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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

#211

Post by watwut »

barry-cotter wrote: post #149
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…

> 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. An educated population is also less prone to fall into totalitarianism. Germany was among the most highly educated countries in the world in the 1930s. The Russian Revolution was an elite phenomenon. In a country of peasants the Revolution was of and by the intelli…

The point of Germany being highly educated is overdone. The country was also heavily militarized, violent and generally massive mess. Hitler was not representing educated elite, quite the opposite. Part of that all was backslash against modernity, against arts etc.

In Russia, peasants were largely illiterate. As in, unable to read and write. The revolution did came from people who were able to read and write, obviously, it is kinda hard to coordinate without that. For that matter, monarchy was kept by educated people too, simply because you cant keep bureaucracy without writing.

But it was not some kind of great education they would have. And their propensity for violence had more to do with how violent Russia was even before then with anything education.

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

#212

Post by 3131s »

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…

I wanted this, I essentially begged for it for 12 years with no success. I didn't need any extra motivation to read or do math problems and I was way above my grade level in both, but had behavioral problems because I was so bored in school. I still ended up with very high SAT and ACT scores too, but eventually broke down toward the end of college and graduated on time but with a few bad grades. My parents would have lost their minds if I had dropped out during any of the first three years when I also had an A-average GPA.

The public schools I went to all had a gifted program in various forms, which most years was just one hour a week and taught topics that should have been available to every student in the school. Amazingly, the teacher showed us the structure of a URL in around 1994 when I was in first grade.

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

#213

Post by jacinda »

petertodd wrote: post #187
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... .

> That sounds good in theory but research seems to suggest that homeschoolers overwhelmingly perform better on every single metric. Being homeschooled and unschooled myself, I got to see that first hand in other families. But I don't think it actually means that homeschooling/unschooling is universally better: plenty of people try it, find it doesn't work for them, and quit. My best guess is it increases the variance…

> plenty of people try it, find it doesn't work for them, and quit.

This seems like it would lend itself to selection bias - only people for whom homeschooling is a good fit continue to pursue it.

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

#214

Post by fiblye »

fierarul wrote: post #194
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…

> 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.

Now imagine how much worse it'd be if more people were homeschooled and not exposed to opposing views. If their only source of information was a parent who believed in strange conspiracy theories and only associated with friends and family who had similar views.

School's greatest purpose is putting kids in a room with a couple dozen other kids that they may disagree with or even hate, and forcing them to learn how to deal with their existence.

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

#215

Post by watwut »

barry-cotter wrote: post #164
mgh2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I won't deny that even the educated can be manipulated- look at our generation affected by corporate and political agendas. 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. Given this prerequisite, is an educated population easier to be manipulated than an illiterate one?

> 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…

Weimar Republic was democracy, because WWI victors forced Germany into democracy. Weimar Republic was also failing mess, from start to end. With fights and screaming in parlament, with political murders, with attempted revolutions and with increasing violence in the streets. Germans themselves did not wanted democracy at any point. They have found loss in war humiliating and unfair.

Weimar Republic also had highly militarized civil service, comited to military values rather then to democracy.

Russian Empire was dictatorship to large extend. Not as much as communism, but it was not democracy with political freedoms. The little reforms they had were basically too little too late. There were little of such a thing as citizen right in most places. Peasants also had huge illiteracy rates.

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

#216

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

tmaly wrote: post #148
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…

>It is there to teach us critical thinking I believe the No Child Left Behind Act changed that.

Alas, often "no child left behind" also means "no child let ahead".

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

#217

Post by watwut »

JeanMarcS wrote: post #208
srg0 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Source? In all statistics I have seen up to now, men were more likely to be antimask then women. So French women seems to be outliers.

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

#218

Post by petertodd »

jacinda wrote: post #213
petertodd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That sounds good in theory but research seems to suggest that homeschoolers overwhelmingly perform better on every single metric. Being homeschooled and unschooled myself, I got to see that first hand in other families. But I don't think it actually means that homeschooling/unschooling is universally better: plenty of people try it, find it doesn't work for them, and quit. My best guess is it increases the variance…

> plenty of people try it, find it doesn't work for them, and quit. This seems like it would lend itself to selection bias - only people for whom homeschooling is a good fit continue to pursue it.

Exactly my point!

Homeschooling/unschooling very likely works well for some (I think it worked well for me). But that doesn't mean it would work well on average.

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

#219

Post by watwut »

fxtentacle wrote: post #44

My impression has always been that "unschooling" is mostly an indicator of wealth, and so it'll correlate well with future success. If both parents have to work a regular day job, there's nobody at home to teach the kids so unschooling is not possible. And if only one parent stays at home, they will also yearn for some free time and push for getting the kids signed up for school. The only situation where I can imagin…

I think it is not so much money, but more whether mom is content being stay at home mom being completely fully dedicated to family, being content being dependent on husband and without being independent source of income. That is situation that can get you quite trapped it the things go wrong.

It is also quite isolating situation, some women don't like basically working alone all the time or have own aspirations and dreams.

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

#220

Post by fierarul »

fiblye wrote: post #214
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.

Now imagine how much worse it'd be if more people were homeschooled and not exposed to opposing views. If their only source of information was a parent who believed in strange conspiracy theories and only associated with friends and family who had similar views. School's greatest purpose is putting kids in a room with a couple dozen other kids that they may disagree with or even hate, and forcing them to learn how to…

Were you discussing high politics in the 5th grade or something? Because there's little opposing views in school up to say senior high school years!

So now school's purpose is no longer critical thinking but just socialisation with all social strata.

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