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Would You Unschool Your Child?

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Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#71

Post by jiganti »

vyrotek wrote: post #70
edanm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I'm most excited about for the future of the internet. Forget Amazon - anyone with an internet connection has access to audio and video lectures, notes and classwork from Harvard, MIT and others. Almost anything you want to learn can be picked up online, and (illegal though it is) any book you want to read can be found online. But the best part is, this hasn't sunk in yet . So few people understand…

While I agree, I still think there's an important part missing. Testing and Application. While studying topics that you have chosen out of interest is fun, I don't think most people have the discipline to really learn something. That is, until there is an expectation that their knowledge will be tested in some way. There is lots to learn out there, but I wish there were better metrics to help even just myself underst…

Isn't the fact that you are interested in something motivation in itself? In school, you're required to take tests, an extrinsic motivator that implies your life will be better later if you buckle down and learn things you might not particularly love. But reading on your own when you could choose to do other things means that there's an intrinsic motivation, a satisfaction from just acquiring the new information.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#72

Post by jerf »

reader5000 wrote: post #5
tommynazareth wrote: post #2

This page isn't loading for me, but to answer the question: absolutely. My whole goal of becoming financially independent is based on my desire for two things: the freedom to continue my own 'unschooling', and the ability to invest all of my time and energy into my family. Sending my children to a detention center five days a week is incompatible with the sort of family life I'd like to have. The biggest argument for…

Agreed, one of the ironies of school is that one of its sole conceivable benefits is socialization, which is heavily punished and restricted. I have no idea where it was agreed upon that sitting passively listening to middle-aged people lecture for six hours a day is in anyway helpful to a young person, but whatever.

I think the absolute biggest hurdle that homeschooling faces is that people always compare it against the Platonic ideal of schooling. You know what? I'd send my kid to the Platonic ideal of a school, no problem.

But no such thing exists.

Instead we must compare real schools to homeschooling. Yes, the same real schools that feature in the news for their sinking curriculum, over medicating, lowering standards, increasing bureaucratization, etc etc. And yes, there are good aspects to it as well, but my point is that it's not fair to pretend our schools are shining exemplars of knowledge and wisdom when we all damn well know that's not true. It's disingenuous.

I also aggressively mock the idea that school is the only place to learn socialization skills. School teaches you how to deal with other children of the exact same age in the artificial environment of a school. This is an exceptionally poor environment to learn socialization in. It is only one notch better than being totally isolated; parading this around like it's some sort of advantage only serves to highlight just how low the standards schools are held to are. Meanwhile, homeschoolers should not be totally isolated, if they are, you're just plain doing it wrong, and I rather strongly suspect that by any rational measure your average homeschooled kid is far more ready for adult life than your average school kid. And as far as I'm concerned, that's what really matters.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#73

Post by tptacek »

SandB0x wrote: post #20

Wait wait wait. I don't understand this. Unschooling simply seems to mean "being a good parent". Can someone explain the distinction? The Unschooling website doesn't help me either: "Unschooling is following your children's lead...Unschooling isn't a method of instruction, it's a different way of looking at learning..." Outside of school, my parents encouraged and helped me to learn interesting subjects, play musical…

Doesn't "unschooling" mean "unstructured homeschooling"? People who believe in unschooling generally aren't sending their kids to school at all.

I think this might get tricky because "unschooling" is a new-ish term, and is pretty overtly trying to pick up steam as a "movement" or a "sensibility" or an "ethic" and is deliberately being inclusive; no doubt someone on HN is going to chime in and say they're an unschooler who sends their kids to public K12.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#74

Post by Qz »

mquander wrote: post #45

My contribution: If you're doing this, and you have a smart kid, for God's sake, buy a lot of books, buy every book you can think of and put it in your house. I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10. My parents had a lot of books, but even so, I ended up having to re-read the ones that were interesting to me instead of pushing further an…

$500 would have lasted me about 6-8 months when I was a kid...

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#75

Post by whyenot »

mquander wrote: post #45

My contribution: If you're doing this, and you have a smart kid, for God's sake, buy a lot of books, buy every book you can think of and put it in your house. I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10. My parents had a lot of books, but even so, I ended up having to re-read the ones that were interesting to me instead of pushing further an…

Better yet, get them a library card. It will open up a whole new world, especially with inter-library loans, and is a whole lot less expensive. Really, it's like pouring gasoline on a fire :)

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#76

Post by Retric »

j_baker wrote: post #66
SandB0x wrote: post #20

Wait wait wait. I don't understand this. Unschooling simply seems to mean "being a good parent". Can someone explain the distinction? The Unschooling website doesn't help me either: "Unschooling is following your children's lead...Unschooling isn't a method of instruction, it's a different way of looking at learning..." Outside of school, my parents encouraged and helped me to learn interesting subjects, play musical…

I think you're thinking about the parents when you should be thinking about the kids. Let me explain. As a kid, I spent all my free time reading the encyclopedia. I'm naturally curious, and could probably have learned more researching on my own than going to school. Of course, I'm atypical, but the point is that I didn't so much need instruction as I needed guidance. There are many kids who are like that and will eve…

Yep, I was "homeschooled" from 4th through 8th grade. I don’t think the term “unschooled” really applied to me, but I was under minimal direction.

From what I can remember, I generally read the required textbooks, fill out the workbooks, and by mid December and was left to my own devices the rest of the time. I suspect things where slightly more structured than that, but my mother has a double doctorate in education and was more than willing to let me be most of the time.

I suspect the second half of the year was probably more productive, I generally watched MPT (Maryland Public Television) all day until cartoons started at 3pm. After that I would read books or do some computer programming. Toss in some trips to DC area museums / area historical sites and I learned a lot while having fun.

PS: The other option would have been to accelerate things and finish HS by 14 etc, but I don't think there is much value in that path. So, once a homeschooled child is ahead of the curve, letting them explore their interests seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#77

Post by whyenot »

edanm wrote: post #60
mquander wrote: post #45

My contribution: If you're doing this, and you have a smart kid, for God's sake, buy a lot of books, buy every book you can think of and put it in your house. I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10. My parents had a lot of books, but even so, I ended up having to re-read the ones that were interesting to me instead of pushing further an…

This is the thing I'm most excited about for the future of the internet. Forget Amazon - anyone with an internet connection has access to audio and video lectures, notes and classwork from Harvard, MIT and others. Almost anything you want to learn can be picked up online, and (illegal though it is) any book you want to read can be found online. But the best part is, this hasn't sunk in yet . So few people understand…

But the best part is, this hasn't sunk in yet. So few people understand that the world has gotten to a stage where you can get a university-level education by yourself, based on what you feel like learning, from the comfort of your own home.

But you can't, at least not in the biological sciences, unless your home has an autoclave, ultracentrifuge, laminar flow hood, etc. Same could be said for civil engineering, chemistry, or any other discipline with a lab or field component.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#78

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mquander wrote: post #45

My contribution: If you're doing this, and you have a smart kid, for God's sake, buy a lot of books, buy every book you can think of and put it in your house. I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10. My parents had a lot of books, but even so, I ended up having to re-read the ones that were interesting to me instead of pushing further an…

> I can point at three quarters of my interests and trace them straight back to books I picked off the shelf when I was 10.

But that's largely because of your particular character another child (as you were) would have benefited little from the same books and been disengaged and miserable. Instead they might benefit from a bench, tools and materials that would lead them to gain skills that could bring them later into construction or engineering or something practical.

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#79

Post by pbhjpbhj »

Retric wrote: post #76
j_baker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're thinking about the parents when you should be thinking about the kids. Let me explain. As a kid, I spent all my free time reading the encyclopedia. I'm naturally curious, and could probably have learned more researching on my own than going to school. Of course, I'm atypical, but the point is that I didn't so much need instruction as I needed guidance. There are many kids who are like that and will eve…

Yep, I was "homeschooled" from 4th through 8th grade. I don’t think the term “unschooled” really applied to me, but I was under minimal direction. From what I can remember, I generally read the required textbooks, fill out the workbooks, and by mid December and was left to my own devices the rest of the time. I suspect things where slightly more structured than that, but my mother has a double doctorate in education…

>From what I can remember, I generally read the required textbooks, fill out the workbooks, and by mid December and was left to my own devices the rest of the time.

Required by whom?

Re: Would You Unschool Your Child?

#80

Post by jsharpe »

kls wrote: post #67

We Homeschool, My wife is a full time mom, she was a practitioner so has a lot of Bio background. I Freelance, and generally work from home. I have a friend here in my home town that came back from the valley after a successful exit who introduced us to the concept of unschooling. I was extremely skeptical of homeschooling in general, when my wife decided that we should do it. But with the gangs, drugs and actual lac…

As always, correlation is not causation. I was unschooled, and a lot of people get into it precisely because school is simply too slow for their kids. It isn't surprising that these kids would go on to be very bright.
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