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I'm a father of two girls, ages four and nine. Explaining things to them and seeing the dawn of understanding in their eyes in easily my greatest joy in life.

I'm a father of two girls, ages four and nine. Explaining things to them and seeing the dawn of understanding in their eyes in easily my greatest joy in life. As a parent, I basically get to relive this xkcd[0], over and over, every day. We take it to an extreme - we unschool[1]. We do our best to treat our daughters as any other member of the family, expecting to act as adults to the extent that they're able to do so. My nine-year-old spends much of her days right now playing Roblox and Star Stable, but even that is punctuated by her coming to us with random questions about things she's interested in. If I'm not head-down on a project I take the time to explain as best I can. If I'm otherwise occupied I always at least take the time to say "Go search for <insert keywords>" and follow up with once I'm free. The results have, so far, been incredible. Our oldest was a late reader by the standards of the testing done in government schools, but once she ran into something she wanted to do that could only be accomplished by reading, she achieved fluency more quickly than I would have ever expected. For what it's worth, that "something" was an online RPG where she had to do quests to progress. In order to do that, she had to be able to read the quest text. These days she's engrossed in the "Pegasus" series by Kate O'Hearn, and devouring them at a rate of ~1k pages per week. She'll have finished the series by the end of this week and I'm hoping she'll pick up Asimov's "Norby" series next. If not, she'll find something else that interests her and continue reading well into the wee hours of the morning I'm sure. 0: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

owenversteeg 8y ago
Huh, that's the first time I've heard of unschooling, it seems like a really cool concept. If you don't mind me asking, where do you live and what are the laws like around unschooling there? How are people's reactions?
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  We're in Arkansas now, having moved from Virginia at the end of last year. Virginia requires a Notice of Intent to be filed with the local school district and periodic standardized testing - there are some way around each of these things, but that's the course that the vast majority of homeschoolers take. It's annoying but not onerous. Arkansas basically requires nothing at all.
azinman2 8y ago
My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. It’d be nice if traditional school had a better balance where personal interests could be explored in a structured and formally accepted way.
- fao_ 8y ago
  > My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. In my experience as an unschooled child who was in constant contact with the parents of other unschooled children, and other unschooled children, if a child isn't interested in something, that almost always changes over time. One example was where one kid did not wish to learn to read, until about the age of seven where he taught himself to read, without much struggle (and without parental intervention -- the parent found out about it because the kid kept the books under his pillow!), simply because he found a topic he was so interested in that he wanted to learn more about it. I also know someone else who did not learn to read until the age of 6 or 7, after which he rapidly caught up, and at the age of 9 or 10 he sped through all three of the Lord of the Rings series, and was an avid reader. These are only two examples of something that was typical within unschooling circles. One fundamental idea behind unschooling is that children develop at different rates, and thus in some cases, trying to force them to learn something before they are ready to learn can actually cause damage -- in a lot of cases this damage isn't visible, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there. I experienced this first hand, with a primary school maths teacher. This mathematics teacher misexplained things, and would constantly pile on the stress. It took me 6 years of unschooling to de-stress enough with regards to mathematics enough to simply add up efficiently (it felt like punching through a mental brick wall, I was completely unable to manipulate the numbers, despite being able to see them). Now at the age of 20 I am still filling in gaps in my mathematics education, through the right aids. Something I would add is that most people learn the skills that are required for them in day-to-day life, so even if a child is not interested in mathematics, they tend to learn the basics just by helping out their parents with shopping. The most important thing that a child needs in their life is the willingness to learn, which is a skill that school rips out of our children.

owenversteeg 8y ago

Huh, that's the first time I've heard of unschooling, it seems like a really cool concept. If you don't mind me asking, where do you live and what are the laws like around unschooling there? How are people's reactions?

LyndsySimon 8y ago
We're in Arkansas now, having moved from Virginia at the end of last year. Virginia requires a Notice of Intent to be filed with the local school district and periodic standardized testing - there are some way around each of these things, but that's the course that the vast majority of homeschoolers take. It's annoying but not onerous. Arkansas basically requires nothing at all.

azinman2 8y ago

My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. It’d be nice if traditional school had a better balance where personal interests could be explored in a structured and formally accepted way.

fao_ 8y ago
> My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it. In my experience as an unschooled child who was in constant contact with the parents of other unschooled children, and other unschooled children, if a child isn't interested in something, that almost always changes over time. One example was where one kid did not wish to learn to read, until about the age of seven where he taught himself to read, without much struggle (and without parental intervention -- the parent found out about it because the kid kept the books under his pillow!), simply because he found a topic he was so interested in that he wanted to learn more about it. I also know someone else who did not learn to read until the age of 6 or 7, after which he rapidly caught up, and at the age of 9 or 10 he sped through all three of the Lord of the Rings series, and was an avid reader. These are only two examples of something that was typical within unschooling circles. One fundamental idea behind unschooling is that children develop at different rates, and thus in some cases, trying to force them to learn something before they are ready to learn can actually cause damage -- in a lot of cases this damage isn't visible, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there. I experienced this first hand, with a primary school maths teacher. This mathematics teacher misexplained things, and would constantly pile on the stress. It took me 6 years of unschooling to de-stress enough with regards to mathematics enough to simply add up efficiently (it felt like punching through a mental brick wall, I was completely unable to manipulate the numbers, despite being able to see them). Now at the age of 20 I am still filling in gaps in my mathematics education, through the right aids. Something I would add is that most people learn the skills that are required for them in day-to-day life, so even if a child is not interested in mathematics, they tend to learn the basics just by helping out their parents with shopping. The most important thing that a child needs in their life is the willingness to learn, which is a skill that school rips out of our children.