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

nytimes.com

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

#201

Post by jinjin2 »

absolutelyrad wrote: post #169
mgh2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. NO ITS NOT! This is a lie. There were reports in 1960's when the congress asked for an experiment to different ways of teaching. The children taught in a 1 to 1 way performed enormously better c…

Are you referring to Blooms 2 sigma problem (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom%27s_2_sigma_problem)?

While it did show that, that research was not done until the 80’s.

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

#202

Post by geomark »

xtagon wrote: post #83
hereme888 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. May I ask what its like for job interviews?

Nerve-wracking because homeschooling teaches you nothing about career readiness without experience, but that's basically true whether or not you got to spend most of your childhood experimenting with things you actually end up enjoying. For me part of it was luck (lucky that someone took a chance on me and I grew into it from there), but looking back I think putting yourself into a position where you get to practice…

"...homeschooling teaches you nothing about career readiness without experience..."

But homeschooling gives you the flexibility to pursue experiences that would be hard to manage if on a traditional school schedule.

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

#203

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #195
barry-cotter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, totalitarian states have used education to indoctrinate masses to maintain order and power. Depends on who does the teaching and how it is taught, that is why critical thinking is key. None of the German Empire, Weimar Republic or Russian Empire were totalitarian states. If education is protective against indoctrination the effect is at best weak. A lively marketplace of ideas is no guard against organized thu…

Which is what is so depressing about "cancel culture" and radical redefinition of what is "hate speech". Liberals and the rational center are not defending those ideals which gave us our modern Western civilisation. Even on this website, merely questioning the validity of some of the aspects of the politically correct zeitgeist will get your post flagged and hidden from public consumption.

Free speech as how some people like to define it now (anything can and should be said) was never an ideal, and certainly never reality.

It’s funny how the people complaining about “cancel culture” (usually a roundabout way of complaining you can’t say racist things anymore) are completely fine with twisting especially history to benefit themselves.

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

#204

Post by Foobar8568 »

hndamien wrote: post #200
barry-cotter wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to me, is fucking terrifying. Why? It takes 40 contact hours to teach a nine year old to read, according to John Taylor Gatto. You can teach all of primary school Math in the same time to a 12 year old. What’s the point of doing it earlier? There are little or no compounding gains from doing so. Countries that start teaching reading at 4 don’t do better than those that wait until 7. See France versus Germany or Fin…

I taught a 5 year old to read to a 15 year old level in 20 contact hours for reference. Still room for improvement qualitatively but I think an observing scientist would say that they can read well, but not smoothly like an adult.

My teacher daughter was shocked she could read at 5,diring our first meeting she asked us : "do you know she can read?" I replied, "yes I know", she followed up with a "like an adult" almost frightened haha. Well I did tell her that she could read and write, I guess she was used of parents bullshitting on their kids achievements.

Remove a screen and a kid can have crazy skills.

Screens are really the opium of the people.

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

#205

Post by Noos »

I don't like discussing this, because smart people completely turn their brains off when it comes to discussing it. Somehow homeschooling creates Lake Wobegone, a place where every child manages to be above average.

The reality is more homeschooling is completely unregulated in the majority of states, so people can do almost anything.

Most states require no formal education from the parents at all to teach. Many don't require any form of assessment or to keep a portfolio or records of education. Some have required subjects but no real enforcement of them being taught. Any form of standardized testing or auditing may not even be required. If you wanted to keep your kid at home and not educate them at all, you could easily do it in most states.

Would you really bet a system like we have now would provide better outcomes overall?

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

#206

Post by srg0 »

ornornor wrote: post #196
fierarul wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I'd say the plague of fake news shows that the current crop of educated population is not capable of critical thinking.

Not sure why you were downvoted: the traction fake news, anti 5G, and anti vaccine movements get clearly show that there is an issue where critical thinking is concerned.

I'm afraid that unschooling correlates to parents being antivac, anti 5G, etc.

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

#207

Post by knaq »

mgh2 wrote: post #152
vivekd wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds good in theory but research seems to suggest that homeschoolers overwhelmingly perform better on every single metric. Although I'll grant that there may be data bias in that smarter and more devoted parents are more likely to homeschool. https://www.nheri.org/research-facts-on-homeschooling/#:~:te... .

I just quickly checked its references: two journals that compromise a big chunk of the cited sources have very low impact factors. Unless they are using a diff. metric for education journals or they are relatively new, I would not consider this a reliable report 1. https://www.resurchify.com/all_ranking_details_2.php?id=7414 2. https://academic-accelerator.com/Impact-Factor-IF/Peabody-Jo... . 3. https://www.scijourna…

To be fair, it seems obvious that the education industry (those journals) would have a bias against homeschooling. Getting published by people who hate your message is just not likely.

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

#208

Post by JeanMarcS »

srg0 wrote: post #206
ornornor wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you were downvoted: the traction fake news, anti 5G, and anti vaccine movements get clearly show that there is an issue where critical thinking is concerned.

I'm afraid that unschooling correlates to parents being antivac, anti 5G, etc.

Well, for example in France, the category where you can find the most antimask persons is high educated women in their 50s.

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

#209

Post by knaq »

absolutelyrad wrote: post #169
mgh2 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. NO ITS NOT! This is a lie. There were reports in 1960's when the congress asked for an experiment to different ways of teaching. The children taught in a 1 to 1 way performed enormously better c…

For the many people questioning this, I'm pretty sure you refer to Direct Instruction:

https://www.nifdi.org/what-is-di/di-vs-di.html

Research is available there if you click the "Research" tab. The main research seems to be Project Follow Through:

https://www.nifdi.org/research/history-of-di-research/projec...

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

#210

Post by Thorrez »

knaq wrote: post #207
mgh2 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just quickly checked its references: two journals that compromise a big chunk of the cited sources have very low impact factors. Unless they are using a diff. metric for education journals or they are relatively new, I would not consider this a reliable report 1. https://www.resurchify.com/all_ranking_details_2.php?id=7414 2. https://academic-accelerator.com/Impact-Factor-IF/Peabody-Jo... . 3. https://www.scijourna…

To be fair, it seems obvious that the education industry (those journals) would have a bias against homeschooling. Getting published by people who hate your message is just not likely.

Do academia (universities) and high/elementary school have such loyalty to each other? I thought that most colleges were quite friendly to homeschooled students.
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