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Not going to argue about having to spend money to get some time away from the kids. But education? If you retire then you have the time to unschool your childre

Not going to argue about having to spend money to get some time away from the kids. But education? If you retire then you have the time to unschool your children and while your family and friends will think you are crazy your children will get a much better education than anything that involves money.

hintymad 6y ago
> unschool your children Via homeschool groups or via your own? I don't know much about homeschool group, so I'll comment only educating kids alone: parents tend to underestimate the skills required for quality education. You need empathy to understand that your kids may not get some seemingly simple concepts. You need skills to explain to kids complex concepts in simple terms -- and this is not about merely applying Feynman's technique, but about knowing what language is more accessible to kids. You need to know a subject well to teach your kids effectively. The list can go on. In a word, education is a profession, and it takes years of experience to become a quality educator. Why do parents think that they can magically give "a much better education than anything that involves money"? By the way, I recognize that there are always exceptions, especially that smart and driven kids probably need just parents' guidance and advice instead of full-fledged "education". I mainly have ordinary kids in mind, though, as they are the majority to whom education makes a huge difference. Case in point, I didn't get physics, especially free-body diagram and optics when I started learning physics in junior high. It was a retired teacher who removed my conceptual blocks by giving me very targeted exercises. I got stuck again in high school when studying electromagnetism, and it was another teacher who opened my eyes by prescribing inspiring problems like how to accelerate a static electron without a push. I was also lucky to get a math teacher who somehow could find incredibly challenging yet accessible problems that kept me in the discomfort zone. I have similar stories for writing class, for history class, and for chemistry class. Oh yeah, chemistry. A teacher in my senior year was so passionate about chemistry that I didn't realize that he taught us how to reason about organic synthesis at college level, to the point that we could solve some of the IChO problems. And the truth is that my parents could never do what those teachers did. I'm not sure how many kids were lucky enough to have responsible and capable teachers around. And if they don't, finding tutors is not a bad choice.
- guidoism 6y ago
  I don’t disagree with you, especially if you are trying to follow the same curriculum as the schools and expect the kids to grok everything during the “correct” school year. We are finding that concepts that the kids are ready for come super easily — Like, there’s nothing special that an educator is going to provide — And concepts that the kids aren’t ready for can still be taught but it’s takes much more time and effort. I think this is one of the reasons why school (and teaching) can seem difficult and overwhelming. We expect all ten-year-olds to be at the same level and for a single teacher to get these kids to all learn the same stuff at the same time. It’s Sisyphean! If you decide to go-all-in with homeschooling you can tailor your child’s education to each child and go with the flow. The difficulty is if you want to be able to go back to regular school because they are going to all over the map, they might be 4 grades ahead in math and 4 grades behind in history. You also get to choose what you want your children to learn. It’s a double-edged sword. My kids are getting a very science-heavy and pragmatic education while some bible-banger down the street might be teaching frickin’ creationism. For society, I don’t have a good solution to this problem. But as a parent I’m excited that I can ditch the memorization bullshit and focus on providing my children an educational and intellectual framework that will keep them growing intellectually for the rest of their lives, if they so choose. The gist of my approach is: Know what subjects exist and what problems they can solve and know how to teach yourself those subjects when they are needed. That’s basically it. Teaching is helping them find ways to help themselves and talking through philosophical problems with them.

hintymad 6y ago

> unschool your children Via homeschool groups or via your own? I don't know much about homeschool group, so I'll comment only educating kids alone: parents tend to underestimate the skills required for quality education. You need empathy to understand that your kids may not get some seemingly simple concepts. You need skills to explain to kids complex concepts in simple terms -- and this is not about merely applying Feynman's technique, but about knowing what language is more accessible to kids. You need to know a subject well to teach your kids effectively. The list can go on. In a word, education is a profession, and it takes years of experience to become a quality educator. Why do parents think that they can magically give "a much better education than anything that involves money"? By the way, I recognize that there are always exceptions, especially that smart and driven kids probably need just parents' guidance and advice instead of full-fledged "education". I mainly have ordinary kids in mind, though, as they are the majority to whom education makes a huge difference. Case in point, I didn't get physics, especially free-body diagram and optics when I started learning physics in junior high. It was a retired teacher who removed my conceptual blocks by giving me very targeted exercises. I got stuck again in high school when studying electromagnetism, and it was another teacher who opened my eyes by prescribing inspiring problems like how to accelerate a static electron without a push. I was also lucky to get a math teacher who somehow could find incredibly challenging yet accessible problems that kept me in the discomfort zone. I have similar stories for writing class, for history class, and for chemistry class. Oh yeah, chemistry. A teacher in my senior year was so passionate about chemistry that I didn't realize that he taught us how to reason about organic synthesis at college level, to the point that we could solve some of the IChO problems. And the truth is that my parents could never do what those teachers did. I'm not sure how many kids were lucky enough to have responsible and capable teachers around. And if they don't, finding tutors is not a bad choice.

guidoism 6y ago
I don’t disagree with you, especially if you are trying to follow the same curriculum as the schools and expect the kids to grok everything during the “correct” school year. We are finding that concepts that the kids are ready for come super easily — Like, there’s nothing special that an educator is going to provide — And concepts that the kids aren’t ready for can still be taught but it’s takes much more time and effort. I think this is one of the reasons why school (and teaching) can seem difficult and overwhelming. We expect all ten-year-olds to be at the same level and for a single teacher to get these kids to all learn the same stuff at the same time. It’s Sisyphean! If you decide to go-all-in with homeschooling you can tailor your child’s education to each child and go with the flow. The difficulty is if you want to be able to go back to regular school because they are going to all over the map, they might be 4 grades ahead in math and 4 grades behind in history. You also get to choose what you want your children to learn. It’s a double-edged sword. My kids are getting a very science-heavy and pragmatic education while some bible-banger down the street might be teaching frickin’ creationism. For society, I don’t have a good solution to this problem. But as a parent I’m excited that I can ditch the memorization bullshit and focus on providing my children an educational and intellectual framework that will keep them growing intellectually for the rest of their lives, if they so choose. The gist of my approach is: Know what subjects exist and what problems they can solve and know how to teach yourself those subjects when they are needed. That’s basically it. Teaching is helping them find ways to help themselves and talking through philosophical problems with them.