Unschooling demystified

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op sounds like they work in sales.

This is OP. I don't see the relevance, but no, I'm not in sales. Though I think I'll take that as a compliment. (Of course I doubt you meant it that way; I feel like there's maybe one poster on this thread who is just dead-set against unschooling (which is fine) and is taking every possible indirect tack to try to be negative.)

Are you going to unschool your kid(s)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
For example, I found a gallery of interviews with grown-ups who had been unschooled. I tried to find it again just now but couldn't readily track it down, but they came across as very mature, confident, motivated, self-aware and satisfied with their lives, I suppose because they'd been given the freedom to make a lot of their own choices and really own their failures and accomplishments.

A statistically-representative sample, definitely. (By which I mean: not a statistically-representative sample.)

It's all very well to say that children need the freedom to make their own choices etc. etc. etc. But at some point it is necessary to accept that

1. the teacher knows (or ought to know) more than the student, and
2. there are lots of things a person needs to learn, even if that person may not want to learn them

I'm glad you got unmystified about unschooling, I guess. But if you expect that everybody who actually makes it through that wall of text has the same reaction as you, you will be disappointed.

[Anonymous]

Would you agree that a child could basically skip history classes and become a doctor.

Anonymous wrote:So tell me . . .

How does one go on to become a doctor or a veterinarian or a nurse w/o schooling?

After all, isn't college also a microcosm of society? the next step after elementary and secondary in "brainwashing the masses?"

Until society beaks down, my kids will attend school, and I will continue to brainwash the masses!

OP, if this impresses you, you're a fool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Would you agree that a child could basically skip history classes and become a doctor.

Anonymous wrote:So tell me . . .

How does one go on to become a doctor or a veterinarian or a nurse w/o schooling?

After all, isn't college also a microcosm of society? the next step after elementary and secondary in "brainwashing the masses?"

Until society beaks down, my kids will attend school, and I will continue to brainwash the masses!

OP, if this impresses you, you're a fool.

Could the child potentially pass the medical boards? I suppose. Should any functional adult, especially one who aspires to be a professional, "skip history classes" - or any class? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Since we agree that a person could become a doctor with our the history classes taught in school.

What would be more effective a teacher trying to teach a class what is going on in Egypt or having my friend who grew up in Egypt and who has family still there and who visites 5 times a year and still does business there explain the government to my teenager and why they are in the news. He even explained how it affects the soccer matches. After a 4 hour dinner and a gift card to a book store I think this form of teaching is much more effective than what my sons would have learned in school, any school.

I also had a lobbyist friend explain his view of our government and how it really works. Guess what - you don't have to pay a lobbyist anything - not even a book store gift certificate - to talk about themselves. I did get him a signed book from his favorite chef.

So that is how I think unschooling works.

Really sitting is a class for hours listening to a teacher lecture from a book and then reading the same content in a book and then memorizing a bunch of useless facts and being tested is not an effective form of teaching.

So they know Indians/Mayflower/Boston Tea Party, and all the major wars, Robert E. Lee and a bunch of names they may need to know so they appear in "society" to be educated, a day trip to Gettysburg and one to Williamsburg. That took me about 2 months to cover. It's actually pathetic how little anybody really learns about history and govt and politics in a traditional school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would you agree that a child could basically skip history classes and become a doctor.

Anonymous wrote:So tell me . . .

How does one go on to become a doctor or a veterinarian or a nurse w/o schooling?

After all, isn't college also a microcosm of society? the next step after elementary and secondary in "brainwashing the masses?"

Until society beaks down, my kids will attend school, and I will continue to brainwash the masses!

OP, if this impresses you, you're a fool.

Could the child potentially pass the medical boards? I suppose. Should any functional adult, especially one who aspires to be a professional, "skip history classes" - or any class? Absolutely not.

[Anonymous]

Have you heard of The Sudbury School? It's almost unschooling but in a school environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school


They are located all over but I know some kids who attended the original school in Massachusetts. All are accomplished and most are different drummer types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If that is how someone who is unschooled writes a Q&A, that is a pretty good deterrent to unschooling.

Pretty much unreadable.

That was my point about the wall of text.

I'd reference Mark Twain's famous adage about having written a short letter but not having time so he wrote a long one instead, but I'm afraid the reference would probably be lost on the unschooled. Mark WHO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If that is how someone who is unschooled writes a Q&A, that is a pretty good deterrent to unschooling.

Pretty much unreadable.

That was my point about the wall of text.

I'd reference Mark Twain's famous adage about having written a short letter but not having time so he wrote a long one instead, but I'm afraid the reference would probably be lost on the unschooled. Mark WHO?

Isn't a text book just a long letter.

[Anonymous]

Enough has been written about class and racial conflict in schools, above all in high schools, so that I don't want to add much to it here. Where different races are integrated in schools, even after many years, this usually begins to break down around third grade, if not even sooner. From fifth grade on, in their social lives, children are almost completely separated into racial groups, which become more and more hostile as the children grow older. Even in one-race schools, white or nonwhite, there is class separation, class contempt, and class conflict. Few friendships are made across such lines, and the increasing violence in our high schools arises almost entirely from conflicts between such groups.

Perhaps I led a chramed life, but this definitely wasn't the case at my school in NYC. I wonder what schools this person looked at?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Enough has been written about class and racial conflict in schools, above all in high schools, so that I don't want to add much to it here. Where different races are integrated in schools, even after many years, this usually begins to break down around third grade, if not even sooner. From fifth grade on, in their social lives, children are almost completely separated into racial groups, which become more and more hostile as the children grow older. Even in one-race schools, white or nonwhite, there is class separation, class contempt, and class conflict. Few friendships are made across such lines, and the increasing violence in our high schools arises almost entirely from conflicts between such groups.

Perhaps I led a chramed life, but this definitely wasn't the case at my school in NYC. I wonder what schools this person looked at?

It was the case at your school in NYC! But the school successfully brainwashed you to forget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since we agree that a person could become a doctor with our the history classes taught in school.

Sure. But not a good doctor. Not a well-informed citizen either.

I also can't decide which argument I'm impressed by more:

1. history class, in principle, is useless, because history classes, in practice, are inadequate.
2. "Indians/Mayflower/Boston Tea Party, and all the major wars, Robert E. Lee and a bunch of names" is a bunch of useless facts.

[Anonymous]

How many doctors in this area were educated in the US? How many learned about the Mayflower, Robert E. Lee, etc.

I agree you would not be a good unschooler. You don't really seem like a good citizen either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we agree that a person could become a doctor with our the history classes taught in school.

Sure. But not a good doctor. Not a well-informed citizen either.

I also can't decide which argument I'm impressed by more:

1. history class, in principle, is useless, because history classes, in practice, are inadequate.
2. "Indians/Mayflower/Boston Tea Party, and all the major wars, Robert E. Lee and a bunch of names" is a bunch of useless facts.

[Anonymous]

I remember when I was on bed rest reading a bunch of the forums on mothering.com. They have a section on unschooling and its a terrible situation. There are many posts from mothers with tweens and teenagers having serious problems, doing nothing but video games, and kid's being angry that never had school and have no future.

IMO, its a form of child neglect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many doctors in this area were educated in the US? How many learned about the Mayflower, Robert E. Lee, etc.

I agree you would not be a good unschooler. You don't really seem like a good citizen either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Since we agree that a person could become a doctor with our the history classes taught in school.

Sure. But not a good doctor. Not a well-informed citizen either.

I also can't decide which argument I'm impressed by more:

1. history class, in principle, is useless, because history classes, in practice, are inadequate.
2. "Indians/Mayflower/Boston Tea Party, and all the major wars, Robert E. Lee and a bunch of names" is a bunch of useless facts.

As long as we're going down this rabbit hole (<---useless literary reference I'm using to appear to be educated): How many doctors in this area, who were not educated in the US, didn't take history classes in the country/countries they were educated in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If that is how someone who is unschooled writes a Q&A, that is a pretty good deterrent to unschooling.

Pretty much unreadable.

Well, by this silly reasoning, if this is how someone who is schooled writes a critique (focusing only on style instead of substance), then maybe that is a pretty good deterrent to schooling. And btw, the author did in fact go to regular schools himself.

NP here. I write about highly technical research for a living. Obviously you want to combine substance AND style, it 's silly to think it's one or the other. The author of the wall of text never learned this skill.