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Unschooler here. I am the only unschooler from my 12 person cohort of hippie parents who did not go to University. And I am doing okay. So I think school basica

by nibs 10y ago

Unschooler here. I am the only unschooler from my 12 person cohort of hippie parents who did not go to University. And I am doing okay. So I think school basically has no effect. Mostly just daycare. It is good at that, though.

clentaminator 10y ago
How would you know what you don't know, though? Or what you never experienced or could have experienced? Genuine question, just curious how anyone firmly on the "schooler" or "unschooler" side of the fence can know without some kind of external reference, particularly one which they themselves didn't choose in case of bias.
- nibs 10y ago
  The assumption is that if there is something you need to know and you encounter a situation that requires it, you can learn it. And if it turns out you do not need it, you saved the time. Further, formal instruction only works for some types of people, albeit probably most. Synthesis from learning when you are interested tends to be more useful than memorization. The experienced part is the scary one, although in terms of spending time with peers, doing sports, art, etc. we did not really miss out on that.
  - clentaminator 10y ago
    > and you encounter a situation that requires it, you can learn it Which is perfectly fine as long as you know what that "it" is, which assumes a base-level familiarity with subject X. The problem cases I can imagine are ones where you don't have the base familiarity, or in other words the cases where you don't know what you don't know (as opposed to knowing what you don't know and where to look for the answers). This is the case that I see leading towards the so-called "expert beginner" stage of understanding.
    - emidln 10y ago
      I'd imagine that if you can describe a problem, Googling can give you a name for the problem, with which you can google for more formal introductions to the topic (articles, papers, texts, etc). Recursive Googling is a solution to an awful lot of problems in 2016.
xanderstrike 10y ago
Sounds like your cohort was great. There was an "unschooled" girl in my college friend group who was failing remedial math and science classes in her third year. She never wanted to learn basic mathematics (we're talking long division here), so she never did, and she did not understand how to motivate herself to learn about something she wasn't already interested in. She didn't end up graduating despite the small, private school bending over backwards to try to accommodate her with personal tutoring and endlessly lengthening deadlines. She was first chair violin and had an almost full ride scholarship because of it, so she didn't lack motivation in general she just could not bring herself to care about math or science even when her degree was on the line. That's the value school has. It teaches you how to learn about things you might not be interested in, but will be useful later in life.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Hope many times do you think the subject of your comment needed to use long division "later in life"? I found it useful as a foundation to understand rationalising algebraic fractions; but outside that I've probably only used it a few times, none of which would have been essential. What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW].
  - tmptmp 10y ago
    >>What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW]. Degree is inconsequential. I'd say "if she is a human, she will do better by learning math rather than not doing it." How so? Maths is more about "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" rather than about doing "arithmetic". And I guess, "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" is a very essential thing in human life. The entire human progress depended upon this skill and in fact, the very survival of humans depended upon this skill in the earlier world which was very hostile for humans. Now coming back to the issue of having to do long division in early childhood: yes, it may be the case that you don't need to do long division (later) in your life even for once. Long division may not be that important but the concept of division (and remainder) is very important in our life. Why is it important to learn division along many other complex (boring) topics in math? It's to hone your skills to "think creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract". Proofs in geometry and algebra help you more in this conquest. Sadly, most mainstream schools these days take out the creative challenges and motivational aspects from the math education and stuff it with mundane procedures to be followed like rituals. Sadly again, the much-tauted non-standard schools (like Waldorf, Sudbury etc) do away with the math almost entirely and which is very detrimental to academic progress of the kids. edit: corrected some grammatical errors.
michaelcampbell 10y ago
Anecdata, unfortunately.

by nibs 10y ago

clentaminator 10y ago

How would you know what you don't know, though? Or what you never experienced or could have experienced? Genuine question, just curious how anyone firmly on the "schooler" or "unschooler" side of the fence can know without some kind of external reference, particularly one which they themselves didn't choose in case of bias.

nibs 10y ago
The assumption is that if there is something you need to know and you encounter a situation that requires it, you can learn it. And if it turns out you do not need it, you saved the time. Further, formal instruction only works for some types of people, albeit probably most. Synthesis from learning when you are interested tends to be more useful than memorization. The experienced part is the scary one, although in terms of spending time with peers, doing sports, art, etc. we did not really miss out on that.
- clentaminator 10y ago
  > and you encounter a situation that requires it, you can learn it Which is perfectly fine as long as you know what that "it" is, which assumes a base-level familiarity with subject X. The problem cases I can imagine are ones where you don't have the base familiarity, or in other words the cases where you don't know what you don't know (as opposed to knowing what you don't know and where to look for the answers). This is the case that I see leading towards the so-called "expert beginner" stage of understanding.
  - emidln 10y ago
    I'd imagine that if you can describe a problem, Googling can give you a name for the problem, with which you can google for more formal introductions to the topic (articles, papers, texts, etc). Recursive Googling is a solution to an awful lot of problems in 2016.

xanderstrike 10y ago

Sounds like your cohort was great. There was an "unschooled" girl in my college friend group who was failing remedial math and science classes in her third year. She never wanted to learn basic mathematics (we're talking long division here), so she never did, and she did not understand how to motivate herself to learn about something she wasn't already interested in. She didn't end up graduating despite the small, private school bending over backwards to try to accommodate her with personal tutoring and endlessly lengthening deadlines. She was first chair violin and had an almost full ride scholarship because of it, so she didn't lack motivation in general she just could not bring herself to care about math or science even when her degree was on the line. That's the value school has. It teaches you how to learn about things you might not be interested in, but will be useful later in life.

pbhjpbhj 10y ago
Hope many times do you think the subject of your comment needed to use long division "later in life"? I found it useful as a foundation to understand rationalising algebraic fractions; but outside that I've probably only used it a few times, none of which would have been essential. What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW].
- tmptmp 10y ago
  >>What was her degree? Demanding maths when it's not needed by practitioners in a degree subject area seems perverse to me [I love maths FWIW]. Degree is inconsequential. I'd say "if she is a human, she will do better by learning math rather than not doing it." How so? Maths is more about "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" rather than about doing "arithmetic". And I guess, "thinking creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract" is a very essential thing in human life. The entire human progress depended upon this skill and in fact, the very survival of humans depended upon this skill in the earlier world which was very hostile for humans. Now coming back to the issue of having to do long division in early childhood: yes, it may be the case that you don't need to do long division (later) in your life even for once. Long division may not be that important but the concept of division (and remainder) is very important in our life. Why is it important to learn division along many other complex (boring) topics in math? It's to hone your skills to "think creatively, clearly and critically about things that are complex and abstract". Proofs in geometry and algebra help you more in this conquest. Sadly, most mainstream schools these days take out the creative challenges and motivational aspects from the math education and stuff it with mundane procedures to be followed like rituals. Sadly again, the much-tauted non-standard schools (like Waldorf, Sudbury etc) do away with the math almost entirely and which is very detrimental to academic progress of the kids. edit: corrected some grammatical errors.

michaelcampbell 10y ago

Anecdata, unfortunately.