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We homeschool our children and for a year we tried unschooling. My wife's cousins were all unschooled. There is definitely merit to the approach, although done

We homeschool our children and for a year we tried unschooling. My wife's cousins were all unschooled. There is definitely merit to the approach, although done right (unschooling) it can be much harder for the parent than it looks. Done wrong it can set your children up for a fantastic career barely making ends meet. So at it's worse it's no worse than compulsory public education. We're much bigger fans of alt-schooling (or home schooling as it were). We've settled on a curriculum of the classics and are part of a home schooling group organized around said curriculum. The kids meet weekly and one of the parents facilitates each year, each "grade" level. Even though there is a "tutor" (facilitator) it requires significant parental involvement. The most unsettling aspect to alt-schooling in general are the ridiculous things that people say to you. It's not that people are stupid, it's that there is so much they know that just isn't so. It is utterly fruitless to debate the benefits of alt-schooling with people who have not been outside the box. You cannot know how rich, valuable, and academically positive alt-schooling is on average. So you ask questions like, "what about socialization" as if it's a good thing to be in an asylum run by the inmates, or "what about college" as if Harvard doesn't want someone who studied latin from age 7. I digress. To be fair I feel the need to share my background. I'm a high-school dropout. I subsequently aced the GED, along with the others who took the test with me. I did high school at a "blue ribbon" public school. Everything before that was at a small church-supported private school. We were by no means wealthy, and tuition was as cheap as it could have possibly been. Still my parents both had to work so that we could go. In the private school we did Algebra in the sixth grade, I read at a post-high school reading level in the third grade. It was intellectually stimulating and a wonderful nurturing environment. When I got to public school I found a prison for the mind. The teachers, while seemingly more educated seemed either not to care or to be overwhelmed with things other than teaching. The latter must have been as soul crushing for them as corporate work. It was soul crushing for me to be there. At first I began to advance ahead of my peers. I started taking advanced classes and realized that they were just more of the same mediocrity. At 16 I got a job programming and at 17 I dropped out. The rest, as they say, is history. I now manage a team of over a hundred programmers. I have a passionate hatred of the public education system. I didn't wind up digging ditches and I believe that it is 100% because of my early education experience in that humble little school that was not unlike a homeschool club. I'm not debating the merits of your public education experience. I'm not saying you wasted your time or didn't come out ok. I'm not saying you aren't a good person or your teachers weren't either. I'm saying it can be better and it's amazing how little effort it can require. Life will not fall apart if you don't take AP Math and join the Key Club. We've all been told the same lie, work hard in school so you can get good grades so you can go to a good college so you can get a good job so you can work hard so you can become CEO. Alt-schooling can instead prepare one well for the world where "humans need not apply".

ScottBurson 12y ago
Fantastic comment overall. This surprises me, though: > Done wrong [unschooling] can set your children up for a fantastic career barely making ends meet. In a world where many people change careers several times as adults, this seems unnecessarily pessimistic. Okay, maybe their first career won't be that lucrative. Most people don't make that much in their twenties anyway. But that doesn't mean they won't find something better eventually. In the economy of the 21st century, I think pursuing one's own passions is a likelier route to success than trying to follow the well-worn paths. No, there's no guarantee of success that way, but the well-worn paths offer no guarantees either. What I think is important in childhood and adolescence is to spend enough time and effort on something to come away with a sense of mastery, so that you feel that you can master anything else that you care to, and you have some idea of what's required to do that. But it doesn't matter what the "something" is. It's the experience that counts, not the information; information is free now. Still and all, I agree partially with what you're saying. If I had kids, there would be things I would want them to know. (Many of these are not taught in any school, like how to deconstruct advertising -- an essential skill in modern life -- but that's another discussion.) I would certainly try to interest them in many topics. But I would try to do it at the right moment -- if they have no interest, it's not the right moment -- and I would also very much try to support them in developing their own interests. I guess the unschooling idea could go too far if parents took it as devaluing their own potential contributions to their children's learning opportunities. Maybe some of that tends to happen. I don't think John Holt meant it that way.
- ryanmarsh 12y ago
  Thanks. The reason I said that unschooling done wrong can set your children up for not being able to make ends meet was perhaps a bit harsh but based on experience. Out of my wife's six cousins they all regret being unschooled. I don't blame them. Their father didn't do it out if some sense of enlightenment. He is an unintelligent man who made his livelihood working with his hands. Unfortunately it's much harder to make a livable wage these days in a job where you sweat. Other than building a cabin (a very well made cabin I might add) his children are weak at reading and writing and are horrible at math. His daughter wanted to be a nurse but couldn't make it through nursing school, one of his sons is a prison guard, the gregarious one is a fantastic jewelry salesman. His kids have a fantastic work ethic but will likely never come close to their full income earning potential. Had the parents focused more on academics and less on grooming horses they might not have to work in retail, a prison, or be restricted by a spouses earning potential. The great benefit of unschooling is that you raise emotionally very well rounded kids. I don't know what it is about the outdoors but it sure does work.

ScottBurson 12y ago

Fantastic comment overall. This surprises me, though: > Done wrong [unschooling] can set your children up for a fantastic career barely making ends meet. In a world where many people change careers several times as adults, this seems unnecessarily pessimistic. Okay, maybe their first career won't be that lucrative. Most people don't make that much in their twenties anyway. But that doesn't mean they won't find something better eventually. In the economy of the 21st century, I think pursuing one's own passions is a likelier route to success than trying to follow the well-worn paths. No, there's no guarantee of success that way, but the well-worn paths offer no guarantees either. What I think is important in childhood and adolescence is to spend enough time and effort on something to come away with a sense of mastery, so that you feel that you can master anything else that you care to, and you have some idea of what's required to do that. But it doesn't matter what the "something" is. It's the experience that counts, not the information; information is free now. Still and all, I agree partially with what you're saying. If I had kids, there would be things I would want them to know. (Many of these are not taught in any school, like how to deconstruct advertising -- an essential skill in modern life -- but that's another discussion.) I would certainly try to interest them in many topics. But I would try to do it at the right moment -- if they have no interest, it's not the right moment -- and I would also very much try to support them in developing their own interests. I guess the unschooling idea could go too far if parents took it as devaluing their own potential contributions to their children's learning opportunities. Maybe some of that tends to happen. I don't think John Holt meant it that way.

ryanmarsh 12y ago
Thanks. The reason I said that unschooling done wrong can set your children up for not being able to make ends meet was perhaps a bit harsh but based on experience. Out of my wife's six cousins they all regret being unschooled. I don't blame them. Their father didn't do it out if some sense of enlightenment. He is an unintelligent man who made his livelihood working with his hands. Unfortunately it's much harder to make a livable wage these days in a job where you sweat. Other than building a cabin (a very well made cabin I might add) his children are weak at reading and writing and are horrible at math. His daughter wanted to be a nurse but couldn't make it through nursing school, one of his sons is a prison guard, the gregarious one is a fantastic jewelry salesman. His kids have a fantastic work ethic but will likely never come close to their full income earning potential. Had the parents focused more on academics and less on grooming horses they might not have to work in retail, a prison, or be restricted by a spouses earning potential. The great benefit of unschooling is that you raise emotionally very well rounded kids. I don't know what it is about the outdoors but it sure does work.