4 ms·

Exactly. Not every child requires a formal education. Every child needs access to it. Most kids can't feasibly be homeschooled.

ido 6y ago
Unschooling doesn't require homeschooling, there are many alternative (free/democratic) schools - in Berlin (where I live) alone there are about a dozen. It does not require more resources to run than a "normal" school, it's mostly that most parents don't want it for their kids (or are unaware of it).
- riffraff 6y ago
  I do not understand: what are we talking about? Is "unschooling" in your interpretation just "not following a fix curriculum" ? If that's the case, and you still go to a school while unschooled (which seems oxymoronic), why would there be issues with socialization?
  - gregjor 6y ago
    You should learn what unschooling means. It’s not about curriculum or not attending any classes. I suggest Ivan Illich’s book “Deschooling Society.” As long as your frame of reference is modern formal schools you can only interpret alternatives from that perspective.
    - ido 6y ago
      Correct. Also that was partially my point that there is no problem with socialization in free schools as kids attend with other kids doing the same.
  - ido 6y ago
    It is not about my interpretation. Please search the web for unschooling (you can e.g. read the wikipedia article[0]) and you will very quickly learn what is meant by that & why there is no oxymoron. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
    - riffraff 6y ago
      I did that before posting, but the wikipedia page says > unschooling is often considered a subset of homeschooling And further down > Unschooling is a form of home education, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school. which is why I asked what your interpretation of it is.
      - ido 6y ago
        Yeah sorry I guess that article is a bit confused - the first sentence is good IMO: an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. The salient point is that kids want to learn on their own & you should try to see what interests them and direct them to productive ways to learn more/support them instead of selecting the subjects for them. The free schools I know do not have a fixed curriculum but provide various classes that the kids can elect from. The teachers are also open to suggestions and ask the kids what they want to learn/do. They have no grades & all kids (generally grades 1 to 6) are together in mixed-aged groups. There are also far fewer kids per adult but that may just be a function of these being private schools. So there is no requirement to do that at home but I guess that is the most common form in the Anglophone countries (in German speaking ones it's the other way around).
gregjor 6y ago
Not supported by numerous studies. Not supported by thousands of years of history either.
- riffraff 6y ago
  for thousands of years the majority of people didn't know how to read, I am not sure that's an argument for kids not needing access to schools.
  - gregjor 6y ago
    For most of human history people either had nothing to read, or they didn’t need to read to grow into productive adults. Instead they would listen to stories and learn skills from parents and other adults in their community. I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education. I would agree that reading is a fundamental skill in modern society. Children can learn to read young and very quickly, with just a little help. I could read books at 4 (I was not unschooled or homeschooled, but I wanted to read). My kids learned to read before 5 and it wasn’t that hard to teach them. We kept lots of books on all kinds of subjects in the house and if our kids wanted to learn more about something we got more books or took them to the library. If they got very interested we found mentors, tutors, other kids (of all ages) with the same interest.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      > I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education. Which was a claim that no one made.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Which studies are you referring to that argue for the abolition of public education? Again, clearly homeschooling can work. Equally clearly it can't work for everyone. FWIW: how were literacy rates during those thousands of years where peasants were responsible for schooling their own kids? And symmetrically: which culture was it where the members of the literate aristocracy schooled their own children instead of using tutors/monasteries/etc...? That argument is just silly on its face.

ido 6y ago

Unschooling doesn't require homeschooling, there are many alternative (free/democratic) schools - in Berlin (where I live) alone there are about a dozen. It does not require more resources to run than a "normal" school, it's mostly that most parents don't want it for their kids (or are unaware of it).

riffraff 6y ago
I do not understand: what are we talking about? Is "unschooling" in your interpretation just "not following a fix curriculum" ? If that's the case, and you still go to a school while unschooled (which seems oxymoronic), why would there be issues with socialization?
- gregjor 6y ago
  You should learn what unschooling means. It’s not about curriculum or not attending any classes. I suggest Ivan Illich’s book “Deschooling Society.” As long as your frame of reference is modern formal schools you can only interpret alternatives from that perspective.
  - ido 6y ago
    Correct. Also that was partially my point that there is no problem with socialization in free schools as kids attend with other kids doing the same.
- ido 6y ago
  It is not about my interpretation. Please search the web for unschooling (you can e.g. read the wikipedia article[0]) and you will very quickly learn what is meant by that & why there is no oxymoron. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
  - riffraff 6y ago
    I did that before posting, but the wikipedia page says > unschooling is often considered a subset of homeschooling And further down > Unschooling is a form of home education, which is the education of children at home rather than in a school. which is why I asked what your interpretation of it is.
    - ido 6y ago
      Yeah sorry I guess that article is a bit confused - the first sentence is good IMO: an informal learning that advocates learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. The salient point is that kids want to learn on their own & you should try to see what interests them and direct them to productive ways to learn more/support them instead of selecting the subjects for them. The free schools I know do not have a fixed curriculum but provide various classes that the kids can elect from. The teachers are also open to suggestions and ask the kids what they want to learn/do. They have no grades & all kids (generally grades 1 to 6) are together in mixed-aged groups. There are also far fewer kids per adult but that may just be a function of these being private schools. So there is no requirement to do that at home but I guess that is the most common form in the Anglophone countries (in German speaking ones it's the other way around).

gregjor 6y ago

Not supported by numerous studies. Not supported by thousands of years of history either.

riffraff 6y ago
for thousands of years the majority of people didn't know how to read, I am not sure that's an argument for kids not needing access to schools.
- gregjor 6y ago
  For most of human history people either had nothing to read, or they didn’t need to read to grow into productive adults. Instead they would listen to stories and learn skills from parents and other adults in their community. I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education. I would agree that reading is a fundamental skill in modern society. Children can learn to read young and very quickly, with just a little help. I could read books at 4 (I was not unschooled or homeschooled, but I wanted to read). My kids learned to read before 5 and it wasn’t that hard to teach them. We kept lots of books on all kinds of subjects in the house and if our kids wanted to learn more about something we got more books or took them to the library. If they got very interested we found mentors, tutors, other kids (of all ages) with the same interest.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    > I was refuting the claim that formal schooling is necessary to get an education. Which was a claim that no one made.
newacct583 6y ago
Which studies are you referring to that argue for the abolition of public education? Again, clearly homeschooling can work. Equally clearly it can't work for everyone. FWIW: how were literacy rates during those thousands of years where peasants were responsible for schooling their own kids? And symmetrically: which culture was it where the members of the literate aristocracy schooled their own children instead of using tutors/monasteries/etc...? That argument is just silly on its face.