7 ms·

Would You Unschool Your Child?

78 points by DuncanKinney 16y ago

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- tommynazareth 16y ago
  The problem with the type of unschooling you're describing is that children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. There is no good reason to be an absent parent. The style of education I'd like to provide is what I imagine a PhD program is like: plenty of guidance and advice that ultimately enables the student to take responsibility for themselves and make original contributions. It sounds like you're on the right track with your daughter, I hope you keep sharing your homeschooling experience.
  - fr0sty 16y ago
    > children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. The argument here is, I believe: "What is the best way to get children experience and exposure? A. Experience and exposure B. Lectures about A.
    - tommynazareth 16y ago
      You can also share actual experiences. "Hey kids, let's climb this tree!"
      - fr0sty 16y ago
        as a homeschool/unschool parent, yes. As a classroom teacher with liability concerns, not so much.
    - deleted 16y ago
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      - ScottBurson 16y ago
        My recollection of John Holt's writings -- admittedly somewhat fuzzy, but some 25 years ago I read all his books and even did some volunteer work for him, so I think I got the gist -- certainly doesn't include a recommendation to abandon one's kids to their own devices. He did argue that we could trust kids' instincts about things like when they get interested in learning to read, but I don't think he would ever have told parents not to pay attention to their kids or spend time with them -- which, though you don't say so specifically, sounds like part of what's going on here. John believed in children very much -- believed in the wisdom of the natural unfolding of their interests and abilities. And he encouraged parents to believe in them too. My recollection is that it was not common for parents who had read his books and were corresponding with him and one another through his newsletter (Growing Without Schooling) to have kids turn out in the manner you describe; quite the contrary. While I'm wary about putting words in John's mouth, I suspect he would have agreed that there's something wrong in this situation, even if he might not have completely agreed with you about what it is. I do recall occasional stories of kids who showed no interest in reading until they were quite old -- around 10, as I recall. But the usual ending of the story was that at some point they did become interested, not just casually but quite voraciously, so that they more or less caught up with other kids their age. As for the "manipulation" -- I certainly don't think reading to your kids, to take an important example, would be outside the bounds of unschooling as I understand it. I don't think unschooling is supposed to be like the Prime Directive in Star Trek, where one has to strive to have as little impact of any kind on one's children as possible. That's nuts and I don't think John would ever have endorsed it.
        bugsy 16y ago
        The late literacy issue is a very interesting one. I think there is something to be said that different children are best ready to read at different ages. Supposedly in Finland they don't start school to learn to read until age 7 and their country is ranked #1 worldwide in education. Among unschooling circles, one hears about children who have no interest in reading until age 10, then suddenly learn to read and go on to be an english lit major at a reputable school or such. I believe I read that Jessica Watson, the Australian young woman who recently broke the record for youngest solo nonstop circumnavigation, learned to read at age 10.
- bugsy 16y ago
  knarf_navillus, the description of your cousins who are unschooling which means running wild, being filthy and illiterate, actually sounds like a different movement called "radical unschooling". Radical unschoolers often call themselves unschoolers, and some perhaps are, but others will adopt positions such as books are oppressive to children, and eating ice cream for all meals and watching daytime adult TV from 10am to 4pm every day is fine if that's what the child feels is best for them at the time, and discouraging such pursuits, or even failing to fully and enthusiastically support them means the parent is not truly committed to the tenets of radical unschooling. (Your aunt isn't S.D. is she?)
  - knarf_navillus 16y ago
    Those aren't her initials, if that's what you mean. But this sounds exactly like what my relatives practice. Thanks for the information, I was not aware of a distinction between unschooling and radical unschooling.
euroclydon 16y ago
We're unschooling, but with backstops on reading. If the kids don't want to read for several days in a row, then unfortunately we're going to have to find a way to compel them to. They're young, and reading is the predicate for everything; if we can get 'em into it, hopefully this unschooling will pick up steam.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  A good book for developing reading skill and getting kids hooked on reading (it has worked for all four of my children) is Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach. http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloomfield/dp/0814311156 http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloom...
tommynazareth 16y ago
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 sending kids to school is that it gives them an opportunity to socialize. I'd agree with this in a limited sense. Yes, they get to be surrounded by other children, but socialization outside of sanctioned time periods is punished (I spent a lot of my time in school sitting in 'timeout' in the hallway), and the socialization that occurs in such an unnatural setting is probably not optimal - in fact, it's common in America to refer to immature social settings as being 'high school'. I have friends who were home schooled, and they had no trouble meeting friends during their school age years. I'd let my kids go to school to see what it is like, provided they know enough not to buy in to it, and they are going just to have fun and make friends. * I'm a little reluctant to make this claim, since I am not yet a parent, but it all boils down to this: there is no way in hell that anyone cares more about my children's education and personal development than I do, so I am the best candidate for assuming that responsibility.
- reader5000 16y ago
  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.
  - DuncanKinney 16y ago
    This socialization comment is one that my coworkers always brings up. "They're breeding serial killers" he half-jokes. I wasn't very well socialized in school. Maybe that's why I was interested in writing this story.
    - tomjen3 16y ago
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j_baker 16y ago
I like the idea and feel that a significant number of students (including myself when I was in school) would benefit from it. I think the majority of students are better off with some kind of formal education. Now, whether we're providing the appropriate formal education is another question entirely.
brlewis 16y ago
Unschooling seems vaguely defined, but it seems to sit on the child-initiated end of the spectrum. Traditional schooling is at the teacher-initiated end. I'm a fan of the Montessori style, which is near the middle. It's a great balance of freedom and structure.
- lotharbot 16y ago
  One of the keys to both Montessori style instruction and "un-schooling" is the recognition that children learn at their own pace. Sometimes their brains aren't ready for a particular topic, and trying to get them to learn it too early can do a lot of harm (much like "learning" a physical activity before the muscles and bones are ready for it), or at the very least won't do much good. On the other hand, when a kid is ready to learn a topic, he may pick it up much more quickly than the lesson plans expect. Teacher-initiated schooling, with its curriculum and standards boards, usually doesn't have the flexibility to accommodate different kids' different readiness to learn different topics. Within the context of child-initiated learning, it's certainly worthwhile to have someone introduce a child to new topics, inspire them to learn, and provide answers to their questions. Some amount of structure and some amount of teacher initiation is useful. With my own children, I plan to be somewhere on the un-schooling-to-Montessori end of the spectrum. Figuring out where will be a learning experience for me, too.
  - bmj 16y ago
    This is true, and homeschooling with some sort of curriculum is a nice balance, I think. My wife and I follow a "classical" curriculum with our kids at home, but at the same time, we are flexible according to what works and what doesn't, and what they enjoy. And, hopefully, we're developing and nuturting their intellectual curiosity.
sumeetjain 16y ago
"...un-schooling is learning without the trappings of a formal schooling arrangement. It is the act of trusting your child’s natural curiosity to teach them what they need to know. This is not to say that you abandon your children at the playground and pick them up at the end of the day, mind you. Instead, the parent plays a critical role as a resource who is there to answer questions, to talk with and to provide support." I like this article. It's an explanation of one of the many ways in which people are decentralizing their lives (Other ways include the returns and growth of local food and entrepreneurship). Of course, decentralization of education means that parents and/or local communities have to be more involved in their children's educations. But I think the larger point is that in order to do that, people need to be less involved with other things. I hope I live long enough to see the culture shift towards smaller lifestyles with an emphasis on more diversity and creativity.
joshkaufman 16y ago
My wife and I are expecting in December, and we're planning on some variation of unschooling for our children, starting at an early age. Based on the research we've done, it's a straightforward way to get better educational results for your kids if done properly. We're planning on some variation of the "Robinson Curriculum" (http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/), which in essence is a simple daily structure of (1) a daily math lesson, from the Saxon math series or similar, (2) daily reading, based on their interest but with a few recommendations, and (3) daily writing about any topic that interests them, which is then proofread and corrected by the child. "Socialization" is pretty much a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned. The above structure takes a few hours a day, so there's more than enough time for play and structured activities like sports or music if they're interested. As tommynazareth commented, the socialization in schools is mostly negative. The key seems to be striking a balance between a clear and simple structure and letting your child follow their interests. It also requires some self-control by the parents - it's better to let your kids struggle at times when they find hard problems than immediately jump in and help them. The parent isn't doing the teaching - they're helping the child learn to self-educate, which is a major difference. I want my children to be able to think clearly, learn essential skills, and be able to teach themselves anything they're interested in learning. I don't believe the public school system is capable of doing that, which is why we're looking to do it ourselves.
- slvrspoon 16y ago
  As tommynazareth commented, the socialization in schools is mostly negative.... REALLY? I beg and plead with anyone having kids to really examine this statement. The vast majority of interactions we have are social. Our social communication is literally key to survival. Of course much of the learning here that kids do could be percieved as negative "teasing, bullying" etc. but it's absolutely essential to becoming a fucntional adult... an adult that WILL BE HAPPILY EFFECTIVE in the tribe of humanity they live amongst. Any parent not savvy about the incredible level of real life social networking literally essential to happiness is simply creating a huge hurdle for their offspring, not helping them test out of high school exams faster. the road to hell is paved with good intentions hackers.
- andrewce 16y ago
roqetman 16y ago
Tried it. Didn't work for my children. As the article says though, it's not for everyone. My kids are super-smart, but lazy, and unfortunately need structure. I homeschooled them for several years, but both of them asked to go to "real" school eventually, one by the age of 6 and the other by 8 (they were about 2 years ahead of the other kids when they enrolled). I think that it's worth the experiment though, but be prepared for the unexpected as you're dealing with an individual, not an ideal.
- mturmon 16y ago
  Such a smart comment. The ideals matter, but so do the individual kids. What works for some may not work for your kids, or for you as a parent. Being adaptive gives better results than following the One True Way. Especially with a thing like "childhood," which is so idealized -- it's easy to get carried away. Also, as a parent, you have to remember that your issues about school (too strict, too unstructured, too much bullying, not enough recess, whatever) are likely to not be the issues of your kids. You shouldn't be making their educational choices to compensate for retrospectively-understood mistakes in your own education.
- Revisor 16y ago
  But it's you who should motivate them and provide structure for the learning, no?
dnsauve 16y ago
While I love the idea of homeschooling and unschooling, I can't quite figure out how people do this while still managing to pay their bills. Wouldn't this, in essence, take up a significant portion of your day, preventing you from working?
- tbrownaw 16y ago
  My mom stayed home with us while Dad worked (now that we're all grown she got a new job, the sort that has a commute and is counted in GDP). I think the other homechool families in the area did the same thing. This being HN, I suppose another option would be for one parent to run some sort of e-business that allows them to have an opposite schedule and take turns working vs being with the kids.
- knarf_navillus 16y ago
  My wife is a stay-at-home mom. They still exist. =P
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Good question (hence my upvote). I have been the home-educating parent, sporadically employed for money, as my children have been growing. Observing them pursue their interests has given me new career ideas, which I like better than my former career.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  It's an extension of how you look after infants isn't it. If you have kids then how did you look after them before they reached school age? There you go. If you chose not to look after them then I guess your question still stands.
- bugsy 16y ago
  I do it and I am able to work from home most of the time as an engineer. To do a smash up classical education job teaching your 8 yr old to speak fluent Latin will take 4 hrs a day. Then you spend 8 hrs at work while they run around wild, work on projects, or whatever. Teach them how to cook at an early age and now you have freed up even more hours. Some freelancers will take the kids with them as they travel about the world on assignment. That's an education in itself.
SandB0x 16y ago
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 instruments, paint, build things with Lego, play sports. When I asked my dad about computers he taught me Pascal. They did all this not because school was bad (it was great actually), but because they wanted to support me. I thought that's just what good parents are meant to do. What do the Unschooler people think parents do by default?
- bugsy 16y ago
  SandB0x, what you describe with your father, his encouraging you to follow your interests and providing materials and support as requested, is indeed what the most common sort of unschooling is like. Now imagine that you are doing that rather than attending an institution, and also your father is not worried about you having to cover any particular subjects at all because he knows that eventually your natural interests will branch effortlessly into all needed fields of knowledge and skills. And then imagine, that after 10 years of this you apply to the college of your choice, get in easily, and ace all your classes because you already know what it is to be a self directed learner. Or perhaps rather than go to college, you start your own business, or maybe you move to China to teach English. One thing you probably aren't interested in though is working for a corporation and being told what to do every day without questioning, which is what traditional schooling would have tried to indoctrinate you to accept.
- SomeCallMeTim 16y ago
  You have great parents. Not all parents are so supportive, but many are. The difference is that Unschooling parents do that without sending their kids off to school. I'm glad you had a good school experience, though mine was pretty poor, so for me Unschooling is tempting, at least in theory. A metaphor I've read is that schools force-feed information into kids that they're not interested in, so they frequently come home feeling "stuffed." Not a lot of room is left over for natural, self-directed learning and creative exploration. It doesn't matter if it's the most interesting thing in the world--if school has been torturing you with trivia you don't care about, you aren't as likely to pursue it on your own.
Alex3917 16y ago
"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms." This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, Socialization, Caretaking, and FRPL. The author doesn't even get partial credit, because each function affects how each other function is implemented. So a school system whose only roles were teaching and socialization would have essentially zero in common with our school system today. "Influential books in the un-schooling canon include Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich" The thesis of Illich's book is (IIRC) that one of the biggest flaws of society is that each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites. The book isn't even about education, let alone unschooling, albeit a lot of his examples are about education merely because it turns the title into a clever pun. In any event, do you really want to be taking advice from someone whose clearly never actually read a book about education, or any of the vast amounts of research?
- adbachman 16y ago
  Deschooling Society is available online if you're interested in looking it up again. I highly recommend it. (http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap1.html http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap1.h...) He's wide ranging, but his whole point in writing the book is to discuss why the current institutions devoted to education are inappropriate and even destructive (http://adambachman.org/illich_03.html http://adambachman.org/illich_03.html). He goes on to suggest what an appropriate, human centered replacement could look like. (http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap6.html http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap6.h...) I think you could reexamine your assumptions.
- fr0sty 16y ago
  If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?
kenjackson 16y ago
If I was unschooled as a child, I think my every minute would have been playing basketball and Atari. It would seem to me, that children need a good deal of direction. I was curious as a child, but I don't think I was curious about math, until I learned about it. And I think this actually gets worse in high school. Where I'd probably do math/programming 24/7 and never read another non-technical book. Or study any history, biology, chemistry, music, etc... Seems like you need a good balance. The parent needs to be more than simply a resource. The parent needs to be... well a parent. Someone who guides the child to areas that they might be interested in, even if the child doesn't know it. And in some cases pushes the child.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  They say "not to say you abandon your child at the playground". Every kids plays the "why" game with their parents. They're naturally curious assuming they're stimulated. You can feed this curiosity and see where it takes them. If they love sports, see if they're interested in reading about the greats, or looking at stats, etc.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I get the playground line. But I really do mean something stronger. As a child, I may have asked why on occassion, but the most common question was probably, "why can't I play basketball?" or "why can't I play space invaders?". I think you're arguing that children need to be stimulated. And I think this requires a fair bit of direction. And I think w/o a good deal of direction, most children will not learn things they need to. I suspect math and writing/grammar being two big areas that most children would neglect. Not all, but a huge number, crossing or approaching 50%.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >Every kids plays the "why" game with their parents. So far my eldest lad hasn't, perhaps for one day, I think it's because I kinda overload him with questions and suggestions as to why things might be, trying to stimulate him to think of possible answers. He does come up with some humdingers though - "how do we move our arms", "what's water made of" were two of his most recent. I'm not sure that he took in all of the info on motor-neurons or realised that he should be surprised that H and O gases combine to a room temperature liquid. Re your last sentence, I always loved sport but (despite doing Maths at Uni) have never been in the least bit interested in statistics related to it. Horses for courses, or something.
davidcuddeback 16y ago
When I have kids, I might consider this. One of my big fears is that I may not be the most qualified person to teach my children. The idea of un-schooling actually reminds me of a program that I went through in elementary school. When I was in elementary school, I was identified as a "gifted" pupil. Once a week, I was removed from regular class for a few hours and sent to the GATE program (Gifted And Talented Education). It was run in a way that my natural curiosity led me to learn things that were considered above my level. For example, one of the activities that GATE provided was being able to draw pictures by plotting coordinates. You would be given a set of instructions that looked like: (2,2) (2,6) (6,6) (6,2) (2,2) STOP (2,6) (6,2) STOP That would draw a square with a diagonal line through it. Of course, they had more interesting pictures than this example, such as a horse. Naturally, I wanted to draw these pictures, so I learned how to plot coordinates. Later, I discovered a more challenging set of pictures--the coordinates involved negative numbers, and the grid included all four quadrants of a Cartesian coordinate plane. My teacher gently nudged that it's more advanced, but when I wanted to try anyway, she taught me about negative numbers and I was successful at plotting the negative coordinates. This was all while my peers who were not attending the GATE program were still learning basic arithmetic. Later, in 4th and 5th grade, I was put in a full-time GATE class. This was a regular class in elementary school, which was comprised entirely of "gifted" pupils. It wasn't free-form like the weekly GATE sessions, but it was structured in a way that helped gifted pupils more than a regular classroom. I think the GATE program is partially responsible for me excelling in math. When I arrived at junior high (6th grade), I was placed in the advanced 7th grade math--honors pre-algebra. There's a little bit of information about the GATE program here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/gt/gt/ http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/gt/gt/, but that resource is mostly bureaucrat-speak. Another resource that helped me excel in math was my 2nd grade teacher. I was picking up math faster than the other students, so my mom suggested that I ask my teacher for something more challenging. I did, and my teacher gave me a different assignment from the rest of the class. (I don't remember today what those assignments were--probably double digits when the rest of the class was learning single digits.) I remember during a car ride home asking my mom and older sister how to multiply double digit numbers. They explained it to me and wrote down a few problems for me to work out. The tl;dr version of my comment is: I completely agree with the premise that a child's natural curiosity is an excellent catalyst for learning. If you're lucky, you might find a resource that nurtures your child's curiosity, even in the institutionalized school system.
hnal943 16y ago
This sounds a lot like the Montessori philosophy
nicholasjbs 16y ago
As a life-long unschooler, I'd answer with an emphatic yes (though I don't actually plan to have kids of my own). Letting me direct my own education was without a doubt the single greatest thing my parents did for me in life. "Last year Shea’s son wanted to do more math so, deviating from the strict un-schooling line of thought, they placed him in an online math course." This sentence struck me as odd. This could only be construed as "deviating from the strict un-schooling line of thought" (whatever that means) if they placed their son in the course against his will. But the article explicitly states that he was interested in learning more math. Many of the unschoolers I know take take formal classes in subjects that interest them.
tallanvor 16y ago
I would not consider "unschooling" or home-schooling for a child, nor do I think it is a good option for the majority of children. People love to malign the public school system, but the truth is that in most places in the western world children have the opportunity to get an excellent education. The problem is that more and more parents don't seem to take the time to teach their children to respect others, be it authority figures, peers, or anyone else. Children who are taught by their parents that it's fine to be disruptive (at inappropriate times, at least), ignore their responsibilities, and generally think it's ok to do whatever they want make it harder for the other children to learn. The field of education has evolved over hundreds of years, and there are plenty of researchers working hard to find better ways to teach children. I certainly don't agree with all the methods they are trying today, but that doesn't mean that I feel many parents can do a better job.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >Children who are taught by their parents that it's fine to be disruptive (at inappropriate times, at least), ignore their responsibilities, and generally think it's ok to do whatever they want make it harder for the other children to learn. The system tends to reinforce the behaviour by not ejecting those who are disruptive to the severe detriment, IMO, of those others who are not.
mquander 16y ago
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 and learning more as a kid. I think that if Amazon.com had existed and someone had given me a $500 gift card to last the duration of my childhood, I would be a lot smarter and better-educated than I am today, having established a better foundation.
- bugsy 16y ago
  In unschooling circles, acquiring interesting books and materials and leaving them laying about for kids to find or ignore is called "strewing".
- edanm 16y ago
  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 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. I love this for two reasons. Firstly, I imagine that 20 years from now, when this fact starts changing the world, that the world will be a much better place for it. And secondly, as a person involved in tech (and entrepreneurship), I have the ability to take part in the creation of this brilliant future. A great time to be alive, I think :)
  - vyrotek 16y ago
    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 understand if I really have learned what I claimed to have been 'studying'. Perhaps there's an idea in here somewhere. A wiki of tests and exercises which you can use to self-measure your knowledge? You could allow anyone (newbies to experts) to submit tests. Then you could be Vyrotek certified for under-water basket weaving. Not that it would be worth anything to anyone besides yourself.
bugsy 16y ago
A lot of the controversy comes from the reality that there's no single definition for unschooling so it can range from montessori style progressive education in which facilitators help the independent learner explore a curriculum of their own choosing, right through keeping the children chained in a basement and fed raw potatoes and water. Everyone would agree the latter is abuse and not really homeschooling or unschooling, but the minute fraction of parents with children chained up in basements are of course going to claim that the children are homeschooled in order to explain why they aren't in school. In between there are parents who allow their children to play in meadows each day as Rousseau recommended, to run their own private web business at age 11, as well as those who feel that watching TV and playing video games for several hours a day is educational. Overall, most unschoolers produce kids more educated and capable than public school graduates. This is mostly possible due to the poor state of public schools in general, which comes from trendy theories and government muddling rather than any lack of funding or talent.
petercooper 16y ago
Because the article mentioned not memorizing the alphabet, I thought I could ask a question I've been pondering on a while. Beyond looking at print indexes and dictionaries, is there any compelling reason to learn the order of the alphabet anymore? Lists are often in alphabetical order but it's not a strict requirement to know the ordering to use those lists, and most datasets online have search. As do digital dictionaries. Could the relentless switch to all-digital content make the alphabet only a cute, optional thing to memorize?
- sp332 16y ago
  A binary search on a sorted list can only work if you know whether the item you're looking for is earlier or later in the sequence. Not knowing the order of the alphabet is like not knowing the order of the numbers 0-9. You have to fall back to a linear search, which is prohibitively slow for many day-to-day operations.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    Appreciate the point in the first sentence; that's just what I was looking for :-) But.. Not knowing the order of the alphabet is like not knowing the order of the numbers 0-9. This is where I'm unsure. In relation to literacy, is not knowing the order of the alphabet as severe as not knowing the order of digits in numeracy? It's hard to imagine not knowing the order of the alphabet, but I don't think it would impede most of my day to day speaking and reading, whereas not remembering the order of 0-9 would basically render my numeracy skills useless since digits are inherently ordinal whereas the order of the alphabet could be entirely different and still work (if we all agreed on the new order).
    - sp332 16y ago
      Nope, that comment was purely in the context of sorting. I doubt it would have much impact on literacy.
- geuis 16y ago
  I think teaching your kids the alphabet isn't asking for too much. And whatever you do, don't mix up the letter order. I was unlucky enough when I was a young kid (5 or 6) to be enrolled at a school for a few weeks during the start of the year while my parents were moving. (We were staying with family in a different town than the one we were moving to). The teacher started the year by helping us learn to read. I could already read a little at this point, some of the other kids couldn't yet. She went through this process by teaching random letters from the alphabet. x, b, and k one day, and g, p, s the next. This confused the hell out of me. It also did no service to the other kids who were trying to learn. After a couple of weeks of me telling my parents about it seeing my reading comprehension actually getting worse, they pulled me from the school for the last week until we moved, if I remember correctly. And to put this all in perspective, I have always been a voracious reader. There was barely a moment growing up that I can remember not being with a book. In school I was always at least 2-3 years ahead of most of my peers when it came to reading, language, etc. I'm lucky I didn't have to keep that one backwards teacher.
kls 16y ago
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 lack of eduction being taught in schools I decided that we would probably be doing them no harm. After a few years of homeschooling and the return of my friend who was unschooling his children we decided to give unschooling a try. Before homeschooling there is no way that you could have convinced me that some hair brained idea like let you kids choose what they want to do would ever work. It has changed my perception of how children learn now. My 4 year old is putting together robots and working out logic with a Lego Mindstorm, set and my 12 year old is well into Algebra and rivals any professional graphic artist or digital media professional I have ever seen. Most of the kids that we know in the homeschooling and unschooling social circles enter into collage at between 14 and 16 years of age. Something is obviously working here.
- jsharpe 16y ago
  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.

78 points by DuncanKinney 16y ago

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tommynazareth 16y ago
The problem with the type of unschooling you're describing is that children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. There is no good reason to be an absent parent. The style of education I'd like to provide is what I imagine a PhD program is like: plenty of guidance and advice that ultimately enables the student to take responsibility for themselves and make original contributions. It sounds like you're on the right track with your daughter, I hope you keep sharing your homeschooling experience.
- fr0sty 16y ago
  > children don't have the experience and exposure to make optimal decisions. The argument here is, I believe: "What is the best way to get children experience and exposure? A. Experience and exposure B. Lectures about A.
  - tommynazareth 16y ago
    You can also share actual experiences. "Hey kids, let's climb this tree!"
    - fr0sty 16y ago
      as a homeschool/unschool parent, yes. As a classroom teacher with liability concerns, not so much.
  - deleted 16y ago
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    - ScottBurson 16y ago
      My recollection of John Holt's writings -- admittedly somewhat fuzzy, but some 25 years ago I read all his books and even did some volunteer work for him, so I think I got the gist -- certainly doesn't include a recommendation to abandon one's kids to their own devices. He did argue that we could trust kids' instincts about things like when they get interested in learning to read, but I don't think he would ever have told parents not to pay attention to their kids or spend time with them -- which, though you don't say so specifically, sounds like part of what's going on here. John believed in children very much -- believed in the wisdom of the natural unfolding of their interests and abilities. And he encouraged parents to believe in them too. My recollection is that it was not common for parents who had read his books and were corresponding with him and one another through his newsletter (Growing Without Schooling) to have kids turn out in the manner you describe; quite the contrary. While I'm wary about putting words in John's mouth, I suspect he would have agreed that there's something wrong in this situation, even if he might not have completely agreed with you about what it is. I do recall occasional stories of kids who showed no interest in reading until they were quite old -- around 10, as I recall. But the usual ending of the story was that at some point they did become interested, not just casually but quite voraciously, so that they more or less caught up with other kids their age. As for the "manipulation" -- I certainly don't think reading to your kids, to take an important example, would be outside the bounds of unschooling as I understand it. I don't think unschooling is supposed to be like the Prime Directive in Star Trek, where one has to strive to have as little impact of any kind on one's children as possible. That's nuts and I don't think John would ever have endorsed it.
      - bugsy 16y ago
        The late literacy issue is a very interesting one. I think there is something to be said that different children are best ready to read at different ages. Supposedly in Finland they don't start school to learn to read until age 7 and their country is ranked #1 worldwide in education. Among unschooling circles, one hears about children who have no interest in reading until age 10, then suddenly learn to read and go on to be an english lit major at a reputable school or such. I believe I read that Jessica Watson, the Australian young woman who recently broke the record for youngest solo nonstop circumnavigation, learned to read at age 10.
bugsy 16y ago
knarf_navillus, the description of your cousins who are unschooling which means running wild, being filthy and illiterate, actually sounds like a different movement called "radical unschooling". Radical unschoolers often call themselves unschoolers, and some perhaps are, but others will adopt positions such as books are oppressive to children, and eating ice cream for all meals and watching daytime adult TV from 10am to 4pm every day is fine if that's what the child feels is best for them at the time, and discouraging such pursuits, or even failing to fully and enthusiastically support them means the parent is not truly committed to the tenets of radical unschooling. (Your aunt isn't S.D. is she?)
- knarf_navillus 16y ago
  Those aren't her initials, if that's what you mean. But this sounds exactly like what my relatives practice. Thanks for the information, I was not aware of a distinction between unschooling and radical unschooling.

euroclydon 16y ago

We're unschooling, but with backstops on reading. If the kids don't want to read for several days in a row, then unfortunately we're going to have to find a way to compel them to. They're young, and reading is the predicate for everything; if we can get 'em into it, hopefully this unschooling will pick up steam.

tokenadult 16y ago
A good book for developing reading skill and getting kids hooked on reading (it has worked for all four of my children) is Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach. http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloomfield/dp/0814311156 http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloom...

tommynazareth 16y ago

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 sending kids to school is that it gives them an opportunity to socialize. I'd agree with this in a limited sense. Yes, they get to be surrounded by other children, but socialization outside of sanctioned time periods is punished (I spent a lot of my time in school sitting in 'timeout' in the hallway), and the socialization that occurs in such an unnatural setting is probably not optimal - in fact, it's common in America to refer to immature social settings as being 'high school'. I have friends who were home schooled, and they had no trouble meeting friends during their school age years. I'd let my kids go to school to see what it is like, provided they know enough not to buy in to it, and they are going just to have fun and make friends. * I'm a little reluctant to make this claim, since I am not yet a parent, but it all boils down to this: there is no way in hell that anyone cares more about my children's education and personal development than I do, so I am the best candidate for assuming that responsibility.

reader5000 16y ago
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.
- DuncanKinney 16y ago
  This socialization comment is one that my coworkers always brings up. "They're breeding serial killers" he half-jokes. I wasn't very well socialized in school. Maybe that's why I was interested in writing this story.
  - tomjen3 16y ago

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j_baker 16y ago

I like the idea and feel that a significant number of students (including myself when I was in school) would benefit from it. I think the majority of students are better off with some kind of formal education. Now, whether we're providing the appropriate formal education is another question entirely.

brlewis 16y ago

Unschooling seems vaguely defined, but it seems to sit on the child-initiated end of the spectrum. Traditional schooling is at the teacher-initiated end. I'm a fan of the Montessori style, which is near the middle. It's a great balance of freedom and structure.

lotharbot 16y ago
One of the keys to both Montessori style instruction and "un-schooling" is the recognition that children learn at their own pace. Sometimes their brains aren't ready for a particular topic, and trying to get them to learn it too early can do a lot of harm (much like "learning" a physical activity before the muscles and bones are ready for it), or at the very least won't do much good. On the other hand, when a kid is ready to learn a topic, he may pick it up much more quickly than the lesson plans expect. Teacher-initiated schooling, with its curriculum and standards boards, usually doesn't have the flexibility to accommodate different kids' different readiness to learn different topics. Within the context of child-initiated learning, it's certainly worthwhile to have someone introduce a child to new topics, inspire them to learn, and provide answers to their questions. Some amount of structure and some amount of teacher initiation is useful. With my own children, I plan to be somewhere on the un-schooling-to-Montessori end of the spectrum. Figuring out where will be a learning experience for me, too.
- bmj 16y ago
  This is true, and homeschooling with some sort of curriculum is a nice balance, I think. My wife and I follow a "classical" curriculum with our kids at home, but at the same time, we are flexible according to what works and what doesn't, and what they enjoy. And, hopefully, we're developing and nuturting their intellectual curiosity.

sumeetjain 16y ago

"...un-schooling is learning without the trappings of a formal schooling arrangement. It is the act of trusting your child’s natural curiosity to teach them what they need to know. This is not to say that you abandon your children at the playground and pick them up at the end of the day, mind you. Instead, the parent plays a critical role as a resource who is there to answer questions, to talk with and to provide support." I like this article. It's an explanation of one of the many ways in which people are decentralizing their lives (Other ways include the returns and growth of local food and entrepreneurship). Of course, decentralization of education means that parents and/or local communities have to be more involved in their children's educations. But I think the larger point is that in order to do that, people need to be less involved with other things. I hope I live long enough to see the culture shift towards smaller lifestyles with an emphasis on more diversity and creativity.

joshkaufman 16y ago

My wife and I are expecting in December, and we're planning on some variation of unschooling for our children, starting at an early age. Based on the research we've done, it's a straightforward way to get better educational results for your kids if done properly. We're planning on some variation of the "Robinson Curriculum" (http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/ http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/), which in essence is a simple daily structure of (1) a daily math lesson, from the Saxon math series or similar, (2) daily reading, based on their interest but with a few recommendations, and (3) daily writing about any topic that interests them, which is then proofread and corrected by the child. "Socialization" is pretty much a non-issue, as far as I'm concerned. The above structure takes a few hours a day, so there's more than enough time for play and structured activities like sports or music if they're interested. As tommynazareth commented, the socialization in schools is mostly negative. The key seems to be striking a balance between a clear and simple structure and letting your child follow their interests. It also requires some self-control by the parents - it's better to let your kids struggle at times when they find hard problems than immediately jump in and help them. The parent isn't doing the teaching - they're helping the child learn to self-educate, which is a major difference. I want my children to be able to think clearly, learn essential skills, and be able to teach themselves anything they're interested in learning. I don't believe the public school system is capable of doing that, which is why we're looking to do it ourselves.

slvrspoon 16y ago
As tommynazareth commented, the socialization in schools is mostly negative.... REALLY? I beg and plead with anyone having kids to really examine this statement. The vast majority of interactions we have are social. Our social communication is literally key to survival. Of course much of the learning here that kids do could be percieved as negative "teasing, bullying" etc. but it's absolutely essential to becoming a fucntional adult... an adult that WILL BE HAPPILY EFFECTIVE in the tribe of humanity they live amongst. Any parent not savvy about the incredible level of real life social networking literally essential to happiness is simply creating a huge hurdle for their offspring, not helping them test out of high school exams faster. the road to hell is paved with good intentions hackers.
andrewce 16y ago

roqetman 16y ago

Tried it. Didn't work for my children. As the article says though, it's not for everyone. My kids are super-smart, but lazy, and unfortunately need structure. I homeschooled them for several years, but both of them asked to go to "real" school eventually, one by the age of 6 and the other by 8 (they were about 2 years ahead of the other kids when they enrolled). I think that it's worth the experiment though, but be prepared for the unexpected as you're dealing with an individual, not an ideal.

mturmon 16y ago
Such a smart comment. The ideals matter, but so do the individual kids. What works for some may not work for your kids, or for you as a parent. Being adaptive gives better results than following the One True Way. Especially with a thing like "childhood," which is so idealized -- it's easy to get carried away. Also, as a parent, you have to remember that your issues about school (too strict, too unstructured, too much bullying, not enough recess, whatever) are likely to not be the issues of your kids. You shouldn't be making their educational choices to compensate for retrospectively-understood mistakes in your own education.
Revisor 16y ago
But it's you who should motivate them and provide structure for the learning, no?

dnsauve 16y ago

While I love the idea of homeschooling and unschooling, I can't quite figure out how people do this while still managing to pay their bills. Wouldn't this, in essence, take up a significant portion of your day, preventing you from working?

tbrownaw 16y ago
My mom stayed home with us while Dad worked (now that we're all grown she got a new job, the sort that has a commute and is counted in GDP). I think the other homechool families in the area did the same thing. This being HN, I suppose another option would be for one parent to run some sort of e-business that allows them to have an opposite schedule and take turns working vs being with the kids.
knarf_navillus 16y ago
My wife is a stay-at-home mom. They still exist. =P
tokenadult 16y ago
Good question (hence my upvote). I have been the home-educating parent, sporadically employed for money, as my children have been growing. Observing them pursue their interests has given me new career ideas, which I like better than my former career.
pbhjpbhj 16y ago
It's an extension of how you look after infants isn't it. If you have kids then how did you look after them before they reached school age? There you go. If you chose not to look after them then I guess your question still stands.
bugsy 16y ago
I do it and I am able to work from home most of the time as an engineer. To do a smash up classical education job teaching your 8 yr old to speak fluent Latin will take 4 hrs a day. Then you spend 8 hrs at work while they run around wild, work on projects, or whatever. Teach them how to cook at an early age and now you have freed up even more hours. Some freelancers will take the kids with them as they travel about the world on assignment. That's an education in itself.

SandB0x 16y ago

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 instruments, paint, build things with Lego, play sports. When I asked my dad about computers he taught me Pascal. They did all this not because school was bad (it was great actually), but because they wanted to support me. I thought that's just what good parents are meant to do. What do the Unschooler people think parents do by default?

bugsy 16y ago
SandB0x, what you describe with your father, his encouraging you to follow your interests and providing materials and support as requested, is indeed what the most common sort of unschooling is like. Now imagine that you are doing that rather than attending an institution, and also your father is not worried about you having to cover any particular subjects at all because he knows that eventually your natural interests will branch effortlessly into all needed fields of knowledge and skills. And then imagine, that after 10 years of this you apply to the college of your choice, get in easily, and ace all your classes because you already know what it is to be a self directed learner. Or perhaps rather than go to college, you start your own business, or maybe you move to China to teach English. One thing you probably aren't interested in though is working for a corporation and being told what to do every day without questioning, which is what traditional schooling would have tried to indoctrinate you to accept.
SomeCallMeTim 16y ago
You have great parents. Not all parents are so supportive, but many are. The difference is that Unschooling parents do that without sending their kids off to school. I'm glad you had a good school experience, though mine was pretty poor, so for me Unschooling is tempting, at least in theory. A metaphor I've read is that schools force-feed information into kids that they're not interested in, so they frequently come home feeling "stuffed." Not a lot of room is left over for natural, self-directed learning and creative exploration. It doesn't matter if it's the most interesting thing in the world--if school has been torturing you with trivia you don't care about, you aren't as likely to pursue it on your own.

Alex3917 16y ago

"The current K-12 educational system exists, generally speaking, for two primary reasons. First, its scalability makes it easy for the state to educate its citizens, and second, it gives children and teens a shared public space where they learn to interact with others and hopefully pick up some societal norms." This is completely wrong. The five functions of school are generally recognized to be Training, Sorting, Socialization, Caretaking, and FRPL. The author doesn't even get partial credit, because each function affects how each other function is implemented. So a school system whose only roles were teaching and socialization would have essentially zero in common with our school system today. "Influential books in the un-schooling canon include Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich" The thesis of Illich's book is (IIRC) that one of the biggest flaws of society is that each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites. The book isn't even about education, let alone unschooling, albeit a lot of his examples are about education merely because it turns the title into a clever pun. In any event, do you really want to be taking advice from someone whose clearly never actually read a book about education, or any of the vast amounts of research?

adbachman 16y ago
Deschooling Society is available online if you're interested in looking it up again. I highly recommend it. (http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap1.html http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap1.h...) He's wide ranging, but his whole point in writing the book is to discuss why the current institutions devoted to education are inappropriate and even destructive (http://adambachman.org/illich_03.html http://adambachman.org/illich_03.html). He goes on to suggest what an appropriate, human centered replacement could look like. (http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap6.html http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/chap6.h...) I think you could reexamine your assumptions.
fr0sty 16y ago
If the core assumption is: 'each area of life is dominated by only a few major schools of thought, and these schools of thought tend to favor the elites' why should disregarding the research produced by the such elites be an issue?

kenjackson 16y ago

If I was unschooled as a child, I think my every minute would have been playing basketball and Atari. It would seem to me, that children need a good deal of direction. I was curious as a child, but I don't think I was curious about math, until I learned about it. And I think this actually gets worse in high school. Where I'd probably do math/programming 24/7 and never read another non-technical book. Or study any history, biology, chemistry, music, etc... Seems like you need a good balance. The parent needs to be more than simply a resource. The parent needs to be... well a parent. Someone who guides the child to areas that they might be interested in, even if the child doesn't know it. And in some cases pushes the child.

nickpinkston 16y ago
They say "not to say you abandon your child at the playground". Every kids plays the "why" game with their parents. They're naturally curious assuming they're stimulated. You can feed this curiosity and see where it takes them. If they love sports, see if they're interested in reading about the greats, or looking at stats, etc.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I get the playground line. But I really do mean something stronger. As a child, I may have asked why on occassion, but the most common question was probably, "why can't I play basketball?" or "why can't I play space invaders?". I think you're arguing that children need to be stimulated. And I think this requires a fair bit of direction. And I think w/o a good deal of direction, most children will not learn things they need to. I suspect math and writing/grammar being two big areas that most children would neglect. Not all, but a huge number, crossing or approaching 50%.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >Every kids plays the "why" game with their parents. So far my eldest lad hasn't, perhaps for one day, I think it's because I kinda overload him with questions and suggestions as to why things might be, trying to stimulate him to think of possible answers. He does come up with some humdingers though - "how do we move our arms", "what's water made of" were two of his most recent. I'm not sure that he took in all of the info on motor-neurons or realised that he should be surprised that H and O gases combine to a room temperature liquid. Re your last sentence, I always loved sport but (despite doing Maths at Uni) have never been in the least bit interested in statistics related to it. Horses for courses, or something.

davidcuddeback 16y ago

When I have kids, I might consider this. One of my big fears is that I may not be the most qualified person to teach my children. The idea of un-schooling actually reminds me of a program that I went through in elementary school. When I was in elementary school, I was identified as a "gifted" pupil. Once a week, I was removed from regular class for a few hours and sent to the GATE program (Gifted And Talented Education). It was run in a way that my natural curiosity led me to learn things that were considered above my level. For example, one of the activities that GATE provided was being able to draw pictures by plotting coordinates. You would be given a set of instructions that looked like: (2,2) (2,6) (6,6) (6,2) (2,2) STOP (2,6) (6,2) STOP That would draw a square with a diagonal line through it. Of course, they had more interesting pictures than this example, such as a horse. Naturally, I wanted to draw these pictures, so I learned how to plot coordinates. Later, I discovered a more challenging set of pictures--the coordinates involved negative numbers, and the grid included all four quadrants of a Cartesian coordinate plane. My teacher gently nudged that it's more advanced, but when I wanted to try anyway, she taught me about negative numbers and I was successful at plotting the negative coordinates. This was all while my peers who were not attending the GATE program were still learning basic arithmetic. Later, in 4th and 5th grade, I was put in a full-time GATE class. This was a regular class in elementary school, which was comprised entirely of "gifted" pupils. It wasn't free-form like the weekly GATE sessions, but it was structured in a way that helped gifted pupils more than a regular classroom. I think the GATE program is partially responsible for me excelling in math. When I arrived at junior high (6th grade), I was placed in the advanced 7th grade math--honors pre-algebra. There's a little bit of information about the GATE program here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/gt/gt/ http://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/gt/gt/, but that resource is mostly bureaucrat-speak. Another resource that helped me excel in math was my 2nd grade teacher. I was picking up math faster than the other students, so my mom suggested that I ask my teacher for something more challenging. I did, and my teacher gave me a different assignment from the rest of the class. (I don't remember today what those assignments were--probably double digits when the rest of the class was learning single digits.) I remember during a car ride home asking my mom and older sister how to multiply double digit numbers. They explained it to me and wrote down a few problems for me to work out. The tl;dr version of my comment is: I completely agree with the premise that a child's natural curiosity is an excellent catalyst for learning. If you're lucky, you might find a resource that nurtures your child's curiosity, even in the institutionalized school system.

hnal943 16y ago

This sounds a lot like the Montessori philosophy

nicholasjbs 16y ago

As a life-long unschooler, I'd answer with an emphatic yes (though I don't actually plan to have kids of my own). Letting me direct my own education was without a doubt the single greatest thing my parents did for me in life. "Last year Shea’s son wanted to do more math so, deviating from the strict un-schooling line of thought, they placed him in an online math course." This sentence struck me as odd. This could only be construed as "deviating from the strict un-schooling line of thought" (whatever that means) if they placed their son in the course against his will. But the article explicitly states that he was interested in learning more math. Many of the unschoolers I know take take formal classes in subjects that interest them.

tallanvor 16y ago

I would not consider "unschooling" or home-schooling for a child, nor do I think it is a good option for the majority of children. People love to malign the public school system, but the truth is that in most places in the western world children have the opportunity to get an excellent education. The problem is that more and more parents don't seem to take the time to teach their children to respect others, be it authority figures, peers, or anyone else. Children who are taught by their parents that it's fine to be disruptive (at inappropriate times, at least), ignore their responsibilities, and generally think it's ok to do whatever they want make it harder for the other children to learn. The field of education has evolved over hundreds of years, and there are plenty of researchers working hard to find better ways to teach children. I certainly don't agree with all the methods they are trying today, but that doesn't mean that I feel many parents can do a better job.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>Children who are taught by their parents that it's fine to be disruptive (at inappropriate times, at least), ignore their responsibilities, and generally think it's ok to do whatever they want make it harder for the other children to learn. The system tends to reinforce the behaviour by not ejecting those who are disruptive to the severe detriment, IMO, of those others who are not.

mquander 16y ago

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 and learning more as a kid. I think that if Amazon.com had existed and someone had given me a $500 gift card to last the duration of my childhood, I would be a lot smarter and better-educated than I am today, having established a better foundation.

bugsy 16y ago
In unschooling circles, acquiring interesting books and materials and leaving them laying about for kids to find or ignore is called "strewing".
edanm 16y ago
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 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. I love this for two reasons. Firstly, I imagine that 20 years from now, when this fact starts changing the world, that the world will be a much better place for it. And secondly, as a person involved in tech (and entrepreneurship), I have the ability to take part in the creation of this brilliant future. A great time to be alive, I think :)
- vyrotek 16y ago
  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 understand if I really have learned what I claimed to have been 'studying'. Perhaps there's an idea in here somewhere. A wiki of tests and exercises which you can use to self-measure your knowledge? You could allow anyone (newbies to experts) to submit tests. Then you could be Vyrotek certified for under-water basket weaving. Not that it would be worth anything to anyone besides yourself.

bugsy 16y ago

A lot of the controversy comes from the reality that there's no single definition for unschooling so it can range from montessori style progressive education in which facilitators help the independent learner explore a curriculum of their own choosing, right through keeping the children chained in a basement and fed raw potatoes and water. Everyone would agree the latter is abuse and not really homeschooling or unschooling, but the minute fraction of parents with children chained up in basements are of course going to claim that the children are homeschooled in order to explain why they aren't in school. In between there are parents who allow their children to play in meadows each day as Rousseau recommended, to run their own private web business at age 11, as well as those who feel that watching TV and playing video games for several hours a day is educational. Overall, most unschoolers produce kids more educated and capable than public school graduates. This is mostly possible due to the poor state of public schools in general, which comes from trendy theories and government muddling rather than any lack of funding or talent.

petercooper 16y ago

Because the article mentioned not memorizing the alphabet, I thought I could ask a question I've been pondering on a while. Beyond looking at print indexes and dictionaries, is there any compelling reason to learn the order of the alphabet anymore? Lists are often in alphabetical order but it's not a strict requirement to know the ordering to use those lists, and most datasets online have search. As do digital dictionaries. Could the relentless switch to all-digital content make the alphabet only a cute, optional thing to memorize?

sp332 16y ago
A binary search on a sorted list can only work if you know whether the item you're looking for is earlier or later in the sequence. Not knowing the order of the alphabet is like not knowing the order of the numbers 0-9. You have to fall back to a linear search, which is prohibitively slow for many day-to-day operations.
- petercooper 16y ago
  Appreciate the point in the first sentence; that's just what I was looking for :-) But.. Not knowing the order of the alphabet is like not knowing the order of the numbers 0-9. This is where I'm unsure. In relation to literacy, is not knowing the order of the alphabet as severe as not knowing the order of digits in numeracy? It's hard to imagine not knowing the order of the alphabet, but I don't think it would impede most of my day to day speaking and reading, whereas not remembering the order of 0-9 would basically render my numeracy skills useless since digits are inherently ordinal whereas the order of the alphabet could be entirely different and still work (if we all agreed on the new order).
  - sp332 16y ago
    Nope, that comment was purely in the context of sorting. I doubt it would have much impact on literacy.
geuis 16y ago
I think teaching your kids the alphabet isn't asking for too much. And whatever you do, don't mix up the letter order. I was unlucky enough when I was a young kid (5 or 6) to be enrolled at a school for a few weeks during the start of the year while my parents were moving. (We were staying with family in a different town than the one we were moving to). The teacher started the year by helping us learn to read. I could already read a little at this point, some of the other kids couldn't yet. She went through this process by teaching random letters from the alphabet. x, b, and k one day, and g, p, s the next. This confused the hell out of me. It also did no service to the other kids who were trying to learn. After a couple of weeks of me telling my parents about it seeing my reading comprehension actually getting worse, they pulled me from the school for the last week until we moved, if I remember correctly. And to put this all in perspective, I have always been a voracious reader. There was barely a moment growing up that I can remember not being with a book. In school I was always at least 2-3 years ahead of most of my peers when it came to reading, language, etc. I'm lucky I didn't have to keep that one backwards teacher.

kls 16y ago

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 lack of eduction being taught in schools I decided that we would probably be doing them no harm. After a few years of homeschooling and the return of my friend who was unschooling his children we decided to give unschooling a try. Before homeschooling there is no way that you could have convinced me that some hair brained idea like let you kids choose what they want to do would ever work. It has changed my perception of how children learn now. My 4 year old is putting together robots and working out logic with a Lego Mindstorm, set and my 12 year old is well into Algebra and rivals any professional graphic artist or digital media professional I have ever seen. Most of the kids that we know in the homeschooling and unschooling social circles enter into collage at between 14 and 16 years of age. Something is obviously working here.

jsharpe 16y ago
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.