Principia Discordia

Here's that paper I mentioned in the TED thread, that I wrote for my writing class. I thought it might be interesting to some of the people here because I think it aligns well with the humanistic philosophies most of the folks on the forum seem to share.


       In 1979 in Portland, Oregon, after a particularly grueling day in school, a mother turned to her eight-year-old daughter and asked, "How would you feel about not going to school anymore? What would you think about being homeschooled?"

       The little girl's heart leapt and she pretended to think about it, pausing for a long moment and looking as serious as she could before replying "I would miss my friends at school, but I think that I would like it".

       That conversation opened the door to a world of education that she could never have imagined; an education she rarely even realized that she was receiving. Because, despite her mother's well-intentioned decision to homeschool, the reality was that she was a bit flighty and lacked the capability to take on such an endeavor. Instead, she did whatever it is somewhat flighty people did in the seventies and eighties, and the little girl, equipped with a bus pass, a bicycle, and a library card, spent her days roaming the streets and fields, swamps and forests, and one of her favorite places, the library.

       She read books and played and amused herself, and if she ever had a curiosity that the library couldn't satisfy, she asked her mother, and her mother would help her find the things she needed; a microscope and slides for looking at amoebas in the pond, or a spindle and wool for learning to spin yarn. She was never, ever bored. As she got older, though, she began to worry; would she be able to go to college? Did she know as much as the other kids?

       That little girl was me, and what I learned as I came to the end of my time at home and was ready to go into the world as an adult was that not only did I know as  much as the kids who had attended schools, even excellent ones, I knew more. Fearful of math, I hadn't studied it since leaving school, but found to my surprise that I could learn all the math that is taught in the first eight years of public school in just one three-month community college class. Accidentally unschooled, I had, through simply being allowed to exercise the natural curiosity that is inherent in children, given myself a finer education than most of my peers received in school.

       Unschooling is the educational process of child-directed learning without a structured curriculum. Rather than acting as teachers for their children, as with homeschooling, parents instead act as advisors and facilitators for their children's interests, providing suggestions, discussion, materials, and transportation when needed, rather than a list of books and assignments to be completed in a given time-frame.

       Unschooling has many advantages over what we have come to think of as traditional methods of schooling, particularly for children over the age of twelve years old, the age at which young people are beginning to explore autonomy and self-direction in preparation for adulthood. It takes advantage of our natural inborn human curiosity and drive to learn, harnesses children's natural aversion to boredom by empowering them to entertain themselves through learning, building their sense of self-direction in the process, and sidesteps the traditional curriculum's tendency to often stifle interest in learning by pushing too many subjects at a time in a rigidly structured format, regardless of a student's interest or readiness.

       They say that curiosity killed the cat, but no animal is more curious than Homo Sapiens. Children are natural learners from birth; the drive to explore and explain our world manifests itself almost immediately. As Alison Gopnik, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, says, "Babies are like little scientists, continually getting data and overthrowing theories that no longer fit the new evidence" (42).  Not only that, but we are hardwired to find learning fun; according to Dr. Stuart Brown, director of the National Institute for Play, we are, as a species, primed to play from the time infants make their first social smiles and continuing throughout our adult lives, and play is a crucial element in learning and developing our intelligence.

       These are bold statements, and one of the concerns parents might have is whether children, left to their own devices, will simply while away the hours watching TV and playing video games. However, there seems to be ample evidence that, left to their own devices, children grow bored with these activities just as they do with any others, and will seek challenges and stimulation of their own accord. Karl F. Wheatley, an Associate Professor and the coordinator of early childhood teacher education at Cleveland State University, says "The child who is stressed from too many activities slows down his day; the child who is bored seeks more stimulation and challenge. Children learn to self-regulate because they are allowed to self-regulate, which is very different than just obeying" (31). According to Wheatley, one of the consequences of children having so much unstructured time in which to do as they choose is a better quality of boredom; when they are free to do with their time as they will, they learn to recognize that boredom is a result of their own choices, and that they must take responsibility for addressing it. This responsibility helps develop and strengthen their ability to self-regulate (30).

       Another concern often voiced by parents is the question of socialization. Don't children need to socialize with their peers? Indeed, they do, but that also raises the question of who exactly their peers are. In traditional school settings, they are in essence ghettoized by age, forced to associate and build rapport only with other students within a year or so of their own age. In the adult world, our peer groups are diverse and tend to be structured by field and experience, not by age. Unschooled children have access to socialize with a wide range of ages through community center activities and after-school programs, and in addition, through one of the most powerful tools of socialization teens have today, the internet. Meetup groups allow older children to find others who share their interests and are a wonderful way for them to interact with people of varying experience levels in a chosen interest, allowing them both the opportunity to learn and to teach, as well as the opportunity to become socially fluent in relating with people of different ages. Says Carlo Ricci, a teacher in the faculty of education's graduate program at Nipissing University and editor of the online Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, "To see people of all ages freely interacting with each other, rather than being segregated by age, is simply magical" (46).

       A common misconception is that only the extraordinary, the innately motivated, the boldly gifted will thrive in an unstructured child-led learning environment. However, many experts on learning believe that the opposite is true, and that institutionalized learning, with its boredom, its memorization and routine and repetition and adherence to regulation and conformity, extinguishes the extraordinary within ordinary children who are born with a driving curiosity and the inherent thirst to learn already within them. Says creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson, PhD, principal author of The Arts in Schools: Principles, Practice and Provision, "My contention is that all kids  have tremendous talents, and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly".

       We are, after all, the most curious species. Todd B. Kashdan, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at George Mason University and author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. In his blog Curious? on the Psychology Today website, Kashdan posits,

If you want to steal a child's love of a topic, make it mandatory for them to follow precise guidelines of what they have to know and what is irrelevant. Don't answer tangential questions which will steal time away from the omnipresent syllabus (no time for intrigue!). If you are the principal, make sure that teachers and students know that you are always observing them. Deprive children of choices and alternative perspectives, and you might lull them into compliance.

       Grace Llewellyn, former educator, unschooling advocate, and author of The Teenage Liberation Handbook, writes "Although compulsory schooling was begun partly in hopes of educating people worthy of democracy, other goals also embedded themselves in the educational system. One was the goal of creating obedient factory workers who did not waste time by talking to each other or daydreaming" (60).

       Llewellyn's position may seem extreme, and the reality is that unschooling may not be for everyone; there are, after all, children who thrive and seem very happy in the structured hierarchical world of middle school and high school. Those children might not make the decision to leave school for unschool, and it would be contrary to the core principles of unschooling to compel them to do so, as unschooling is fundamentally about allowing children to make choices and master the art of self-direction.

       However, for those who would leave if given the assurance that they will still have the same opportunities in life as their peers who finish traditional high school, unschooling opens up worlds upon worlds of possibility for developing the potential of passionate lifelong learners, future writers, artists, scientists, dancers; people with the capacity to realize the very best of Homo Sapiens' natural Pandora's Box of curiosity locked within every child.
   

Brown, Stuart. Play is More Than Fun. 2008. Video. Ted.com. Web. 11 Mar 2013.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s _vital.html>.

Gopnik, Alison. "What Every Baby Knows." New Scientist 178.2395 (2003): 42.
MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2013.

Kashdan, Todd B. "3 Ideas to Prevent Schools from Killing Creativity, Curiosity, and
Critical Thinking". Curious?. Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC. 11 May 2011. Web. 11 March 2013. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ curious/201105/3-ideas-prevent-schools-killing-creativity-curiosity-and-critical-thinking>

Llewellyn, Grace. The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a
Real Life and Education. Eugene, Or: Lowry House, 1998. Print.

Ricci, Carlo. "Unschooling And The Willed Curriculum." Encounter 24.3 (2011): 45-
48. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2013.

Robinson, Ken. Schools Kill Creativity. 2006. Video. Ted.com. Web. 11 Mar 2013.
<http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity
.html>

Wheatley, Karl F. "Unschooling: An Oasis For Development And Democracy."
Encounter 22.2 (2009): 27-32. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Mar. 2013.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
       Llewellyn's position may seem extreme, and the reality is that unschooling may not be for everyone; there are, after all, children who thrive and seem very happy in the structured hierarchical world of middle school and high school.

This lends credibility to the entire argument.  In every other case I have read, the argument is either that homeschooling is universally a disaster, or that homeschooling is a universal panacea that should be adopted by everyone.

I have been against homeschooling since it became a movement, but this article has given me a reason to reconsider the subject.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 07:08:18 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
       Llewellyn's position may seem extreme, and the reality is that unschooling may not be for everyone; there are, after all, children who thrive and seem very happy in the structured hierarchical world of middle school and high school.

This lends credibility to the entire argument.  In every other case I have read, the argument is either that homeschooling is universally a disaster, or that homeschooling is a universal panacea that should be adopted by everyone.

I have been against homeschooling since it became a movement, but this article has given me a reason to reconsider the subject.

Thank you!

I am not fond of absolutes, myself. I tend to favor the "HOLD ON, YOU'RE BOTH WRONG" approach to life. :lol:

Also, homeshooling is different from unschooling. Unschooling is more like Free Schooling, and is learner-directed, whereas homeschooling is still feeding children a curriculum and agenda, just one that's set by parents or by a church rather than by a school administration.

Many, many people who homeschool would not be at all OK with just facilitating learning in whatever areas their kids are interested in, especially the ones who homeschool in order to protect their children from the evil awful world.

It sounds like the Montassori (sp?) approach is a combination of the two.

However, the few anectdotal encounters I've had with those students left me with the impression that they're condescending pricks.  So.

I am increasingly of the opinion that as long as they learn to read and have ample access to books and databases, children would not be in the slightest bit missing anything if they just do whatever until they turn 16 or so, and then go to college. You can learn all the academics in the K-12 curriculum in one year of college, and you'll probably remember more of it too.

Quote from: LMNO, PhD (life continues) on March 14, 2013, 07:18:15 PM
It sounds like the Montassori (sp?) approach is a combination of the two.

However, the few anectdotal encounters I've had with those students left me with the impression that they're condescending pricks.  So.

Also, very expensive. Out of reach for most families.

QuoteAnother concern often voiced by parents is the question of socialization. Don't children need to socialize with their peers? Indeed, they do, but that also raises the question of who exactly their peers are. In traditional school settings, they are in essence ghettoized by age, forced to associate and build rapport only with other students within a year or so of their own age. In the adult world, our peer groups are diverse and tend to be structured by field and experience, not by age. Unschooled children have access to socialize with a wide range of ages through community center activities and after-school programs, and in addition, through one of the most powerful tools of socialization teens have today, the internet. Meetup groups allow older children to find others who share their interests and are a wonderful way for them to interact with people of varying experience levels in a chosen interest, allowing them both the opportunity to learn and to teach, as well as the opportunity to become socially fluent in relating with people of different ages. Says Carlo Ricci, a teacher in the faculty of education's graduate program at Nipissing University and editor of the online Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, "To see people of all ages freely interacting with each other, rather than being segregated by age, is simply magical" (46).

Big fan of this paragraph. I think Ken Robinson's TED talk referred to segregation of classes by age as treating a child's "date of manufacture" as the most important criterion for what they should be doing/learning. :lol:

I know a lot of people's biggest problem with not going to some kind of traditional school is the concern that children need the experience of, to put it bluntly, dealing with a lot of assholes all in one place. Honestly, I'm not so sure surviving middle and high school asshattery is crucial to coping with asshattery in the adult world. At best, it's a common experience for people to talk about and commiserate over ("Which was your shittiest year of high school?").

I think I've always been a little unusual in how well I socialize with people older than me. Even while still in college, many if not most of my friendships at this point are with people 5 or more years older than myself.

QuoteA common misconception is that only the extraordinary, the innately motivated, the boldly gifted will thrive in an unstructured child-led learning environment. However, many experts on learning believe that the opposite is true, and that institutionalized learning, with its boredom, its memorization and routine and repetition and adherence to regulation and conformity, extinguishes the extraordinary within ordinary children who are born with a driving curiosity and the inherent thirst to learn already within them.

I can definitely see this misconception being a very persistent problem for promoting unschooling. The ability of a child to self-direct their learning is currently perceived as extraordinary, whereas it seems more likely that all children are capable of self-directed learning to some degree.

Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

And, I wonder what our school system would look like if funding for K-12 was diverted 100% into college/university level education. Not that that wouldn't open up another can of worms, because parents wouldn't have free daytime babysitting anymore.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:30:45 PM
Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

Beats nothing.

Seriously.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 09:32:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:30:45 PM
Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

Beats nothing.

Seriously.

It beats nothing, when nothing is no resources and no library. It really beats nothing when nothing is also no food at home unless you work for it.

However, I am not sure it beats nothing when nothing includes the internet and a library card, a roof over your head and enough to eat that you aren't forced into the fields or factories at the age of 8.

Maybe we need schools to teach basic literacy, because not enough parents will do it on their own. Maybe we need schools to keep kids safe and occupied during the day while their parents work. But as far as compulsory schooling goes, from my perspective it's mostly a timekiller.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:53:02 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 09:32:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:30:45 PM
Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

Beats nothing.

Seriously.

It beats nothing, when nothing is no resources and no library. It really beats nothing when nothing is also no food at home unless you work for it.

However, I am not sure it beats nothing when nothing includes the internet and a library card, a roof over your head and enough to eat that you aren't forced into the fields or factories at the age of 8.

Maybe we need schools to teach basic literacy, because not enough parents will do it on their own. Maybe we need schools to keep kids safe and occupied during the day while their parents work. But as far as compulsory schooling goes, from my perspective it's mostly a timekiller.

Once you know how to read & write, and do simple math, everything else can be gained on your own.

But parents won't do it on their own, largely because the parents that have that motivation also are out working 2+ shitty jobs to put food on the table. It's a trap, a spiral, and breaking that spiral is (currently) possible, but very, very difficult.  I realize, of course, that I'm preaching to the choir here, but for every Nigel busting her ass, there's ten people without the ability or the drive.

My biggest problem here is that the tendency in America is to blame the children for the sins of the parent, and any excuse at all will suffice for the assholes we have allowed to own the place to shut down what's left of the school system.  Consider:  The skill sets needed to be a productive peasant can be learned by grade 3.  As long as we have K-12, there's still hope for the system as it stands.

Kids may not learn an ounce of meaningful history, but they're still teaching math and the scientific method (which drives the population of Oro Valley batshit, so you know it's still working).

And, as I say, it beats nothing.

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 10:17:42 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:53:02 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 09:32:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:30:45 PM
Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

Beats nothing.

Seriously.

It beats nothing, when nothing is no resources and no library. It really beats nothing when nothing is also no food at home unless you work for it.

However, I am not sure it beats nothing when nothing includes the internet and a library card, a roof over your head and enough to eat that you aren't forced into the fields or factories at the age of 8.

Maybe we need schools to teach basic literacy, because not enough parents will do it on their own. Maybe we need schools to keep kids safe and occupied during the day while their parents work. But as far as compulsory schooling goes, from my perspective it's mostly a timekiller.

Once you know how to read & write, and do simple math, everything else can be gained on your own.

But parents won't do it on their own, largely because the parents that have that motivation also are out working 2+ shitty jobs to put food on the table. It's a trap, a spiral, and breaking that spiral is (currently) possible, but very, very difficult.  I realize, of course, that I'm preaching to the choir here, but for every Nigel busting her ass, there's ten people without the ability or the drive.

My biggest problem here is that the tendency in America is to blame the children for the sins of the parent, and any excuse at all will suffice for the assholes we have allowed to own the place to shut down what's left of the school system.  Consider:  The skill sets needed to be a productive peasant can be learned by grade 3.  As long as we have K-12, there's still hope for the system as it stands.

Kids may not learn an ounce of meaningful history, but they're still teaching math and the scientific method (which drives the population of Oro Valley batshit, so you know it's still working).

And, as I say, it beats nothing.

The skills to be a productive peasant, sure, but not a productive factory worker. That takes the public school system as it stands, as it was intended.

I am very torn on the value of schools for k-5. I think that they have huge potential for high value, but that potential isn't being anywhere close to realized. Something like the Free School child-led learning structure would be much better.

I am profoundly skeptical of structured-curriculum schools being of much value at all for kids 12-16. If anything, I think that a "school system" for kids those ages should be structured more like libraries with lab space, where the teachers are essentially consultant-facilitators and the kids come and go at will.

But I also recognize that such a structure is, in our current culture, the stuff of fantasy.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 11:11:05 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 10:17:42 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:53:02 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 09:32:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 09:30:45 PM
Thanks Cainad!

I really am just increasingly cynical about the value of compulsory schooling.

Beats nothing.

Seriously.

It beats nothing, when nothing is no resources and no library. It really beats nothing when nothing is also no food at home unless you work for it.

However, I am not sure it beats nothing when nothing includes the internet and a library card, a roof over your head and enough to eat that you aren't forced into the fields or factories at the age of 8.

Maybe we need schools to teach basic literacy, because not enough parents will do it on their own. Maybe we need schools to keep kids safe and occupied during the day while their parents work. But as far as compulsory schooling goes, from my perspective it's mostly a timekiller.

Once you know how to read & write, and do simple math, everything else can be gained on your own.

But parents won't do it on their own, largely because the parents that have that motivation also are out working 2+ shitty jobs to put food on the table. It's a trap, a spiral, and breaking that spiral is (currently) possible, but very, very difficult.  I realize, of course, that I'm preaching to the choir here, but for every Nigel busting her ass, there's ten people without the ability or the drive.

My biggest problem here is that the tendency in America is to blame the children for the sins of the parent, and any excuse at all will suffice for the assholes we have allowed to own the place to shut down what's left of the school system.  Consider:  The skill sets needed to be a productive peasant can be learned by grade 3.  As long as we have K-12, there's still hope for the system as it stands.

Kids may not learn an ounce of meaningful history, but they're still teaching math and the scientific method (which drives the population of Oro Valley batshit, so you know it's still working).

And, as I say, it beats nothing.

The skills to be a productive peasant, sure, but not a productive factory worker. That takes the public school system as it stands, as it was intended.

I am very torn on the value of schools for k-5. I think that they have huge potential for high value, but that potential isn't being anywhere close to realized. Something like the Free School child-led learning structure would be much better.

I am profoundly skeptical of structured-curriculum schools being of much value at all for kids 12-16. If anything, I think that a "school system" for kids those ages should be structured more like libraries with lab space, where the teachers are essentially consultant-facilitators and the kids come and go at will.

But I also recognize that such a structure is, in our current culture, the stuff of fantasy.

Well, yeah.  Can you imagine the outcry from everyone packing an agenda (left OR right)?

Not sure about my thoughts on "unschooling" yet - but I 100% agree that arbitrarily segregating children by age is completely stupid. I was lucky enough to go to an amazing "creative learning" summer camp every year from 3rd grade through high school, and one of the best things about that camp was that virtually all of the classes/activities were mixed age. A typical team for the "build a balsa wood bridge" / "put on a play" / whatever project would be an even mix of 1-2 elementary students, 2-3 middle school students, and a high school student or two. I think I gained more maturity hanging out with the older kids and leading the younger kids in those two weeks than the rest of the year put together.

The camp also had a really good mix of self-direction and structure. The day itself was fairly rigid in terms of schedule (meals, classes, sport/exercise, club, and whole-camp evening activities happened at the same time every day) but every camper got to pick which classes and which club they did, and exercise/sport was always a choice between swimming, ultimate frisbee, and talking a nice long walk. Provided meal times and time between events were generous enough that you never felt rushed, so it didn't feel nearly as structured as it is.

I keep using the past tense, but it's still goin. I highly recommend it to any of your children. I think registration for 2013 is still open. 2013 Course List. (http://www.appalachianinstitute.org/?page_id=76)

Not that simply adding "mixed-age" to a standard curriculum necessarily helps. 4th grade I was in a mixed 4th-5th grade class, and 5th grade I was in a mixed 3rd-5th grade class. We only split by grade for math classes. (Reading group was done by reading skill level). 4th grade was okay, I guess - I got special permission to be in the 5th grade math class, so that was something. But 5th grade was just doing generic classwork with 3rd graders. (Plus I had to re-take 5th grade math because they didn't have 6th grade math.) They never did anything to take advantage of the age range, it was just doing activities slightly dumbed down to a mid point between the theoretical 5th grader and theoretical 3rd grader.

I like the Unschooling idea. Everything after fifth grade DOES do more harm than good.
But I also see what Roger is saying. Any time something good even TRIES to catch on, it gets twisted into AMERICA^(TM).

YES.
My 5th-7th grade teachers were awesome and gave me a lot of freedom (and ordered books for me at the school's expense) so it wasn't that terrible.
But the cesspool of intolerance and conformity that was middle school taught me few things other than that shitty people are very real, to hit back when attacked and to avoid being perceived as a sissy. I think I could have done at least as well without it.  The most exciting parts of it were the months I had whooping cough, because then I could go for solitary walks in P.E., read books and whatever I wanted a lot of the time.

I think this "Unschooling" idea is fine as an option for education, but it won't work for all kids, just like homeschooling doesn't work for all kids, and traditional k-12 schools don't work for all kids.  But, K-12 DOES work  for kids, surely there are improvements to be made.  It worked for me, it's working for my daughter, but then again, I think the parents are the key.  I don't care which educational model you put your kids through, if you as a parent(s) are actively engaged in their education, they will be fine.  If parents aren't engaged, the kids will struggle and fail, whether it is homeschool, public school, or unschool.  Period.

Good point, RWHN.

My aunt teaches 2nd Grade in one of the most underfunded school systems in Ohio. The whole district is full of really poor people with little education and at this point few jobs. I remember a story she told me where a very angry father came in and berated her for trying to teach his kid to read. Apparently since the mother and father couldn't read they didn't want their child thinking that he was smarter than his parents.

No matter which style of education that kid gets, I think he's probably fucked.

On the other hand, I know of success stories from public education, home schooling, Montessori and other alternative education options... in all of the cases I can think of though, the parents were actively involved. The reverse seems to hold in many cases as well.

I think it is pretty simple really.  If parents are involved, then they are communicating to their children that education and knowledge is a family value.  And so with that value instilled, those kids will tend to succeed.  But as in the example you provided, if it isn't a value, or the parents are actively against education, then you're right, more often than not, those kids will be fucked no matter how good the educational system.

Teacher interaction also counts for a lot.

In most public schools, teachers simply don't have the time for dealing with students individually.  If someone is having a problem keeping up...well, that's a discussion for after class.  While you're in the class, you teach to the class as a group.  And when that group is 30+, people are going to be left by the wayside, without the support they need.

Much of the reason private education gets better test results than public education is that private education a) has the money it needs and b) typically has low class sizes - never above 20 students, and usually with plenty of one-to-one interaction thrown in for good measure.

Naturally, this would also apply to some homeschooling and similar, because, assuming the parent knows what they are teaching about, the student will benefit massively from that more intense and concentrated interaction.

One of the international school systems I am most interested in is the Finnish one.  Finnish education results are amazingly, from an international perspective.  Part of that reason is the high teacher to student ratio (1:12), the selectiveness of the Finnish education system (need a Masters to teach, only top 10% graduating students are accepted), more social and free time for students, less standardized testing and greater social prestige for educators.

 :lol: I can tell which of you read my essay and which of you didn't.

I didn't.

I tried to, but it was too early in the day.  I woke up by the time I got on the second page, and decided to riff off the following conversation.

Quote from: Cain on March 15, 2013, 10:52:04 PM
I didn't.

I tried to, but it was too early in the day.  I woke up by the time I got on the second page, and decided to riff off the following conversation.

Well, it is long and your time is limited, so I don't blame you... but the conversation now has little to do with it.

Ah, I was rather hoping that would not be the case.  I'll try and catch up with the OP tomorrow, assuming my sleep isn't disturbed tonight.

Nigel - what is it about college education that you find more valuable than, say, high school? Is is the age/maturity of the students, or something different between the structure of high school and the structure of college?

Thanks, Cain!

GA, I'll try to answer that tomorrow, I'm kinda burnt out tonight. But it's a simple answer, I promise.

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 16, 2013, 01:17:05 AM
Nigel - what is it about college education that you find more valuable than, say, high school? Is is the age/maturity of the students, or something different between the structure of high school and the structure of college?

Mostly it's the structure. High schools for the most part have students in the classroom for seven-eight hours a day from very early in the morning, slowly doling out up to seven different subjects (with a ton of redundancy) and then sending them home with homework which is almost always repetitive, grindingly dull makework and not particularly educational. In college you pick three to four subjects you're interested in and spend on average three hours a day in class and another 3 doing homework. They say you should allocate twice as many homework hours as you have class hours, but I've never had it work out that way. Many classes are available online, so you can do bits and pieces of them throughout the week when you have time.

The materials are interesting and engaging, and the teachers treat you like an adult... which of course most college students are. Because you choose your classes, you're there voluntarily in a class you decided to take, so engagement is naturally higher. Fewer subjects means you're able to focus on the areas that interest you and learn them comprehensively.

Classes, unless they're highly specialized (for example, my social psych class next term is only available at 3 pm) are generally available at a wide range of hours, so early birds can take morning classes and night owls can take afternoon or evening classes, whichever suits their nature better.

College is not for most kids under 16, because it's very self-motivated and there's nobody holding your hand to make sure you attend classes or turn in work. But I'm watching my kids in middle and high school, and they have three times the classroom hours I have, the same amount of homework, and it takes them YEARS to plod through the same material I cover in weeks, and they come out of it with a poorer grasp, and definitely without liking it much. These are fucking smart kids; all of them test in the 99th percentile for IQ. The logical and natural conclusion I must come to is that the way they teach in school is ineffective to the point of being counterproductive.

If I was boss of the world, I would have k-6 schools for kids 6-12 for basic skills, supervised open/community based study for kids 13-16, two years of optional self-directed learning, and then college.

Kids here do have the option, at 16, of taking core classes at community college for simultaneous high school and college credit. A lot of kids are intimidated by the idea because they're afraid it's going to be really hard. However, the high school kids I see in my classes do just fine.

IMO high school and college serve two different purposes.  Really, K-12 is pretty much just about teaching kids how to learn, by giving them discreet tools.  Reading, math, writing, science, and technical skills if you take a vocational track.  4-year college is more about becoming a bit more specialized in learning skills as you hone in on where you want to have a career.  You then either move on to a trade or job where you get even more specific in your learning and training, or you move on to Graduate school to gain professional skills. 


So, sure, college is more valuable in the sense it is taking you a step closer, in theory, to a career.  High school, honestly, isn't meant to do that at all. 

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 06:23:24 PM
IMO high school and college serve two different purposes.  Really, K-12 is pretty much just about teaching kids how to learn follow orders, by giving them discreet tools.  Reading, math, writing, science, and technical skills if you take a vocational track.  4-year college is more about becoming a bit more specialized in learning skills as you hone in on where you want to have a career.  You then either move on to a trade or job where you get even more specific in your learning and training, or you move on to Graduate school to gain professional skills. 


So, sure, college is more valuable in the sense it is taking you a step closer, in theory, to a career.  High school, honestly, isn't meant to do that at all.

Fixed.

Damn, RWHN, that was bad, even for you.

Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

Nobody (well, almost nobody) who works in public schools is really trying to churn out robots. Unfortunately the system is designed so that churning out robots is all a school can do if it wants to stay open very long. The overreaching and under responsive national standards system is mostly to blame for that. Schools must meet only the most minimal of actual educational standards, and their resources are strangled until that's all they can do. In many districts schools are restricted from doing anything creative for a lot of reasons, but the end result is a factory-based education model that values repetition over actual learning, and even punishes things like curiosity.

In short, it is true that schools are designed to teach kids to follow orders rather than to learn, even if that design is mostly accidental.

Vex is spot-on. It's not that the teachers are bad, it's that the system is bad. Few people recognize this more than educators, who daily butt up against the frustrating limits placed on their ability to teach by a broken system.

RWHN, I know you aren't going to read my OP, and I don't expect you to look up the articles I cited, but I did link to a couple of good videos that many people here might find enjoyable and/or interesting.

These are them:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 02:04:33 AM
Vex is spot-on. It's not that the teachers are bad, it's that the system is bad. Few people recognize this more than educators, who daily butt up against the frustrating limits placed on their ability to teach by a broken system.

RWHN, I know you aren't going to read my OP, and I don't expect you to look up the articles I cited, but I did link to a couple of good videos that many people here might find enjoyable and/or interesting.

I did read the OP, and as I said the unschooling idea you talk about is fine as an option for education, but like any educational model can work for some and fail for others.  Just like the public school system turns out plenty of kids who aren't mindless drones and indeed have a thirst for garnering more specialized knowledge (i.e. going to college) and were plenty inspired to be creative individuals.  I was one of those kids, all of my creative and talented friends and colleagues came out of that system.  This idea that the public school system is nothing more than a meat factory, IMO, is a lazily and overly cynical one.  But before the peanut gallery gets all lathered up, I'm NOT saying it is perfect.  Indeed it isn't.  But it also isn't a teenage dystopia. 

In most of the country the school system has reached crisis-level bad. That's not really a matter of debate at this point.

Which is a completely different topic from whether some kids can thrive in it when it's working well. As I said in my essay, some kids do.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:03:58 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 02:04:33 AM
Vex is spot-on. It's not that the teachers are bad, it's that the system is bad. Few people recognize this more than educators, who daily butt up against the frustrating limits placed on their ability to teach by a broken system.

RWHN, I know you aren't going to read my OP, and I don't expect you to look up the articles I cited, but I did link to a couple of good videos that many people here might find enjoyable and/or interesting.

I did read the OP, and as I said the unschooling idea you talk about is fine as an option for education, but like any educational model can work for some and fail for others.  Just like the public school system turns out plenty of kids who aren't mindless drones and indeed have a thirst for garnering more specialized knowledge (i.e. going to college) and were plenty inspired to be creative individuals.  I was one of those kids, all of my creative and talented friends and colleagues came out of that system.  This idea that the public school system is nothing more than a meat factory, IMO, is a lazily and overly cynical one.  But before the peanut gallery gets all lathered up, I'm NOT saying it is perfect.  Indeed it isn't.  But it also isn't a teenage dystopia. 

There are more than a few assumptions I think you're making here that don't necessarily deserve to be made. First of all, "the public school system" is not a monolithic thing that's the same everywhere you go. There are good ones and bad ones, like nodes in any widely distributed system. The problem isn't that there are NO good ideas or good practices in public education, it's that when there are good ideas, they are a) the exception and not the rule, and b) mostly limited to areas where the schools are already better than average.

I also think your definition of "plenty" differs from my definition of "plenty." Just because it is possible to succeed in spite of a terrible school system doesn't mean "plenty" of people are likely to succeed. Schools shouldn't just not get in your way, they should prompt you to expand your education and motivate you to achieve more. But our schools don't do that. Any system that lets people just slide by doing the bare minimum in terms of scholastic rigor is a failure of a system, because it's one that is comfortable with not pushing people to live up to their potential. No matter how many bright minds might pass through that system and go on to greater things, if it isn't the explicit mission of that system to inspire creativity and curiosity, then it shouldn't really called "education," it should be called "citizen training."

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:21:14 AM
In most of the country the school system has reached crisis-level bad. That's not really a matter of debate at this point.

I would argue that where there is crisis it is directly related to economic issues (funding, poverty, etc.) and not necessarily the system.

QuoteWhich is a completely different topic from whether some kids can thrive in it when it's working well. As I said in my essay, some kids do.

It's much more than "some", but certainly it isn't enough.

Quote from: V3X on March 17, 2013, 03:25:53 AM
There are more than a few assumptions I think you're making here that don't necessarily deserve to be made. First of all, "the public school system" is not a monolithic thing that's the same everywhere you go.

No shit, you're kidding me, really?  I had no idea! 

QuoteThere are good ones and bad ones, like nodes in any widely distributed system. The problem isn't that there are NO good ideas or good practices in public education, it's that when there are good ideas, they are a) the exception and not the rule, and b) mostly limited to areas where the schools are already better than average.

You mean like where the economy is better, parents are better off, and are more likely to have the capacity to be involved? 

QuoteI also think your definition of "plenty" differs from my definition of "plenty." Just because it is possible to succeed in spite of a terrible school system doesn't mean "plenty" of people are likely to succeed. Schools shouldn't just not get in your way, they should prompt you to expand your education and motivate you to achieve more. But our schools don't do that. Any system that lets people just slide by doing the bare minimum in terms of scholastic rigor is a failure of a system, because it's one that is comfortable with not pushing people to live up to their potential. No matter how many bright minds might pass through that system and go on to greater things, if it isn't the explicit mission of that system to inspire creativity and curiosity, then it shouldn't really called "education," it should be called "citizen training."

I disagree with your characterization and generalization of the monolithic system that just above you were telling me isn't a monolithic system.  The problem isn't the public school system.  The problems are economic. 

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:28:37 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:21:14 AM
In most of the country the school system has reached crisis-level bad. That's not really a matter of debate at this point.

I would argue that where there is crisis it is directly related to economic issues (funding, poverty, etc.) and not necessarily the system.

QuoteWhich is a completely different topic from whether some kids can thrive in it when it's working well. As I said in my essay, some kids do.

It's much more than "some", but certainly it isn't enough.

How much is more than "some"?  :lulz:

RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:35:37 AM

...

I disagree with your characterization and generalization of the monolithic system that just above you were telling me isn't a monolithic system.  The problem isn't the public school system.  The problems are economic. 

The problems aren't simply economics. Yes, funding is a problem... lack of equipment, lack of extracurricular programs, the constant possibility of layoffs and furloughs hanging over faculty like a black cloud are all problems. But another problem is that with every successive revision to school curricula, standards are set lower so schools are more able to meet standardized testing requirements. Meanwhile, the tests themselves keep multiplying, and schools have to dash from one specific point covered on tests to the next, with no time left for anything like in-depth discovery. The whole thing becomes an exercise in memorizing names and dates and buzzwords, and the whole system is set up to help students with this memorization, at the expense of learning any background stories.

Also, this ridiculous push to teach everyone at the same time that schools are obsessed with. Remedial classes are disappearing, as well as advanced classes. The fact is that some kids aren't great at some subjects, and they need more time to learn them thoroughly. But instead of giving those kids that extra time, we dumb down the requirements of the course so they can meet the benchmarks, and hold the rest of the kids back to that level.

Kids who are bored by the relentless repetition and "review" work start fidgeting, and then they're sent straight to the nurse and then home with a note that says they need to see a doctor so they can get loaded down with mind-altering narcotics so they can "conduct themselves appropriately." The schools believe as much now as they did in the 1850s that every child should respond the same way to the same environment, otherwise they must be pounded into the mold. Like I said, it's a factory-based model that we've used since public schools began in this country, and yes it's failing miserably.

Schools and their results aren't monolithic, but the problems with the way we teach children are systemic, and it's a disease that reaches every corner of the system.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:43:13 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:28:37 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:21:14 AM
In most of the country the school system has reached crisis-level bad. That's not really a matter of debate at this point.

I would argue that where there is crisis it is directly related to economic issues (funding, poverty, etc.) and not necessarily the system.

QuoteWhich is a completely different topic from whether some kids can thrive in it when it's working well. As I said in my essay, some kids do.

It's much more than "some", but certainly it isn't enough.

How much is more than "some"?  :lulz:

Open newspapers, look at dean's lists, look at the kids involved in school programs, community service projects, arts programs, public schools DO encourage kids to thrive, to become integral parts of the community.  There needs to be more, yes, there needs to be more schools doing these programs and producing these results, yes.  But there are many kids who are doing well.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:08:35 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:43:13 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:28:37 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:21:14 AM
In most of the country the school system has reached crisis-level bad. That's not really a matter of debate at this point.

I would argue that where there is crisis it is directly related to economic issues (funding, poverty, etc.) and not necessarily the system.

QuoteWhich is a completely different topic from whether some kids can thrive in it when it's working well. As I said in my essay, some kids do.

It's much more than "some", but certainly it isn't enough.

How much is more than "some"?  :lulz:

Open newspapers, look at dean's lists, look at the kids involved in school programs, community service projects, arts programs, public schools DO encourage kids to thrive, to become integral parts of the community.  There needs to be more, yes, there needs to be more schools doing these programs and producing these results, yes.  But there are many kids who are doing well.

So you are arguing  that "many" is more than "some", and that therefore "some" is the wrong word to use?

:lulz:

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:10:32 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

That's true. Can you relate it to the OP?

Can you defend the premise that economic factors are not part of the system as it was designed?

I'm thinking a thread split may be in order.

Quote from: V3X on March 17, 2013, 03:55:06 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:35:37 AM

...

I disagree with your characterization and generalization of the monolithic system that just above you were telling me isn't a monolithic system.  The problem isn't the public school system.  The problems are economic. 

The problems aren't simply economics. Yes, funding is a problem... lack of equipment, lack of extracurricular programs, the constant possibility of layoffs and furloughs hanging over faculty like a black cloud are all problems.

No, it's bigger than school budgets.  It's families under stress and parents not able to be in tune and a part of their kids' education.  It's kids being born into generational poverty where education isn't a value because there is no hope.  If education isn't a family valie, if the parents are engaged, I don't care what model you put those kids through, most of them will still get lost because they are starting from a hopeless, shitty situation where they are taught to not give a fuck because they are destined to a dead-end life of squalor.  That's the shit that needs to be fixed right there.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 04:13:51 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:10:32 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

That's true. Can you relate it to the OP?

Can you defend the premise that economic factors are not part of the system as it was designed?

That isn't my premise, my premise is that economic factors are entwined with ALL of the systems, including your unschooling model, because in large part of the impact on families and how that (the bad economy) discourages parental involvement in education and parents instilling education as a necesssary value.

Uuh......

So yeah, as to OP, that thing in the beginning of the thread...

I love it! Some questions:

What about the legality of it? Aren't you required to school your children though some kind of approved program? I understand that Montessori programs work in much a similar manner, and there are home-school Montessori.

But if you fully detach from a program...doesn't The Man bring the hammer down?

Here in AK you are allowed to funnel your state funded public education into whatever approved program you desire, or whatever charter school lottery you can get on. They even allow siblings to be automatically added if one child gets in. It's pretty rad.

Still, I like the idea of actively diving into interests that already exist.

If my son loves the shit out of Spiderman, and he does, he will be more likely to draw, which he doesn't do freely, if we draw Spiderman.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:24:16 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 04:13:51 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:10:32 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

That's true. Can you relate it to the OP?

Can you defend the premise that economic factors are not part of the system as it was designed?

That isn't my premise, my premise is that economic factors are entwined with ALL of the systems, including your unschooling model, because in large part of the impact on families and how that (the bad economy) discourages parental involvement in education and parents instilling education as a necessary value.

That's nice, but why don't you start a separate thread on that wholly separate, albeit somewhat related, topic?

You know when you're talking about music with friends or co-workers, perhaps discussing the nuance of some particular genre, and some dick takes it as an invitation to rant about how the RIAA are a bunch of assholes, and how MP3 loses too much sound quality, and how really, REALLY, all of music is fucked for reasons that those other folks may OR MAY NOT ACTUALLY GIVE A FUCK ABOUT BUT DOESN'T REALLY APPLY TO THE CONVERSATION AT HAND?

I mean I think that's the whole point of the OP we can't have conversations unless we fix the economy!

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 10:57:48 PM
Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

OOOOOH, look at RWHN, he's got no answer to that but a shitty one-liner. Isn't he ADORABLE? Everything after third grade = a fucking waste of time and an exercise in "STFU and don't question" and you know it.

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:13:52 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 10:57:48 PM
Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

OOOOOH, look at RWHN, he's got no answer to that but a shitty one-liner. Isn't he ADORABLE? Everything after third grade = a fucking waste of time and an exercise in "STFU and don't question" and you know it.

I think you're both motherfucking adorable. No, really, for serious, you two should keep this up for as many pages as you can manage. That would be super.

BREAKING NEWS: STELLA AND RWHN DON'T GET ALONG. MORE AT 11. AND 12. AND FOREVER PRETTY MUCH.

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 03:35:37 AM

Quote from: V3X on March 17, 2013, 03:25:53 AM
There are more than a few assumptions I think you're making here that don't necessarily deserve to be made. First of all, "the public school system" is not a monolithic thing that's the same everywhere you go.

No shit, you're kidding me, really?  I had no idea! 

QuoteThere are good ones and bad ones, like nodes in any widely distributed system. The problem isn't that there are NO good ideas or good practices in public education, it's that when there are good ideas, they are a) the exception and not the rule, and b) mostly limited to areas where the schools are already better than average.

You mean like where the economy is better, parents are better off, and are more likely to have the capacity to be involved? 

QuoteI also think your definition of "plenty" differs from my definition of "plenty." Just because it is possible to succeed in spite of a terrible school system doesn't mean "plenty" of people are likely to succeed. Schools shouldn't just not get in your way, they should prompt you to expand your education and motivate you to achieve more. But our schools don't do that. Any system that lets people just slide by doing the bare minimum in terms of scholastic rigor is a failure of a system, because it's one that is comfortable with not pushing people to live up to their potential. No matter how many bright minds might pass through that system and go on to greater things, if it isn't the explicit mission of that system to inspire creativity and curiosity, then it shouldn't really called "education," it should be called "citizen training."

I disagree with your characterization and generalization of the monolithic system that just above you were telling me isn't a monolithic system.  The problem isn't the public school system.  The problems are economic.

MORE FUNDING FOR RWHN!

He's the Gavriel Discordia of SCHOOL.

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:17:16 AM

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:13:52 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 10:57:48 PM
Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

OOOOOH, look at RWHN, he's got no answer to that but a shitty one-liner. Isn't he ADORABLE? Everything after third grade = a fucking waste of time and an exercise in "STFU and don't question" and you know it.

I think you're both motherfucking adorable. No, really, for serious, you two should keep this up for as many pages as you can manage. That would be super.

BREAKING NEWS: STELLA AND RWHN DON'T GET ALONG. MORE AT 11. AND 12. AND FOREVER PRETTY MUCH.

Nah, I'm out. RWHN gets all aroused if you abuse him for more than a page or so. It's squicky.

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:26:15 AM

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:17:16 AM

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:13:52 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 10:57:48 PM
Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

OOOOOH, look at RWHN, he's got no answer to that but a shitty one-liner. Isn't he ADORABLE? Everything after third grade = a fucking waste of time and an exercise in "STFU and don't question" and you know it.

I think you're both motherfucking adorable. No, really, for serious, you two should keep this up for as many pages as you can manage. That would be super.

BREAKING NEWS: STELLA AND RWHN DON'T GET ALONG. MORE AT 11. AND 12. AND FOREVER PRETTY MUCH.

Nah, I'm out. RWHN gets all aroused if you abuse him for more than a page or so. It's squicky.

Care to make a friendly wager?
      /
:judge:

ETA: Uh, yeah, I'm just going to point out the fact that RWHN was not the one to bring up RWHN's arousal ITT RE: Squick.

Just sayin.

Nigel, I am sorry for further fucking up this thread. I really liked your essay and find the idea fascinating.

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:33:53 AM

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:26:15 AM

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:17:16 AM

Quote from: stelz on March 17, 2013, 05:13:52 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 16, 2013, 10:57:48 PM
Your ignorant cynicism is just soooo cute.   :lol:

OOOOOH, look at RWHN, he's got no answer to that but a shitty one-liner. Isn't he ADORABLE? Everything after third grade = a fucking waste of time and an exercise in "STFU and don't question" and you know it.

I think you're both motherfucking adorable. No, really, for serious, you two should keep this up for as many pages as you can manage. That would be super.

BREAKING NEWS: STELLA AND RWHN DON'T GET ALONG. MORE AT 11. AND 12. AND FOREVER PRETTY MUCH.

Nah, I'm out. RWHN gets all aroused if you abuse him for more than a page or so. It's squicky.

Care to make a friendly wager?
      /
:judge:

ETA: Uh, yeah, I'm just going to point out the fact that RWHN was not the one to bring up RWHN's arousal ITT RE: Squick.

Just sayin.

Well, no, your timely reminder snapped me back to the DRUGZ&DRUGZ&DRUGZ thread. And while I do have some hateshitting to get out someplace, your post served to remind me that it's no good if it's some creep who moans and snaps his carrot the entire time he's getting bitch slapped and shat on. 

Apologies to Nigel from me, too. It's a good thread other than RWHN. Carry on.

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:08:13 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:24:16 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 04:13:51 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:10:32 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

That's true. Can you relate it to the OP?

Can you defend the premise that economic factors are not part of the system as it was designed?

That isn't my premise, my premise is that economic factors are entwined with ALL of the systems, including your unschooling model, because in large part of the impact on families and how that (the bad economy) discourages parental involvement in education and parents instilling education as a necessary value.

That's nice, but why don't you start a separate thread on that wholly separate, albeit somewhat related, topic?

You know when you're talking about music with friends or co-workers, perhaps discussing the nuance of some particular genre, and some dick takes it as an invitation to rant about how the RIAA are a bunch of assholes, and how MP3 loses too much sound quality, and how really, REALLY, all of music is fucked for reasons that those other folks may OR MAY NOT ACTUALLY GIVE A FUCK ABOUT BUT DOESN'T REALLY APPLY TO THE CONVERSATION AT HAND?

I mean I think that's the whole point of the OP we can't have conversations unless we fix the economy!

The thread started to incorporate conversations about the broken school systems on page one before I posted a thing.  So I was responding both to the OP (e.g. where I said it's a model I think could work as an option for some kids) and I was responding to where the rest of the thread was going which was how public school systems are broken and only churning out mindless meat robots. 

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 04:48:48 AM
Uuh......

So yeah, as to OP, that thing in the beginning of the thread...

I love it! Some questions:

What about the legality of it? Aren't you required to school your children though some kind of approved program? I understand that Montessori programs work in much a similar manner, and there are home-school Montessori.

But if you fully detach from a program...doesn't The Man bring the hammer down?

Here in AK you are allowed to funnel your state funded public education into whatever approved program you desire, or whatever charter school lottery you can get on. They even allow siblings to be automatically added if one child gets in. It's pretty rad.

Still, I like the idea of actively diving into interests that already exist.

If my son loves the shit out of Spiderman, and he does, he will be more likely to draw, which he doesn't do freely, if we draw Spiderman.

It varies from state to state; most states require that homeschooled students pass the same standardized tests that kids in school have to, and unschooling, for most purposes, falls under the umbrella of homeschooling. Some states might require that parents use an approved curriculum, but I know that in others that's been found unconstitutional, and really, who's going to be checking?

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:24:16 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 04:13:51 AM

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 17, 2013, 04:10:32 AM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 17, 2013, 03:47:30 AM
RWHN, how can you separate the non-economic factors from the economic factors? Are economic factors not part of the system as it is designed?

I think you're just arguing in order to be argumentative, and you're also pretty far off topic.

No, I'm not.  You can introduce all of the educational models you want, shit will still be broken, too many kids will still get lost because the economy is still broken.  Fix the economy and more kids will thrive in ALL educational models.

That's true. Can you relate it to the OP?

Can you defend the premise that economic factors are not part of the system as it was designed?

That isn't my premise, my premise is that economic factors are entwined with ALL of the systems, including your unschooling model, because in large part of the impact on families and how that (the bad economy) discourages parental involvement in education and parents instilling education as a necesssary value.

Sooooo, because the economy is an overarching factor that affects all other systems, we can't have a dialogue about anything else until we've fixed the economy?

Quote from: Alty on March 17, 2013, 05:43:35 AM
Nigel, I am sorry for further fucking up this thread. I really liked your essay and find the idea fascinating.

Thank you Alty!

Quote from: Rev. What's-His-Name? on March 15, 2013, 11:24:56 AM
I think this "Unschooling" idea is fine as an option for education, but it won't work for all kids, just like homeschooling doesn't work for all kids, and traditional k-12 schools don't work for all kids.  But, K-12 DOES work  for kids, surely there are improvements to be made.  It worked for me, it's working for my daughter, but then again, I think the parents are the key.  I don't care which educational model you put your kids through, if you as a parent(s) are actively engaged in their education, they will be fine.  If parents aren't engaged, the kids will struggle and fail, whether it is homeschool, public school, or unschool.  Period.

As long as we're  using anecdotal evidence, my parents weren't engaged, or, often, even present, and I experienced a lot of setbacks and trauma related to that, but did fine educationally speaking.

Anyway, if there's any chance this conversation could steer back to the potential of unschooling as an option for engaged parents and children, I certainly would appreciate it.

What I like most about this is how it not only forces the parent, if they give a damn at all, to become more active in their child's interests, but it forces both of them to learn more and to think about different ways to approach things.

It's easy to let your kid go to a prison-modeled daycare, let them come home and drown out the horror in video games and TV, and lose track entirely with who they are. It's a challenge to give a damn about their seemingly trivial fascinations. Even more so when you figure that most parents a product of the same model producing system.

I'll have to check in on what my state allows. It'll matter a lot because talking my kid's mom into it will likely take a powerpoint presentation, many impressive graphs, and vague, cheap blows regarding the violence seen in schools. She prefers to set her ideals by whatever the status quo is.

Currently, as far as I can tell, the status quo states:

1. If you take your kids out of public school, they'll turn into freaks.

Even if you take them out for extracurricular activities involving other kids they will still be HORRIBLY STIGMATIZED because they aren't like all the cattle in the big buildings.

The most perfect argument against this is ME. I went through 11 years of US public school and I have a HORRIBLE personality.

2. The legality of it.

What will people think, what if The Man finds out. I will look into the local requirements, and it seems like there's a lot of wriggle room. Like you say, Nigel, who's gonna know, really?

But this is the sort of thinking I am going to come up against when working with my son's mom. I'll probably have to wait until he's more self-sufficient (12 seems like a good age) and capable of making his own choices without interference.

If I had had an opportunity like this I would have wept for joy.

Okay so actually what I like most of this was a response I found to a parent saying their kid has done nothing but watch TV, play games, and listen to music.

The response was the many and varied way that they interact with their kids based on those interests.

They find out and dicuss how the frames were shot, what was used to get the shot, what special effects. Who is the actor, what else have they been in? Where do standard plot devices come into play, could they have used them more subtly? If a show ends, how could they have done it differently.

What kind of math goes into those games? How can we play the music from those games? How else can we play? How else can we make this fun? How can we naturally take these things that exist, and most of us just shove down our intellectual gullet, and deepen out experience.

In the end I think that's the core of it, you deepen your experience and those your children in a way that creates actual, real lasting learning.

This is indeed how I approach things in life, and I'll tell you, it can get a little stagnant. It's hard to know where to go, especially when you're so used to thinking you HAVE to go SOMEWHERE instead of dicking around SO HARD that you gain more understanding about the world.

Rethinking my son's interest boosts my own knowledge and understanding and takes me out of my dull comfort zone.

Awesome!

The more I think about it, the more.I realize I have NO IDEA what the legal requirements for childhood education are. I'm going to fix that.

It varies state to state.
Here, you can homeschool, but it costs thousands for the state approved material. You can keep 'em home, but you have to shove the same curriculum down their throats. There's free homeschool available but you have to stay on a waiting list for a few years, I think.

So, nothing like Unschool.  :sad:

Looks like in my state you can provide any education provided by a parent or guardian in their home with no regulation.

:lol:

That's awesome, Alty!

Let me give you a little advice, which is that if you want to unschool when he's older, start working on mama now. Give her my essay, give her the articles and books I cited, and email her the links. Find some of John Holt's books on unschooling.

If you have about six years to work on her, that gives you a huge head start for when your little guy hits middle school and starts having problems, which is very very common.

Hell, he might be one of the few who loves it and thrives in regular school, but just in case, that way at least you'll have a leg up. 

My ex used to be dead-set against any kind of alternative school for the kids, when they were little and still pretty happy in grade school. Now that he's seen the abject misery of middle and high school, he's changed his tune completely.

I think a lot of problems of schools in general result from their scale. I don't know about modeling schools after factories or intentionally trying to create drones, but when you have a teacher:student ratio of 1:30 things just start breaking down. Overhead just overwhelms any kind of structure at that point, and the only solution is to streamline the structure by creating streamlined students. In my middle school the cafeteria was noisy enough that the teachers would routinely declare silent lunch to punish us for talking too loudly. (Well, with all chatter going on, you had to do a low yell to be heard by the person next to you, which created a feedback loop.) They weren't trying to be cruel or deprive us of socialization or anything, it was just that so much noise bled into the nearby classrooms that teaching was impaired. They framed it as a discipline issue - which caused quite a bit of unnecessary animosity between students and faculty - but really it was as combination of architectural problems (terrible cafeteria acoustics and the proximity of classrooms to the cafeteria) and scale (if they didn't have so many students, everyone could have eaten at the same time and thus not been in class during someone else's lunch.)

Actual discipline problems are magnified by class sizes and close proximity - if you're teaching 8 kids, each kid can at maximum disrupt 7 other students, and as a teacher you can afford to give her special attention. If you're teaching 24 kids, it's 3x as likely, by pure statistics, that one will be having his off day and they're bothering over 3x as many people and you have about 1/3 as much time to deal with him. The opportunity cost of 1:1 help is 23 students at 1:24. You quickly reach the point where by economy of scale it's more practical to expel students with perfectly solvable behavioral issues. Zero-tolerance policies don't help students and aren't intended to; they make it easier to justify dumping the bottom 10% who are responsible for 90% of the discipline and paperwork problems.

At that same middle school, there were a bunch of kids who spent as much or more time in "in-school suspension" than class. There was no education happening there, unless you count being harangued by the authoritarian suspension supervisor. He was generally of the opinion all of us were up to no good and treated us accordingly. Honestly, he was right, if only because there was nothing else to do in suspension and children generally try to live up to the expectations of the adults around them. One miscreant girl smuggled in a whole bag of mint hard candies and shared them around with the "class", I think for no other reason than to prove that he wasn't the boss of her. My parents complained about the lack of education part, so a counselor came in and - very dramatically and deliberately - brought me the worksheets that the rest of my class would be going through, while studiously ignoring every single other student in the room. (RWHN is right - involved parents are vital to a modern school education, without them you don't even get worksheets. All anyone else got to learn in suspension was to hate and mistrust authority figures!)

Sarcasm aside, at some point the sheer number of students makes "controlling the classroom" a more important qualification for being a teacher than having enthusiasm for learning or respect for children. I don't think humans are really equipped with the capacity to make a sincere investment in the individual outcomes of a constant stream of 20-30 students per year, and the ones who try burn out. At best one might scale down to only the most sympathetic students in the class, which by pulling out of my ass I'm going to guess are also the ones who are cuter, more sociable, smarter (for specific types of smartness), whiter, and (for some subjects) male-er.

Although in fairness to small schools, I should point out that if you have ~15 students per grade, as one tiny private elementary school my sister and I attended for a whole semester did, you probably don't have a ton of resources or economy of scale to be able to afford things like special ed or ESL, which also sucks.

Sorry Nigel, I realize almost none of that has to do with Unschooling itself. I have a post with more detail / thoughts / questions but it's just not coming out tonight.

(the actual Unschooling post)

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 16, 2013, 01:57:43 PM

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 16, 2013, 01:17:05 AM
Nigel - what is it about college education that you find more valuable than, say, high school? Is is the age/maturity of the students, or something different between the structure of high school and the structure of college?

Mostly it's the structure. High schools for the most part have students in the classroom for seven-eight hours a day from very early in the morning, slowly doling out up to seven different subjects (with a ton of redundancy) and then sending them home with homework which is almost always repetitive, grindingly dull makework and not particularly educational. In college you pick three to four subjects you're interested in and spend on average three hours a day in class and another 3 doing homework. They say you should allocate twice as many homework hours as you have class hours, but I've never had it work out that way. Many classes are available online, so you can do bits and pieces of them throughout the week when you have time.

The materials are interesting and engaging, and the teachers treat you like an adult... which of course most college students are. Because you choose your classes, you're there voluntarily in a class you decided to take, so engagement is naturally higher. Fewer subjects means you're able to focus on the areas that interest you and learn them comprehensively.

Classes, unless they're highly specialized (for example, my social psych class next term is only available at 3 pm) are generally available at a wide range of hours, so early birds can take morning classes and night owls can take afternoon or evening classes, whichever suits their nature better.

College is not for most kids under 16, because it's very self-motivated and there's nobody holding your hand to make sure you attend classes or turn in work. But I'm watching my kids in middle and high school, and they have three times the classroom hours I have, the same amount of homework, and it takes them YEARS to plod through the same material I cover in weeks, and they come out of it with a poorer grasp, and definitely without liking it much. These are fucking smart kids; all of them test in the 99th percentile for IQ. The logical and natural conclusion I must come to is that the way they teach in school is ineffective to the point of being counterproductive.

If I was boss of the world, I would have k-6 schools for kids 6-12 for basic skills, supervised open/community based study for kids 13-16, two years of optional self-directed learning, and then college.

Kids here do have the option, at 16, of taking core classes at community college for simultaneous high school and college credit. A lot of kids are intimidated by the idea because they're afraid it's going to be really hard. However, the high school kids I see in my classes do just fine.

I completely agree with you on the value of engaging courses, instructors who treat the student like an adult, and 3-4 hours of instruction on 3-4 subjects/day instead vs. 7ish hours of solid schooling starting at way-to-fucking-early o'clock. I disagree that those features only work for 16 y.o.+ students - you're exactly describing that amazing summer camp I mentioned on the first page (seriously, go look at their course list (http://www.appalachianinstitute.org/?page_id=76) if you haven't already.*) The courses list is basically all of the teaching faculty (some are full-time educators, all are professionals in some field or another) come up with things that they want to teach and that students would find interesting. Kids pick their classes on the basis of what looks fun. The end result is that you have a class where the teacher wants to be there and the students all want to be there and everyone wants to do whatever cool idea the class is structured around, so engagement occurs at all levels.

I don't think there's an grade level that's too young for electives. The first elementary school I attended [I've been in a lot of different schools] had two electives for K-1 and three electives for grades 3-5, per quarter. Everyone had to choose a foreign language, but other than that it was up to the student/parent. We were exposed us to a variety of different things, although being an actual public school the electives were less... eclectic... than the AICL offerings - most in some way or another were related to the curriculum. I think kids behaved a lot better during electives than during regular class or whole-class specials like music/gym; not sure if it was because the elective classes were ~1/3rd the size of normal classes or just because we tended to like our electives better. Learning to count money was very exciting to five-year old me - everyone else could count by 2s or even 3s (but probably not past 9 or 12), while I and the other kids in the Money elective could count by 5s, 10s, and 25s! My first introduction to deductive logic was in a 1st grade elective where all we did were simple mysteries and logic puzzles, and my sister and I are both very glad that we learned Japanese phonetics in kindergarten. On the other hand, I can't remember a single thing I learned in Social Studies from K-6.

The whole "college experience" probably demands too much autonomy from most sub-16s, but there's no reason you can't move the most important parts of it - letting the students themselves choose which classes they take, which are taught by people excited about the subject - down to even the elementary school level.

Related to this is smorgasbord vs. intensive education. By smorgasbord I mean something like the AICL extreme, where every week you take four classes in whatever seems interesting at the time. Education by clicking the Random Wikipedia Article button until you find something neat and then following all of the links. Reading books at random from the library, that kind of thing. Whereas by "intensive" I mean something more like setting out pass med school or master some specific skill, a goal that requires both organization and sweat. A smorgasbord education is "learning by play," intensive is "working to learn." I don't mean to make a value judgment about the two modes - both are necessary - but children are best equipped to learn in the first way. Learning in the smorgasbord style doesn't require effort or self-discipline, just that the student is surrounded by enough tempting opportunities. Putting yourself through an intensive education does, which makes it more suited to (young) adults. Persistence and hard work is uncomfortable, and trying to convince a child that they should put up with with it on your schedule for something that you happen think is important is a losing proposition. I get the feeling that schooling is as structured and authoritarian as it is because schools have to go to absurd lengths to force children to apply themselves as if they were miniature adults when every natural instinct says they should be playing and sampling the world.

And the worst part is that even if you succeed in getting them to study as if they were an adult, children aren't that good at it. Nigel's point about being able to learn in 3 months of community college what normal schools teach in 8 years is perfectly reasonable. Probably half of each year is spent reviewing the previous year's material, a third un-learning the "lies to children" portion from above, and the remaining sixth brute-forcing the new material into all of the other students in your class with a "damned if they understand it, just need to make it past the next test!" mentality. Personally (and this may be in part because of changing schools so often) I didn't learn any anything other than Ancient Egypt and American History (pre-founding through Civil War only) in Social Studies or anything but Habitats and the Food Chain in Science in all of K-6 schooling. Every year was a rehash of the previous year in only slightly more detail and with slightly lengthier make-work assignments. All of the actual social studies / natural science I learned in those years came from a mixture of National Geographic and my dad's IEEE Spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Spectrum) magazines, mythology collections, science/historical fiction, few odd encyclopedias/illustrated dictionaries we kept at home, and copious PBS tapes of Bill Nye the Science Guy and The Magic Schoolbus. (Which, supporting Unschooling, adds up to probably more stuff in general than I learned even in college. 30 years of National Geographic plus every single science fiction book in the first floor of the local library is a lot.)

[*anyone who thinks they might want to send their kids to AICL but would be unduly stressed by the cost, PM me. I might be able to help you get a scholarship.]

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 07:08:18 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
       Llewellyn's position may seem extreme, and the reality is that unschooling may not be for everyone; there are, after all, children who thrive and seem very happy in the structured hierarchical world of middle school and high school.

This lends credibility to the entire argument.  In every other case I have read, the argument is either that homeschooling is universally a disaster, or that homeschooling is a universal panacea that should be adopted by everyone.

I have been against homeschooling since it became a movement, but this article has given me a reason to reconsider the subject.

Yeah, Nigel and I share a friend on FB who homeschools. I had my head turned around on the homeschooling issue as well this year. Her kids are so so smart and so damned good. The oldest is my son's age but she's more like a teenager--she actually taught me that you can substitute canned pumpkin in certain baking recipes if you're out of egg. She found this information on her own because she ran out of egg one day and the way she is schooled, you don't get an A by paraphrasing exactly what's in chapter 2, figure 3. You have to be resourceful and seek out answers to your own problems and questions. My son plays with Jessica's younger kids because mentally, emotionally and developmentally, Lex is closer to their level--and he's very bright himself (not just bias. He gets the "He's so smart, why won't he work up to his potential?" speech I did).

The difference is; Jessica's kids are not wasting precious, formative brainspace on useless hierarchical bullshit. They're liberated from all that. They're not being packed full of fluff. Are they able to be disciplined and "toe the line?" Can they "survive out there" in a world among peers who have learned to play academic hopscotch? Dude, they're toeing a further line. No sweat.

You ever go on an all-night wiki-surf and absorb SOOOOOO much information and think to yourself "I wonder what I would have turned out to be like if I'd had access to all this shit (and time to think about it) at age 8?"

Well, that's her kids. They get to be the smart kids AND the cool kids too. Unhindered by social inhibition of any sort. School takes place 24/7 when Jessica hands the middle-child a handful of change at the checkout line and says "count this, make sure it's right." The youngest gets P.E. in the form of separate soccer classes at the Y or whatever. She takes them to parks. She teaches accurate history right from the get-go so they don't find themselves at age 20 with silly "black-or-white" archetype parables in their heads, out-of touch with what motivates history, saying things like "WTF do you MEAN Lincoln was a racist?" They are smart, nerdy, confident, gentle, helpful and responsible. They don't care about the latest toys or about wearing sketchers or adidas or whatever. The oldest is ten.

Lex thinks they're the coolest people he's ever met. Of course, he's right.

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 23, 2013, 03:16:38 AM
(the actual Unschooling post)

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 16, 2013, 01:57:43 PM

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 16, 2013, 01:17:05 AM
Nigel - what is it about college education that you find more valuable than, say, high school? Is is the age/maturity of the students, or something different between the structure of high school and the structure of college?

Mostly it's the structure. High schools for the most part have students in the classroom for seven-eight hours a day from very early in the morning, slowly doling out up to seven different subjects (with a ton of redundancy) and then sending them home with homework which is almost always repetitive, grindingly dull makework and not particularly educational. In college you pick three to four subjects you're interested in and spend on average three hours a day in class and another 3 doing homework. They say you should allocate twice as many homework hours as you have class hours, but I've never had it work out that way. Many classes are available online, so you can do bits and pieces of them throughout the week when you have time.

The materials are interesting and engaging, and the teachers treat you like an adult... which of course most college students are. Because you choose your classes, you're there voluntarily in a class you decided to take, so engagement is naturally higher. Fewer subjects means you're able to focus on the areas that interest you and learn them comprehensively.

Classes, unless they're highly specialized (for example, my social psych class next term is only available at 3 pm) are generally available at a wide range of hours, so early birds can take morning classes and night owls can take afternoon or evening classes, whichever suits their nature better.

College is not for most kids under 16, because it's very self-motivated and there's nobody holding your hand to make sure you attend classes or turn in work. But I'm watching my kids in middle and high school, and they have three times the classroom hours I have, the same amount of homework, and it takes them YEARS to plod through the same material I cover in weeks, and they come out of it with a poorer grasp, and definitely without liking it much. These are fucking smart kids; all of them test in the 99th percentile for IQ. The logical and natural conclusion I must come to is that the way they teach in school is ineffective to the point of being counterproductive.

If I was boss of the world, I would have k-6 schools for kids 6-12 for basic skills, supervised open/community based study for kids 13-16, two years of optional self-directed learning, and then college.

Kids here do have the option, at 16, of taking core classes at community college for simultaneous high school and college credit. A lot of kids are intimidated by the idea because they're afraid it's going to be really hard. However, the high school kids I see in my classes do just fine.

I completely agree with you on the value of engaging courses, instructors who treat the student like an adult, and 3-4 hours of instruction on 3-4 subjects/day instead vs. 7ish hours of solid schooling starting at way-to-fucking-early o'clock. I disagree that those features only work for 16 y.o.+ students - you're exactly describing that amazing summer camp I mentioned on the first page (seriously, go look at their course list (http://www.appalachianinstitute.org/?page_id=76) if you haven't already.*) The courses list is basically all of the teaching faculty (some are full-time educators, all are professionals in some field or another) come up with things that they want to teach and that students would find interesting. Kids pick their classes on the basis of what looks fun. The end result is that you have a class where the teacher wants to be there and the students all want to be there and everyone wants to do whatever cool idea the class is structured around, so engagement occurs at all levels.

I don't think there's an grade level that's too young for electives. The first elementary school I attended [I've been in a lot of different schools] had two electives for K-1 and three electives for grades 3-5, per quarter. Everyone had to choose a foreign language, but other than that it was up to the student/parent. We were exposed us to a variety of different things, although being an actual public school the electives were less... eclectic... than the AICL offerings - most in some way or another were related to the curriculum. I think kids behaved a lot better during electives than during regular class or whole-class specials like music/gym; not sure if it was because the elective classes were ~1/3rd the size of normal classes or just because we tended to like our electives better. Learning to count money was very exciting to five-year old me - everyone else could count by 2s or even 3s (but probably not past 9 or 12), while I and the other kids in the Money elective could count by 5s, 10s, and 25s! My first introduction to deductive logic was in a 1st grade elective where all we did were simple mysteries and logic puzzles, and my sister and I are both very glad that we learned Japanese phonetics in kindergarten. On the other hand, I can't remember a single thing I learned in Social Studies from K-6.

The whole "college experience" probably demands too much autonomy from most sub-16s, but there's no reason you can't move the most important parts of it - letting the students themselves choose which classes they take, which are taught by people excited about the subject - down to even the elementary school level.

Related to this is smorgasbord vs. intensive education. By smorgasbord I mean something like the AICL extreme, where every week you take four classes in whatever seems interesting at the time. Education by clicking the Random Wikipedia Article button until you find something neat and then following all of the links. Reading books at random from the library, that kind of thing. Whereas by "intensive" I mean something more like setting out pass med school or master some specific skill, a goal that requires both organization and sweat. A smorgasbord education is "learning by play," intensive is "working to learn." I don't mean to make a value judgment about the two modes - both are necessary - but children are best equipped to learn in the first way. Learning in the smorgasbord style doesn't require effort or self-discipline, just that the student is surrounded by enough tempting opportunities. Putting yourself through an intensive education does, which makes it more suited to (young) adults. Persistence and hard work is uncomfortable, and trying to convince a child that they should put up with with it on your schedule for something that you happen think is important is a losing proposition. I get the feeling that schooling is as structured and authoritarian as it is because schools have to go to absurd lengths to force children to apply themselves as if they were miniature adults when every natural instinct says they should be playing and sampling the world.

And the worst part is that even if you succeed in getting them to study as if they were an adult, children aren't that good at it. Nigel's point about being able to learn in 3 months of community college what normal schools teach in 8 years is perfectly reasonable. Probably half of each year is spent reviewing the previous year's material, a third un-learning the "lies to children" portion from above, and the remaining sixth brute-forcing the new material into all of the other students in your class with a "damned if they understand it, just need to make it past the next test!" mentality. Personally (and this may be in part because of changing schools so often) I didn't learn any anything other than Ancient Egypt and American History (pre-founding through Civil War only) in Social Studies or anything but Habitats and the Food Chain in Science in all of K-6 schooling. Every year was a rehash of the previous year in only slightly more detail and with slightly lengthier make-work assignments. All of the actual social studies / natural science I learned in those years came from a mixture of National Geographic and my dad's IEEE Spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Spectrum) magazines, mythology collections, science/historical fiction, few odd encyclopedias/illustrated dictionaries we kept at home, and copious PBS tapes of Bill Nye the Science Guy and The Magic Schoolbus. (Which, supporting Unschooling, adds up to probably more stuff in general than I learned even in college. 30 years of National Geographic plus every single science fiction book in the first floor of the local library is a lot.)

[*anyone who thinks they might want to send their kids to AICL but would be unduly stressed by the cost, PM me. I might be able to help you get a scholarship.]

This is an excellent post, GA! Very much.

I would have loved to homeschool/unschool my kids (and in fact I rearranged my entire career so I could be home with them; that beadmaking gig was not entirely coincidence), but their dad was not down with it; he's an amusingly chronically unemployed establishmentarian. Funny thing is, I knew him at a pretty young age, so I was able to see firsthand how badly damaged by the system he was, and then to watch him suggest doing the same damage to the kids... well, I guess it's just one more anecdote that supports the adage that we prefer the devil we know. So many people support the school system as it exists on the basis that "it worked for me", even though I can look right at them and see that it completely didn't. People will look me IN THE EYE and insist that it's working for their children and that it's the best thing for their children and that their children just need to "get through high school" when if I pull their kids transcripts THEY ARE FAILING.

FAILING, and in many cases being criminalized for it, for stupid shit that arose from simple boredom.

Parents, I just want to tell you that you can pull your kids out of the mill and they will be OK. They will be fine, and they will be better than fine. You can give them a year off and they will not only recover, they will thrive. I have seen it so, so many times. There is now a solid and growing body of evidence to support the benefits of unschooling.

I understand that you are afraid to leave them at home alone while you work. It's true, one thing our public school system has done is to provide an effective free babysitter to support the mamas and papas who have to leave their kids behind while they go to work. As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much the only thing the school system is good for. As GA notes, they will spend years reviewing the information they learn during this time. But elementary school isn't so bad; most elementary teachers still like their charges, and the criminalization typically doesn't start until middle school.

But, god forbid you be a poor, single parent of a middle schooler, especially a brown middle schooler. In many states, Wackenhut is "providing security" for schools, and the system is set up to earmark "failures", which include anyone who thinks for themselves. It's chilling. You can see it pretty systematically, and its especially evident in girls; they are doing pretty good, then they hit middle school and they start failing, HARD. Their self-esteem plummets. From a psychologist's perspective, school does significant, irrevocable damage. Many girls experience their first bouts of depression at this point, and never recover.

Parents, please consider pulling your kid out of school when this happens. They will still have a social life, they will start to feel good about themselves. They will learn more. And they will be less likely to commit suicide.

We are SO afraid of pulling children out of school, like it's this act of rebellion... but every professor I have spoken with says that their non-schooled students outshine their schooled students on every front, every time.

I believe that school hurts kids. It's not just a matter of doing no good, it's a matter of doing harm.

Quote from: navkat: navkat of...navkat! on March 23, 2013, 07:26:09 AM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on March 14, 2013, 07:08:18 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
       Llewellyn's position may seem extreme, and the reality is that unschooling may not be for everyone; there are, after all, children who thrive and seem very happy in the structured hierarchical world of middle school and high school.

This lends credibility to the entire argument.  In every other case I have read, the argument is either that homeschooling is universally a disaster, or that homeschooling is a universal panacea that should be adopted by everyone.

I have been against homeschooling since it became a movement, but this article has given me a reason to reconsider the subject.

Yeah, Nigel and I share a friend on FB who homeschools. I had my head turned around on the homeschooling issue as well this year. Her kids are so so smart and so damned good. The oldest is my son's age but she's more like a teenager--she actually taught me that you can substitute canned pumpkin in certain baking recipes if you're out of egg. She found this information on her own because she ran out of egg one day and the way she is schooled, you don't get an A by paraphrasing exactly what's in chapter 2, figure 3. You have to be resourceful and seek out answers to your own problems and questions. My son plays with Jessica's younger kids because mentally, emotionally and developmentally, Lex is closer to their level--and he's very bright himself (not just bias. He gets the "He's so smart, why won't he work up to his potential?" speech I did).

The difference is; Jessica's kids are not wasting precious, formative brainspace on useless hierarchical bullshit. They're liberated from all that. They're not being packed full of fluff. Are they able to be disciplined and "toe the line?" Can they "survive out there" in a world among peers who have learned to play academic hopscotch? Dude, they're toeing a further line. No sweat.

You ever go on an all-night wiki-surf and absorb SOOOOOO much information and think to yourself "I wonder what I would have turned out to be like if I'd had access to all this shit (and time to think about it) at age 8?"

Well, that's her kids. They get to be the smart kids AND the cool kids too. Unhindered by social inhibition of any sort. School takes place 24/7 when Jessica hands the middle-child a handful of change at the checkout line and says "count this, make sure it's right." The youngest gets P.E. in the form of separate soccer classes at the Y or whatever. She takes them to parks. She teaches accurate history right from the get-go so they don't find themselves at age 20 with silly "black-or-white" archetype parables in their heads, out-of touch with what motivates history, saying things like "WTF do you MEAN Lincoln was a racist?" They are smart, nerdy, confident, gentle, helpful and responsible. They don't care about the latest toys or about wearing sketchers or adidas or whatever. The oldest is ten.

Lex thinks they're the coolest people he's ever met. Of course, he's right.

Jessica is a remarkable woman, and in my opinion, she is doing exactly the right thing with her kids, to a degree that I envy, because I should have done the same thing with mine.

What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:40:29 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Thanks! :D

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:55:19 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:40:29 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Thanks! :D

Of course, it's not feasible on any sort of population-based level.  :lol:

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:57:07 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:55:19 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:40:29 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Thanks! :D

Of course, it's not feasible on any sort of population-based level.  :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Of course not. Do you really think all those parents can afford drug sniffing dogs?

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 03:00:13 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:57:07 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:55:19 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:40:29 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Thanks! :D

Of course, it's not feasible on any sort of population-based level.  :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Of course not. Do you really think all those parents can afford drug sniffing dogs?

Certainly not! And most kids are Those People, and we know how they are.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 03:13:50 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 03:00:13 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:57:07 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:55:19 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:40:29 PM

Quote from: stelz on March 23, 2013, 02:17:30 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This needs to go fucking VIRAL.

Feel free to spread it around.

Thanks! :D

Of course, it's not feasible on any sort of population-based level.  :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Of course not. Do you really think all those parents can afford drug sniffing dogs?

Certainly not! And most kids are Those People, and we know how they are.

:horrormirth: :horrormirth: :horrormirth:

I would love to unschool my son, but he doesn't have the drive to learn on his own. And I don't have the patience it would require to get him to learn.
So sadly school is the best for him, despite the stupidity of it all.

He has no interests or curiousity at all, Sita?
Somehow I doubt that.  :wink:

He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

Quote from: Sita on March 23, 2013, 04:53:24 PM
He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

Are you meeting him at those interests or are you trying to get him to.learn what you think?
Do you ask detailed questions about the games he plays? Who are those characters in the game? What's the overal plot? What about the he is easy or challenging? When he plays outside, what does he do? How can you be actively invved with that. If he likes to play war games outside get some cammo and face paint, read the Art of War and slip in little tidbits.

Those things he's doing are not any.more.or less valuable than any other activity, provided your intense interests meet his. Once that happens you will be like unto a GOD

Quote from: Alty on March 23, 2013, 05:29:43 PM

Quote from: Sita on March 23, 2013, 04:53:24 PM
He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

Are you meeting him at those interests or are you trying to get him to.learn what you think?
Do you ask detailed questions about the games he plays? Who are those characters in the game? What's the overal plot? What about the he is easy or challenging? When he plays outside, what does he do? How can you be actively invved with that. If he likes to play war games outside get some cammo and face paint, read the Art of War and slip in little tidbits.

Those things he's doing are not any.more.or less valuable than any other activity, provided your intense interests meet his. Once that happens you will be like unto a GOD

I've tried asking questions, he gets annoyed and doesn't want to answer.
In games he skips past all the story bits (and half the time the tutorial as well) because that is boring and is just something that gets in the way of the action.
Playing outside he mainly is running around with the other kids, usually pretending to shoot each other. He does like sports, but more as a freestyle. Tossing a football, shooting a few hoops, that sort of thing.

Its not just questions, you have to, to a point, actively engage him in those games. Or, better yet, buy a game he doesn't have and YOU play it. If its a cool game he will want to play with tou, and then you can set the conditions for learning about it.

But I'm new to this whole thing too and that's just my 2cents.

Kids pick up on things and if you ask questions with the intent to get him to learn he probably won't respond. But if you make the whole thing about play and you play hard most kids are going to want to be a part of it.

Ignoring him while playing the game and making HIM ask questions about its intricacies is one idea. Also, shifting how people think about the things they do daily takes time.

But these are suggestion given without knowing your kid so...

Quote from: Sita on March 23, 2013, 04:35:03 PM
I would love to unschool my son, but he doesn't have the drive to learn on his own. And I don't have the patience it would require to get him to learn.
So sadly school is the best for him, despite the stupidity of it all.

Children are born curious.

School, if anything, drives it out of them.

Quote from: Sita on March 23, 2013, 04:53:24 PM
He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

All of those things are learning opportunities, if you just let them happen. My kids learned a shit ton of world political history from Hetalia.  :lol:

Playing outside is naturally educational.

I think you are confusing "learning" with "memorization" and "drills". Learning doesn't need to include those at all.

I think a large part of this is trust.

You have to trust that your child has a brain yearning to be filled, to reach beyond, this is part of how the brain works.

N fact, you have to trust that you child's brain has a larger capacity for extracting quality information and learning from a video game than you do.

ETA: Your notion of what learning is has to be readjusted because you've probably been put through the public school wringer. This is a chance for you to learn, and unlearn, as much as it is for your child. In fact, I look at it as an opportunity to unschool myself as much as my son..

This is a good site for learning more: http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/earl_stevens.html

The videos I posted are also really informative, although they aren't about unschooling specifically, but about how children learn.

Quote from: Alty on March 23, 2013, 06:15:15 PM
I think a large part of this is trust.

You have to trust that your child has a brain yearning to be filled, to reach beyond, this is part of how the brain works.

N fact, you have to trust that you child's brain has a larger capacity for extracting quality information and learning from a video game than you do.

ETA: Your notion of what learning is has to be readjusted because you've probably been put through the public school wringer. This is a chance for you to learn, and unlearn, as much as it is for your child. In fact, I look at it as an opportunity to unschool myself as much as my son..

YES!

http://sandradodd.com/activeunschooling.html

Is good link, Sits.

Quote from: Alty on March 23, 2013, 06:19:04 PM
http://sandradodd.com/activeunschooling.html

Is good link, Sits.

Oooh, that is a good one! This one too: http://www.holtgws.com/unschooling.html

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 06:09:29 PM

Quote from: Sita on March 23, 2013, 04:53:24 PM
He'd rather watch tv, play outside or play video games.
And if you try and get him to learn something while doing one of those things he gets in a hissy.

All of those things are learning opportunities, if you just let them happen. My kids learned a shit ton of world political history from Hetalia.  :lol:

Playing outside is naturally educational.

I think you are confusing "learning" with "memorization" and "drills". Learning doesn't need to include those at all.

Not at all. I was a very curious kid so I know how being outside and stuff is educational. Just don't see that in my son.
He doesn't care why or how. If he does this and then that happens then that's all he wants to know.

I'll take a look at those links. Thanks.

Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

I would dearly like to unschool my three bio-kids. Almost all of the stress my children experience is related to school. I remember that stress, way back when. One of the best things my mother ever could have done was pull me out of school, in terms of  my emotional and intellectual health.

ALL I did was play. It's amazing how much you learn when you just play. Some days I just watched TV all day. Some days I sat on the computer playing adventure games. Yet somehow, when I talked to my friends in high school, I was always kind of horrified by how ignorant they were. I was also a heavy reader, and I've noticed that kids, left to themselves, tend to turn to reading to break up the monotony of TV, when they aren't exhausted and stressed from being in school all day. Siana reads ALL THE TIME. It's her comfort.

I missed some of the key talking points in, say, US history, so things periodically surprise me, but functionally speaking, knowing about the Gettysburg Address is pretty useless for most of us. On the other hand, because my knowledge of history is specific to my interests, I know about historical events most Americans don't.

This is an awesome idea, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it an option for my kids. My son's rate of learning has literally been cut in half since he started 1st Grade.

Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on March 23, 2013, 06:28:02 PM
Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

I don't think it's ever too early, but most kids seem to get a lot out of kindergarten and many of them also enjoy first grade. At that age, the socialization is really good for them, so even if you plan to unschool all the way it would be good to find a playgroup.

By fourth grade, though, they're usually showing pretty intense signs of stress. So, preferably before fourth grade.

The problem for most parents is that they have to work, and can't actually be home to keep an eye on their kids and act as facilitators. For safety and psychological reasons, I wouldn't recommend leaving a kid under 12 home alone for longer than an hour or two (at most). 12 is also the age at which, for many children, school becomes an intolerable ordeal, and is also about the age at which schools are increasingly criminalizing children.

http://www.temple.edu/history/thompson/documents/Thompsondissent.pdf

Quote from: V3X on March 23, 2013, 06:36:54 PM
This is an awesome idea, and I'm trying to figure out how to make it an option for my kids. My son's rate of learning has literally been cut in half since he started 1st Grade.

It's really sad, isn't it? They start out such remarkable, eager sponges, and school just drills it right out of them. They take 12 years to teach them about a year's worth of information, which means that most of it is numbingly repetitive.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on March 23, 2013, 06:28:02 PM
Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

I don't think it's ever too early, but most kids seem to get a lot out of kindergarten and many of them also enjoy first grade. At that age, the socialization is really good for them, so even if you plan to unschool all the way it would be good to find a playgroup.

By fourth grade, though, they're usually showing pretty intense signs of stress. So, preferably before fourth grade.

The problem for most parents is that they have to work, and can't actually be home to keep an eye on their kids and act as facilitators. For safety and psychological reasons, I wouldn't recommend leaving a kid under 12 home alone for longer than an hour or two (at most). 12 is also the age at which, for many children, school becomes an intolerable ordeal, and is also about the age at which schools are increasingly criminalizing children.

http://www.temple.edu/history/thompson/documents/Thompsondissent.pdf

Good to have knowledge of for thinking on. I'll check that link out when I'm on the computer, instead of my phone. Thanks! :)

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 01:43:49 PM
But, god forbid you be a poor, single parent of a middle schooler, especially a brown middle schooler. In many states, Wackenhut is "providing security" for schools, and the system is set up to earmark "failures", which include anyone who thinks for themselves. It's chilling. You can see it pretty systematically, and its especially evident in girls; they are doing pretty good, then they hit middle school and they start failing, HARD. Their self-esteem plummets. From a psychologist's perspective, school does significant, irrevocable damage. Many girls experience their first bouts of depression at this point, and never recover.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This is a thing? Fuck, I thought it was just me and my sister and chalked it up to a family history of depression and miscellaneous mental weirdness.

Mind you, we're white, comfortably middle class ["No, this isn't a huge house! Land is just cheaper in America, because we have more of it... than... China. Crap."] and our mother quit her job as a software engineer for NASA when I was born so she could parent full time.

I can't say that I did particularly well in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade, but I crashed and burned when I hit 6th grade and John Sevier Middle School. More accurately, John Sevier Middle School tried to throw me under the proverbial school bus. My mom actually did pull me out halfway through 6th grade and homeschool me, and then, a year later, we moved two states over just so my sister wouldn't have to go to John Sevier and I could go to the same elite private high school that my dad graduated from.

We had the best pre-college education money can buy, plus extremely invested parents. And we're both still dealing with the psychological fallout of middle school. (in my sister's case, also the first half of high school, which was until she found her first good math teacher and the best guidance counselor in the world.)

I can't help but laugh whenever I see someone advancing the claim that the problem with schools these days are uninvolved parents. They're half right, in that involved parents + a good home environment are the most important things. But that would be true if schools didn't exist, and in least in my case, "involved parents" means "actively fighting against the school system for your children." Even then it only worked because my mom is a genius in her own right and they had resources that simply aren't available to single parent or two-income households.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

You just convinced me to get serious about finding someone to homeschool him before he turns 13.

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 23, 2013, 07:51:21 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 01:43:49 PM
But, god forbid you be a poor, single parent of a middle schooler, especially a brown middle schooler. In many states, Wackenhut is "providing security" for schools, and the system is set up to earmark "failures", which include anyone who thinks for themselves. It's chilling. You can see it pretty systematically, and its especially evident in girls; they are doing pretty good, then they hit middle school and they start failing, HARD. Their self-esteem plummets. From a psychologist's perspective, school does significant, irrevocable damage. Many girls experience their first bouts of depression at this point, and never recover.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This is a thing? Fuck, I thought it was just me and my sister and chalked it up to a family history of depression and miscellaneous mental weirdness.

Mind you, we're white, comfortably middle class ["No, this isn't a huge house! Land is just cheaper in America, because we have more of it... than... China. Crap."] and our mother quit her job as a software engineer for NASA when I was born so she could parent full time.

I can't say that I did particularly well in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade, but I crashed and burned when I hit 6th grade and John Sevier Middle School. More accurately, John Sevier Middle School tried to throw me under the proverbial school bus. My mom actually did pull me out halfway through 6th grade and homeschool me, and then, a year later, we moved two states over just so my sister wouldn't have to go to John Sevier and I could go to the same elite private high school that my dad graduated from.

We had the best pre-college education money can buy, plus extremely invested parents. And we're both still dealing with the psychological fallout of middle school. (in my sister's case, also the first half of high school, which was until she found her first good math teacher and the best guidance counselor in the world.)

I can't help but laugh whenever I see someone advancing the claim that the problem with schools these days are uninvolved parents. They're half right, in that involved parents + a good home environment are the most important things. But that would be true if schools didn't exist, and in least in my case, "involved parents" means "actively fighting against the school system for your children." Even then it only worked because my mom is a genius in her own right and they had resources that simply aren't available to single parent or two-income households.

It's totally a thing. It's a huge problem. Your experience is very typical, and your observation about the myth that it's all about having involved parents is very astute. Having involved parents helps ameliorate the damage somewhat, but it doesn't prevent it. Kids who have involved parents are simply less fucked overall than kids who don't.

Some schools are better than others, but the bottom line is that the problem is systemic.

Quote from: navkat: navkat of...navkat! on March 23, 2013, 08:18:39 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like  school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

You just convinced me to get serious about finding someone to homeschool him before he turns 13.

Right on!

Seriously, though, look into unschooling.

Nigel, I'm curious to know what your opinion is of some of the new approaches in public education that are being tried out. The company where I work designs, produces, and markets digital course material and tools that are used to transform traditional classrooms into "blended learning" environments. The most successful approach to this, and the one we sell the hardest, is one that completely eliminates the traditional classroom model and replaces it with an environment where students guide their own learning, at their own pace, and allows them to spend as much or as little time as they need on any subject, in whatever order they want to. Teachers are freed to work one-on-one with students, and the time they have to spend grading assignments is cut by as much as 80%.

Of course this isn't unschooling, and because we're dealing with public school districts we still have to have an over-arching platform that ensures students meet standardized benchmarks and tests. But we do see all kinds of improvement when we take students out of the normal routine of classroom lectures and quizzes, and let them work at their own paces.

Do you think that there's hope for public education, if it's reimagined the way we're trying to do, or should the whole system be abandoned?

Quote from: V3X on March 23, 2013, 09:15:29 PM
Nigel, I'm curious to know what your opinion is of some of the new approaches in public education that are being tried out. The company where I work designs, produces, and markets digital course material and tools that are used to transform traditional classrooms into "blended learning" environments. The most successful approach to this, and the one we sell the hardest, is one that completely eliminates the traditional classroom model and replaces it with an environment where students guide their own learning, at their own pace, and allows them to spend as much or as little time as they need on any subject, in whatever order they want to. Teachers are freed to work one-on-one with students, and the time they have to spend grading assignments is cut by as much as 80%.

Of course this isn't unschooling, and because we're dealing with public school districts we still have to have an over-arching platform that ensures students meet standardized benchmarks and tests. But we do see all kinds of improvement when we take students out of the normal routine of classroom lectures and quizzes, and let them work at their own paces.

Do you think that there's hope for public education, if it's reimagined the way we're trying to do, or should the whole system be abandoned?

That model sounds really good, but what I would want to look at are the results. EFO is in a similar program and she likes it a lot better than the traditional model, but really what I would want to look at is satisfaction and completion rates down the road. I would also want to look at how a model like this handles "bad" students.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 08:37:26 PM

Quote from: Golden Applesauce on March 23, 2013, 07:51:21 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 01:43:49 PM
But, god forbid you be a poor, single parent of a middle schooler, especially a brown middle schooler. In many states, Wackenhut is "providing security" for schools, and the system is set up to earmark "failures", which include anyone who thinks for themselves. It's chilling. You can see it pretty systematically, and its especially evident in girls; they are doing pretty good, then they hit middle school and they start failing, HARD. Their self-esteem plummets. From a psychologist's perspective, school does significant, irrevocable damage. Many girls experience their first bouts of depression at this point, and never recover.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 02:09:58 PM
What's both interesting and horrible is  that I tend to hear the same thing over and over: "My child used to like school, but things started to go downhill in middle school. Now he's depressed and suicidal, and he hates school. I just want him to make it through to graduation, and then things will get better".

WHY are we willing to do this to our kids?

This is a thing? Fuck, I thought it was just me and my sister and chalked it up to a family history of depression and miscellaneous mental weirdness.

<snip>

It's totally a thing. It's a huge problem. Your experience is very typical, and your observation about the myth that it's all about having involved parents is very astute. Having involved parents helps ameliorate the damage somewhat, but it doesn't prevent it. Kids who have involved parents are simply less fucked overall than kids who don't.

Some schools are better than others, but the bottom line is that the problem is systemic.

Fucking hell. I had my first brush with clinical depression in the 4th grade, thanks to a teacher who had expectations of me that not only did I not live up to, but my 4th grader brain could not comprehend what it was she wanted from me (and I was a total teacher's pet). This same teacher criticized my mom (who was working full-time as a small town doctor, mind you) for taking the time to teach poor kids how to read, because apparently only school teachers should be allowed to do that.

I was homeschooled in both the 5th and 8th grades, when my parents decided the school at the time was just not going to cut it. I learned plenty during those years, but simply taking a break from the school environment probably helped me immensely.

There's definitely something fundamentally wrong with middle school, possibly more so than any other part of traditional schooling.

The problem is that it's a difficult job that very few people actually want to do because it doesn't pay for shit, it requires working in a bloated, bureaucratic, oppressive system, and it requires a Masters degree and ongoing annual education paid for out of pocket.

This does not create conditions that self-select for quality. Very few people think to themselves, "I want to teach middle-schoolers!" and an unfortunately large percentage of those who do have power and dominance issues, which is a recipe for disaster when you put them with a bunch of vulnerable adolescents.

This is not an indictment of teachers. My dad has a Masters in early childhood education, and both of my ex-inlaws were high school teachers. Most of them are overworked, and while they get summers off (except for the mandatory continuing education they need to keep their teaching certificates) they work way more than enough hours the rest of the year to earn it. I also know a few absolutely superb middle and high-school teachers of my generation... interestingly, all of them teach electives, which means they don't have the same pressure and bureaucratic requirements as the ones who teach core classes.

The way the system itself is designed, it seems built to push really superb and talented people away from going into education, so who you end up with teaching the requirements are often the people who didn't have good enough grades or GRE scores to get into their first-choice Masters programs.

I am seeing this process in action right now in the cohort a year ahead of me. The ones who didn't have strong enough applications to get into any of the graduate programs in psychology or social work that they applied to are now talking about what else they can do. Some of them are taking post-bac classes, trying to bump up their GPA or get a better score on the GRE, but sure enough, some of them are saying phrases like "I could always be a teacher". They know they can get into those programs, because those are the programs that don't have enough applicants and can't afford to be very picky about who they accept.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 23, 2013, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: Freeky Queen of DERP on March 23, 2013, 06:28:02 PM
Nigel, at about what age is a good time to begin unschooling, do you think?

I don't think it's ever too early, but most kids seem to get a lot out of kindergarten and many of them also enjoy first grade. At that age, the socialization is really good for them, so even if you plan to unschool all the way it would be good to find a playgroup.

By fourth grade, though, they're usually showing pretty intense signs of stress. So, preferably before fourth grade.

The problem for most parents is that they have to work, and can't actually be home to keep an eye on their kids and act as facilitators. For safety and psychological reasons, I wouldn't recommend leaving a kid under 12 home alone for longer than an hour or two (at most). 12 is also the age at which, for many children, school becomes an intolerable ordeal, and is also about the age at which schools are increasingly criminalizing children.

http://www.temple.edu/history/thompson/documents/Thompsondissent.pdf

Fact. And they tend to take it out on EACH OTHER. It gets compounded beyond belief.

Quote from: stelz on March 28, 2013, 07:29:08 PM
Fact. And they tend to take it out on EACH OTHER. It gets compounded beyond belief.

Which is not even the worst possible outcome, given the possibilities:

1) They take it out on themselves. <-- the outcome that the the system likes the most, because it's hardest to see and can be willfully mistaken for "no problems at all." With any luck, kids will get out of it with minimal neuroses.

2) They take it out on others. <-- Less desirable, but can be ameliorated with platitudes like "Kids will be kids" and "Going through this crap is just part of growing up." Teaches children that their stress is best managed by shitting on others.

3) They take it out on parents/teachers/authority figures. <-- WELCOME TO THE BLACKLIST, BUCKO.

Welcome to getting pipelined to jail.

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 08:58:53 PM
Welcome to getting pipelined to jail.

Pardon me, but 'round these parts that's spelled AMERICA.

Prisons are a business, and we need them to create jobs. Jesus and George Washington didn't bring down the Berlin Wall just so that we could let the prison industry wither away.

Quote from: Cainad on March 28, 2013, 09:48:29 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 08:58:53 PM
Welcome to getting pipelined to jail.

Pardon me, but 'round these parts that's spelled AMERICA.

Prisons are a business, and we need them to create jobs. Jesus and George Washington didn't bring down the Berlin Wall just so that we could let the prison industry wither away.

:lulz:

I may have gone too far. I actually nauseated myself typing that.


Edit: or maybe that's the chicken lo mein talking.

Quote from: Cainad on March 28, 2013, 09:48:29 PM

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 28, 2013, 08:58:53 PM
Welcome to getting pipelined to jail.

Pardon me, but 'round these parts that's spelled AMERICA.

Prisons are a business, and we need them to create jobs. Jesus and George Washington didn't bring down the Berlin Wall just so that we could let the prison industry wither away.

:horrormirth:

I had made a long post about education and its corruptness, but i think it was in Cain's (now dead and unplugged) forum which was basicly a summary of my findings of my thesis =/ I already have a couple of things in schedule for PD but i will get here eventually

What i will speak of is based on my own experience, and also, as i said, from my thesis that earned me my bachelor's degree; what i understood from the OP, its about the advantages of Unschooling and its viability, so ill focus on that.

I think that the most important aspect of the experience is teaching the child/teenager about responsability and autonomy instead of forcing him to learn and forcing him to interact with people which might do more harm than good.

I remember all my grade school years, bunch of teachers babbling on about stuff i didnt care about, giving out unreasonable homework loads, and after being 6 hours in that prison without bars every day, all i wanted to do when i got home was to either watch TV, play videogames, or later on, go out drinking with friends, play the guitar or read stuff that had nothing to do with the curriculum...

basicly after graduating High School i took a year off just to fuck around, which for about 2 or 3 months translated to playing videogames, exersicing and drinking... but at some point i got bored of "having fun"! so i started reading sociology, psychology and philosophy for easily about 4 hours or more per day (i used to read after school in highschool, but not nearly as much) and that motivated me to go into University for Social Psychology, which also had flexible schedules where i learned what interested me.

I think that learning for 6 hours straight is an unreasonable expectation... even now as a dedicated graduate, i have a hard time focusing for more than 4 hours in a row in learning tasks... my preferred strategy for either working or learning consists of 2 hours of doing it then taking a break so that my fucking brain doesnt get fried... extended and continuous periods of learning =/= efficient learning... so thats a point for Unschooling, the flexibility of the schedule and having your own preferred distribution of time and learning what works best for yourself.

Now, the dark side of traditional education would be:

-Interstudent bullying

-Teachers with an ideological agenda

-That its not really about learning, its about memorizing

-That grades and passing is not a reflection of knowledge, but the result of students calibrating their behaviour to the teacher's expectation, effectively cheating the system.

-A fuckload of over-specialized curriculum that will, for the most part, be useless in the student's short or long term.

-Teaching the student's to be quiet and obedient citizens that follow the authority's orders

I like this idea of unschooling. It's liberating to both parents and kids. It would teach parents how to educate their children without relying solely on the state to accomplish this, and it would be beneficial to kids because it would give them skills to find and assimilate new knowledge for themselves without it being crammed into their head dully and repetitiously by a third party.

Based on my own experience, I started to hate  school when I was 12 (that magic age again?). I did well on tests, but resented the tedium of the homework load put upon us. Since about 75% of my grade was based on homework, my grades swiftly went down the shitter. This led to a lot of family conflict and undue teenage angst, as you can imagine. Then I went to a public high school (I was at a private middle school prior), and their was even more undue teenage angst. I only went for 2 years before I decided to get my GED to get the hell out of there, but they were undoubtedly the unhappiest 2 years of my life.

However did we allow a society in which we cannot trust the schools?

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 03, 2013, 05:09:52 PM
However did we allow a society in which we cannot trust the schools?

It seems like we've done our best to make it that way on purpose.

Public schools in particular seemed to have been designed with control in mind, as opposed to actual education.

Quote from: Alty on April 03, 2013, 07:06:45 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 03, 2013, 05:09:52 PM
However did we allow a society in which we cannot trust the schools?

It seems like we've done our best to make it that way on purpose.

Public schools in particular seemed to have been designed with control in mind, as opposed to actual education.

They were. Public education, as an institution in America, was created specifically (and quite openly) to train children to grow up and work in factories.

Quote from: V3X on April 04, 2013, 12:15:54 AM

Quote from: Alty on April 03, 2013, 07:06:45 PM

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 03, 2013, 05:09:52 PM
However did we allow a society in which we cannot trust the schools?

It seems like we've done our best to make it that way on purpose.

Public schools in particular seemed to have been designed with control in mind, as opposed to actual education.

They were. Public education, as an institution in America, was created specifically (and quite openly) to train children to grow up and work in factories.

Factories which THEY now deprive us of.

Which is funny. Someone told me today, and I haven't verified it yet, that the largest amount of jobs in the US are retail sales.

So, THEY create a system whereby anomatons are produced to work jobs that do not quite exist anymore.

Yeah, I'm pulling my kid out of that meat grinder.

I dont mean to derail, but since i already apported something to the OP and the conversation seems to be going this way:

I do not think that education is even meant for producing factory workers.

I think that highschool is just day-care for teenagers, and not just daycare for the benefit of parents, but also for society... there is this thing in the curriculum of schools that they try to teach specialized subjects to people that do not need them... bio-chemistry, physics, advanced maths and statistics... neither a factory worker nor someone going to work at retail need this or any job that is not a very specific specialization that actually comes with college... its an education that aspires to create the "well-rounded" Rennaissance man that had a dozen "specializations" while also keeping people off the job market so that there is less discontent with unemployment.

If anyone wants to argue this point I make, they should share their state's curriculum for highschool, because the point im making is valid in the Mexican public school system, and it might or might not apply within their local educational curriculum.

Quote from: The Johnny on April 04, 2013, 02:34:43 PM

I dont mean to derail, but since i already apported something to the OP and the conversation seems to be going this way:

I do not think that education is even meant for producing factory workers.

I think that highschool is just day-care for teenagers, and not just daycare for the benefit of parents, but also for society... there is this thing in the curriculum of schools that they try to teach specialized subjects to people that do not need them... bio-chemistry, physics, advanced maths and statistics... neither a factory worker nor someone going to work at retail need this or any job that is not a very specific specialization that actually comes with college... its an education that aspires to create the "well-rounded" Rennaissance man that had a dozen "specializations" while also keeping people off the job market so that there is less discontent with unemployment.

If anyone wants to argue this point I make, they should share their state's curriculum for highschool, because the point im making is valid in the Mexican public school system, and it might or might not apply within their local educational curriculum.

In the movie Teachers, one of the teachers brings up the notion that they exist solely to keep teenagers from fucking. 

"I'm a condom!  I'm a Goddamn prophylactic!"

Johnny, I really liked your posts. I don't have much to add other than that I agree with pretty much everything you had to say.

In the US, K-8 education was designed to create obedient, conforming factory workers. I think that high school was originally designed to prepare people for college, but something shifted sixty or so years ago and I don't really know what it's for now other than "keeping the kids off the streets".

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on April 04, 2013, 06:51:58 PM
Johnny, I really liked your posts. I don't have much to add other than that I agree with pretty much everything you had to say.

In the US, K-8 education was designed to create obedient, conforming factory workers. I think that high school was originally designed to prepare people for college, but something shifted sixty or so years ago and I don't really know what it's for now other than "keeping the kids off the streets".

That's pretty much it, and it even fails at that, especially in all the places where that's one function it should probably serve. But keeping kids off the street only goes so far. If it doesn't actually give them the tools they need to succeed and stay off the streets, it's only delaying the inevitable for 4 years.

<sales>This is why I am actually pretty happy to work where I do, where we help high schools transform into places where people actually learn a range of things, at their own pace, and we push for college accreditation for our courses so we can help to create schools that are not just "training," but actually provide people with opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise.</sales>

Seems to me that roving packs of unschooled bags of highly inquisitive chemicals is just what Murrica needs to takes its genitals out of its collective carrying case and pulls its head out of its collective ass.

We must set the children free.

FOR THE CHILDREN!

Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on April 04, 2013, 03:14:31 PM

Quote from: The Johnny on April 04, 2013, 02:34:43 PM

I dont mean to derail, but since i already apported something to the OP and the conversation seems to be going this way:

I do not think that education is even meant for producing factory workers.

I think that highschool is just day-care for teenagers, and not just daycare for the benefit of parents, but also for society... there is this thing in the curriculum of schools that they try to teach specialized subjects to people that do not need them... bio-chemistry, physics, advanced maths and statistics... neither a factory worker nor someone going to work at retail need this or any job that is not a very specific specialization that actually comes with college... its an education that aspires to create the "well-rounded" Rennaissance man that had a dozen "specializations" while also keeping people off the job market so that there is less discontent with unemployment.

If anyone wants to argue this point I make, they should share their state's curriculum for highschool, because the point im making is valid in the Mexican public school system, and it might or might not apply within their local educational curriculum.

In the movie Teachers, one of the teachers brings up the notion that they exist solely to keep teenagers from fucking. 

"I'm a condom!  I'm a Goddamn prophylactic!"

It's free, for all to see! (Not that specific part, i mean the whole movie)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHO0LQ-ysmA

Quote from: M. Nigel Salt on March 14, 2013, 07:04:09 PM
Here's that pa

20130506 My Version
in the 1st grade / one day the older students told me the art
of "putting the teacher out". i leaned THAT early & it became
instinctual  {no i did not read ever entry of this thread
now bac2d'bait

Quote from: Mrs. Nigelson on March 14, 2013, 07:18:32 PM
I am increasingly of the opinion that as long as they learn to read and have ample access to books and databases, children would not be in the slightest bit missing anything if they just do whatever until they turn 16 or so, and then go to college. You can learn all the academics in the K-12 curriculum in one year of college, and you'll probably remember more of it too.

That's the honest truth. In my opinion. :)