unschooling is a good OPTION for many kids, not that we need to dismantle the entire existing school system to make everyone switch to the new system. If we consider unschooling as merely an OPTION for kids/families that seem well suited to it, while there still ALSO exists the traditional option for everyone else, do your objections mostly go away?

Why does it bother you if kids who "can do well with unschooling" in fact do get to pick that option?

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

#134

Post by jiggy2011 »

glenra wrote: post #133
jiggy2011 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're making my point for me. Kids of above average intelligence with the right parents can do well with unschooling, but then they also do well with regular schooling. A kids educational outcome would become linked to that of their parents and other adults in their environment, even more so than is currently the case. In fact it's worse than that , because as soon as one generation messes up because for exa…

> Kids of above average intelligence with the right parents can do well with unschooling, but then they also do well with regular schooling. That is not true, and is kind of what this whole discussion is about. My impression is that there might be some sort of happy middle that isn't too damaged by regular schooling, but towards both ends of the bell curve are kids who are poorly served by it. Smart kids are often bo…

fchollet's original post in this subthread reads as a criticism of traditional schooling in general rather than in specific cases. Also, the article is light on evidence to suggest that unschooling actually does lead to superior educational outcomes in any cases. Data on this is likely hard to come by considering that unschooling parents are self selected by definition.

The problem seems to be giving sufficiently talented students a sufficiently challenging education , for this I think institutions such as grammer schools that used to be popular in the UK are a more equitable solution.

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

#136

Post by LunaSea »

peterfirefly wrote: post #100
barry-cotter wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Secondly, school serves as a valuable social and educational center to most children. Even though elementary education is imperfect, it does not mean that a viable solution is to simply do away with it. In fact, I think the social interaction with other children of similar age is extremely important to developing social skills and friendships. Great, let's make primary school a place to park children so their parent…

Got a newer reference than Benezet 1936? Got a reference where they tested it with good math teachers? Has the study been replicated in a country with a different (better) math tradition, such as France?

Not OP, but it wouldn't matter that a good math teacher would've had a more positive effect.

Most teachers are shit at what they do and that won't change.

There are too many advantages in a lot of countries for becoming a teacher (civil servant) - salary excluded.

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

#137

Post by walterbell »

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...

Do you know how the DSM ("diagnostic manual") is edited, http://www.dsm4tr.com ?

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

#138

Post by lostcolony »

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…

Choice, but also, role models. How does a kid know they want to learn to read, except to see others reading? How does a kid know they want to learn math, except to see someone else able to solve a useful problem they had no idea could be solved?

In a thread on income inequality, someone posited that the best indicator for economic success was whether a person was read to as a child. They meant it as a holistic indicator over a number of factors, and I think one large one is that it meant the child early on had a role model for education.

I know for myself (anecdotal evidence, yeah yeah), I chafed very early on to learn to read, because my parents could and I couldn't. Similarly, early on, while I could figure out some kinds of math (the basic of multiplication by seeing arrangements of windows, "oh, three fours is twelve!", and then being given a toy that had the multiplication tables on opaque buttons that when pressed would show the answer, I recall other times when people were able to solve problems (long division, multiplication of 2 or more digit numbers) that I didn't know how to solve, and I -desperately- wanted to. For a friend, who came from a rural family whose only owned book was a Bible, largely unread, it was when I introduced him to video games (RPGs), and fantasy novels, that he really began to read, and actually to purchase books himself.

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

#139

Post by fchollet »

lostcolony wrote: post #138
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…

Choice, but also, role models. How does a kid know they want to learn to read, except to see others reading? How does a kid know they want to learn math, except to see someone else able to solve a useful problem they had no idea could be solved? In a thread on income inequality, someone posited that the best indicator for economic success was whether a person was read to as a child. They meant it as a holistic indica…

Completely agree --the fundamental problem to solve is that of motivation, and motivation will very often come from role models and mentors.

The function of a mentor is not limited to providing an example of what can be learned and why it should be learned. A mentor should also directly provide motivation reenforcement whenever the kid shows progress on the right path.

The best education will be self-direction in a culturally rich environment that rewards and celebrates learning and educative achievements.

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

#140

Post by TeMPOraL »

glenra wrote: post #89
jiggy2011 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

Can't upvote this enough.

I owe my programming career and my English language knowledge solely to video games. I learned English because I really wanted to know what my hero and NPCs were talking about in Fallout. I learned programming because I wanted to make a StarCraft clone.

I remember taking the end exam in secondary school; there was an assignment there that basically amounted to summing up hypotenuses of right triangles, deriving them from known triangle legs beforehand. When we all left the exam room, kids were cheering, "this task was simple, you had to use Pythagorean theorem!". I was cheering, "this task was simple, you had to sum up lengths of 2D vectors! By the way, wtf is that Pyythagorean thing?".

I learned a lot of maths quickly by 15 thanks to game development - things like vectors, matrices, trigonometry. I didn't always have the right terminology (but that I acquired later on the way), but I understood what they are, how they worked, and I had a purpose for learning them.

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