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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] 
 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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

OP here. Ok, wow, where to start. I said I'd read statistical AND anecdotal accounts, and then I referenced one of the anecdotal accounts; I never said the cited example was statisticallly representative. (I didn't recall enough details about the latter to reference it right then, so I didn't. But basically it was a study of the "unschooling" school, Sudbury, that another poster referenced today. It's been around for about half a century, and someone did a survey with a large number of graduates. The overwhelming majority turned out the same way as the formerly unschooled kids in the anecdotal accounts I described. And they were in professions they really enjoyed and were content with their lives.)

I used to agree with both of your enumerated points, but here's my take on them now. Yes, teachers do know more than their students. That is sort of by definition, right? But it's interesting that you didn't say "schoolteachers" instead of just "teachers," and it inadvertently highlights one of the key things about unschooling: there is no reason a teacher has to be a person working in a school. There is nothing magic or exclusive about what schoolteachers know or do, contrary to what most of us grew up thinking. I think one of the other posters provided some great examples of effective teachers who are not schoolteachers. Also, just because a schoolteacher knows more than their students (in most if not all cases), it doesn't mean they are effectively teaching them, and it doesn't mean that what they are teaching is something the child needs to learn, or something they need to learn right then according to the teacher's schedule, when the child may not be interested and receptive to that topic. The more crucial distinction is that schooling is top-down, teacher-mandated, whereas unschooling puts the responsibility and the choices in the hands of the student. That doesn't mean that adults play no part. Parents can offer an enriching environment, offer guidance when it's asked for, answer questions, point the student to resources, and in general facilitate learning.

Please provide some examples of things everyone "needs" to learn when they're school-age. Reading, perhaps? I think any kid who wants to do anything with their life will take the initiative to learn to read, because it's useful in so many ways. They can't really function well after a certain point without learning to read. So they'll see that and learn to read. The same goes for everyday math, and so on (and those who find they need to learn more advanced math will do so). And if there's a kid who doesn't want to do anything with their life, well, forced schooling wouldn't really change that outcome, would it? I think we've all seen many examples of that. In fact, forcing kids to do something is pretty much the least effective way to make them do something in any sustained way.

And to your last point, no, I definitely did not expect everyone who reads the piece (which I had no trouble reading and understanding, fwiw) to agree with me. I just thought that a lot of other people on here might find it interesting and at least thought-provoking. [/quote]

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