Early-Retirement Update

We are finding that concepts that the kids are ready for come super easily — Like, there’s nothing special that an educator is going to provide — And concepts that the kids aren’t ready for can still be taught but it’s takes much more time and effort. I think this is one of the reasons why school (and teaching) can seem difficult and overwhelming. We expect all ten-year-olds to be at the same level and for a single teacher to get these kids to all learn the same stuff at the same time. It’s Sisyphean!

If you decide to go-all-in with homeschooling you can tailor your child’s education to each child and go with the flow. The difficulty is if you want to be able to go back to regular school because they are going to all over the map, they might be 4 grades ahead in math and 4 grades behind in history.

You also get to choose what you want your children to learn. It’s a double-edged sword. My kids are getting a very science-heavy and pragmatic education while some bible-banger down the street might be teaching frickin’ creationism. For society, I don’t have a good solution to this problem. But as a parent I’m excited that I can ditch the memorization bullshit and focus on providing my children an educational and intellectual framework that will keep them growing intellectually for the rest of their lives, if they so choose.

The gist of my approach is: Know what subjects exist and what problems they can solve and know how to teach yourself those subjects when they are needed. That’s basically it. Teaching is helping them find ways to help themselves and talking through philosophical problems with them.