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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 08/26/2011 : 16:54:27
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I've decided to homeschool my kids, and as such I've been doing tons of research about different approaches to homeschooling. I was already aware of the unschooling movement, and while I really don't have any interest in unschooling my own kids, I find it really interesting and I want to get all the real pros and cons clear in my head. A lot of people I talk to about unschooling just dismiss it out of hand without really exhibiting a sophisticated understanding of the unschooling approach to education or providing any backup for their critical opinions. On the hand, I've met advocates of unschooling who are rather nutty and convinced it is the ONLY proper way to educate any child. This blog post has so far been one of the most thoughtful criticisms of unschooling that I've found.
Anyone else know anything about the unschooling movement and have any opinions or info to offer?
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2011 : 20:58:21 [Permalink]
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| Having never even heard of unschooling before, can you direct me to a decent, non-nutty positive overview of it, before I read a criticism of it? |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2011 : 22:06:29 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Having never even heard of unschooling before, can you direct me to a decent, non-nutty positive overview of it, before I read a criticism of it?
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It's got a Wikipedia entry: | Unschooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum. There are some who find it controversial. Unschooling encourages exploration of activities, often initiated by the children themselves, facilitated by the adults. Unschooling differs from conventional schooling principally in the thesis that standard curricula and conventional grading methods, as well as other features of traditional schooling, are counterproductive to the goal of maximizing the education of each child. |
Personally, I find it ridiculous to allow a child to be responsible for directing their own education. Play can be learning up to a certain age, but at some point they need to be forced to learn about something that holds no interest for them. I didn't get out of math class when I was a kid, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let some upstart punk claim math credit because he spent his days working the auction house in World of Warcraft.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 08/26/2011 22:06:53 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 08/26/2011 : 22:41:02 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by H. Humbert
Personally, I find it ridiculous to allow a child to be responsible for directing their own education. |
Not quite along the same lines, my stepmother was a proponent of Adlerian parenting for a while, before she decided that giving young kids an equal, democratic voice in making family decisions just screws everything up. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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alienist
Skeptic Friend
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2011 : 10:55:31 [Permalink]
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The problem with homeschooling is the lack of activities with other kids. However, parents who homeschooling who have found ways for their kids to have social activities. Teachers do learn how to teach. There are certain techniques that are better in terms of teaching kids how to read and do math. My Mom used to be an elementary school teacher and has told me a few techniques.
There is a private school near me that let's figure out how to answer math problems. Then they teach them the "congenital way". It allows the kids to think for themselves
Unfortunately, if you live in an area with poor schools or can't afford private school, it is often better to homeschooling. |
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well! - Joe Ancis |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2011 : 20:02:43 [Permalink]
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In response to Dave, I can't really give you much as I'm trying to learn about this myself. I first heard about unschooling through a guy in my humanist group who is a huge advocate, and a couple of women in the Atheist Meetup here who are unschooling their kids. A lot of what the guy from my humanist group says makes sense (such as that kids learn things in school that aren't useful, and they realize it and come to resent it. They also forget most of what they learn.), but a lot doesn't (example: he discourages asking kids leading questions, which every researcher of intelligence and education I've heard says is good for kids.) I never gave it all that much thought, and then recently heard something about it on NPR. I also just read "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" which is the total opposite of unschooling. I guess that now I have kids I'm trying to work out what I think about all this, and so I'm starting by looking at the extremes of various approaches.
It is difficult to get more than just personal stories and since unschoolers get grouped together with all other homeschoolers (the unschooling approach of intellectual liberals is extremely unlike that of born again Christian homeschoolers.) The only hard info I can find on homeschooling in general is that homeschoolers who take standardized tests do just as well as traditionally schooled kids, although they tend to do slightly better in English and slightly worse in math on SAT and ACT tests.
Astra Taylor is one rather articulate advocate and product of unschooling. She is a successful film maker who also attended Ivy League school studying Physics at one point (which she gave up because she realized she was more trying to prove to people that she really was well educated and smart, and not because she was passionate about a career in the sciences.) She gives about an hour talk about it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q I like her talk because unlike a lot of unschooling advocates, she doesn't just piss all over traditional schooling using inflammatory rhetoric (such as comparing schools to prisons or even slavery, and referring to any demands made on children as "coersion".) Instead, Taylor seems more interested in giving her thoughts on a variety of aspects of the issue and opening it up for discussion. She also doesn't shy away from talking about the possible downsides of unschooling.
So far it seems to me that the only real downside of unschooling as a movement isn't on a level of individual families, but rather, on the level of public policy. Unschooling advocates include Grover Norquist-type libertarians who want to eliminate all forms of government-subsidized education. The disparity of resources between poor and middle class families, coupled with economic segregation suggests to me that the unschooled poor kid would end up with a far far worse educated than the unschooled middle class kid. But, hell, the public schools of today aren't much better given that the quality of public schools is influenced by those same factors. Still, even if unschooled kids whose parents CHOOSE to unschool them turn out fine, that does not mean that unschooled kids whose parents are forced into it by having no other educational options will turn out fine.
In response to H.H.: I've heard that sort of response from people who don't really know anything about unschooling, but nobody supports it with evidence, such as even a single example of an illiterate adult who can't function in the real world because he or she was unschooled. Unschools do tend to learn some things later (and some things earlier) than other kids, but they learn everything they need to learn to function and not feel embarrassed because it's not like they live in isolation. My biggest concern is for the subject of math where most children are unlikely to explore mathematics deeply on their own, and by the time they are mature enough to recognize the importance of higher level mathematics, it might be more difficult to catch up. In many careers, such as writing, we can continue to develop our skills for our whole lives. However, our fluid intelligence only grows for a short time (which is probably why the theoretical physicists typically make their greatest contributions before the age of 30.) Some things are just easier to learn if one begins at an earlier age, and can become many times more difficult to learn when we're older. That's why I started teaching Lysistrata Spanish when she was 18 months old. Then again, plenty of unschooled kids have ended up at Ivy League colleges and gone on to professional careers. Of course, that isn't evidence that unschooling is superior (or even equal to traditional schooling) since there haven't been (and can't really be) any randomized studies of unschooled individuals compared with traditionally schooled individuals. Parents who choose unschooling tend to be highly educated, unconventional thinkers who question the status quo, and be especially involved parents, so they totally skew the data. Their kids are no doubt heavily influenced by conversations they have and overhear, and they have regular access to all sorts of resources that poor and working class kids don't have.
A lot of my thoughts on the evident success of so many unschoolers have been shaped by reading "Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count" by Richard Nisbett. In that book he spends a lot of time citing scientific studies that show that working class people, and sadly African Americans especially, raise their kids totally differently than middle class people. One example was how many words a child is likely to hear in a day - the child in a middle class home is likely to hear 4 time as many words than the child in a poor, African American home. They are more likely to have many books in the home and be read to every day, and be read to in a way which encourages interruptions to the story for questions and discussion. And these profound differences in parenting approaches seems to have a direct impact on IQ, success in school, likelihood of ending up in prison or divorced, whether or not people go on to higher education, and future job and income. I am more and more coming to the conclusion that my kids will probably do well in life because they are white, middle class, and have highly educated, critically thinking, loving parents. While I find this tentative conclusion reassuring as a mother, I find it depressing as a humanist.
Anyway, while I do think my kids will overall be just fine no matter what I decide, I also think there is evidence that I have some ability to give them additional measurable advantages (for having confidence, compassion and strong ethics, passionate interests, and ability to set and achieve realistic goals) depending on what specific educational path I choose for them. I'm just trying to work out what that best path might be. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 08/27/2011 : 20:22:37 [Permalink]
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In response to alienist: | The problem with homeschooling is the lack of activities with other kids. |
I hear this so much, and nobody ever backs it up with any evidence. Homeschooled kids interact with kids in their family, their neighborhood, and with other homeschooled kids since they are almost always part of a homeschooling community. And then, oddly enough, nobody seems to question the idea of sticking kids with only other kids their own age for the bulk of their upbringing - a social situation which mirrors almost nothing in adult life.
There are certain techniques that are better in terms of teaching kids how to read and do math. My Mom used to be an elementary school teacher and has told me a few techniques.
There is a private school near me that let's figure out how to answer math problems. Then they teach them the "congenital way". It allows the kids to think for themselves |
I've taught and been around quality teachers enough to know that different techniques work well for different children. Some techniques are definitely more effective in teaching groups of students, and that is incredibly useful for a classroom instructor to know. However, a variety of techniques must be in a teacher's toolbox if all children are to learn most effectively.
| Unfortunately, if you live in an area with poor schools or can't afford private school, it is often better to homeschooling. |
I'm not sure I agree with this claim. I wish I could find a similar article, but a couple years ago I read about a comparative study of schools in Pennsylvania. It showed that performance of students at private schools was superior to that of charter and public schools (those two were about the same.) However, when parental involvement was taken into account, the private schools no longer had an edge. This paper comes to similar conclusions: Once the full
scope of the family is taken into account, cultural capital as well as economic capital, private
school effects disappear. These findings suggest a need to maintain the focus on improving
schools while also bolstering supports for low-income families, such as providing adequate
health care and preventive care, better wages, and high-quality child care and preschool programs. |
And then there is simply the fact that kids in affluent neighborhoods who attend public schools tend to have higher IQs, are more likely to graduate and go to college, do better on standardized tests, and more likely to go on to higher paying, professional careers than kids in poor neighborhoods who attend public schools. The difference seems to be surrounding culture and resources, not pedagogical approach. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2011 : 11:30:57 [Permalink]
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| I just stumbled on a new study that compares structured homeschoolers to unschoolers and public school educated kids. It tries to eliminate the bias of self selection and the results at least according to standardized tests is that the homeschooled kids do the best, while the unschooled kids do the worst. The unschooler retort to the study is that standardized tests are not a good measure of learning. I myself, while not a huge fan of standardized tests as the end-all, be-all of academic evaluation still believe that they can be a decent indicator of potential for overall academic achievement and preparation for higher education. Comments? |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Valiant Dancer
Forum Goalie
USA
4826 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2011 : 11:49:50 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by marfknox
I just stumbled on a new study that compares structured homeschoolers to unschoolers and public school educated kids. It tries to eliminate the bias of self selection and the results at least according to standardized tests is that the homeschooled kids do the best, while the unschooled kids do the worst. The unschooler retort to the study is that standardized tests are not a good measure of learning. I myself, while not a huge fan of standardized tests as the end-all, be-all of academic evaluation still believe that they can be a decent indicator of potential for overall academic achievement and preparation for higher education. Comments?
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A Simon and Garfunkle song springs to mind.
While some of what I learned in High School was largely crap, some of it I did not find value for until much later. The standardized tests go for what a well rounded student should know. While unschooling does focus on specific interests of the child (and therefore is more likely to hold the long term attention of the child), it may do so at the expense of some valuable lessons on history and mathematics that may come in handy later. History was never very useful to me until I started dealing with people in a highly diversified workplace. It served as a basis to understand where people were coming from.
I would be interested to see what subjects were worst for unschoolers. These may be the ones that they have the most difficulty justifying or have problems understanding the material themselves.
Preperation for higher study only has validity for those careers that require it. Automotive mechanics, palentology, and the like are more suitable for a well rounded education.
Priesthood and artist have less of a need for higher studies. |
Cthulhu/Asmodeus when you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils
Brother Cutlass of Reasoned Discussion |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2011 : 13:07:37 [Permalink]
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Val wrote: I would be interested to see what subjects were worst for unschoolers. These may be the ones that they have the most difficulty justifying or have problems understanding the material themselves.
Preperation for higher study only has validity for those careers that require it. Automotive mechanics, palentology, and the like are more suitable for a well rounded education.
Priesthood and artist have less of a need for higher studies. |
I was thinking all the same stuff. I actually just wrote an entry in my blog about it while you were writing your response. Specifically:
In my own perusals of unschooling communities I have noted some consistent characteristics. In general, advocates and practitioners of unschooling include artists of various stripes and academics in the humanities or soft sciences, especially psychology. It is difficult, however, to find any scientists, engineers, or medical doctors. Is this an indication that math skills and the academic discipline necessary for certain careers is lacking among unschoolers? I can't be sure, but it is disconcerting.
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Sharon also expresses my same concern regarding the sciences, questioning whether an older unschooled child who suddenly desires to become a rocket scientist could just quickly play catch-up on learning higher math. Indeed, given that we know that, for instance, foreign languages are much more easily learned from a very early age, it seems foolish to not take advantage of this special ability during early childhood education. We also know that certain athletic and other physical pursuits must be started at an early age if future professional goals are ever to be obtained. A four-year-old child might express an interest in ballet lessons, but will he or she actually practice enough entirely on his or her own at that age to have career potential? Of course most children will never have the potential to be a professional ballet dancer or rocket scientist just because their parents forced them to practice/study from a young age. However, it is doubtful that a child who starts ballet or higher math education at the age of sixteen could ever achieve professional status.
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Given what I've learned so far, and the importance I place on math, science, and multicultural awareness, whether I sent my kids to school or educate them at home, they're going to be studying age-appropriate math and foreign language, whether they want to or not. If they want to join the circus when they grow up, great! I just want to make sure they have options. |
Anyone interested can read the whole post here. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/14/2011 13:08:38 |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2011 : 20:39:10 [Permalink]
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I very much share your concerns marf.
I'm not sure all children will develop the mental discipline to learn to study when left to their own devices, and I think this is very much a skill that's useful regardless of what your future is. And, I'm in the same position as you mentioned in the blog post marf, I learned how to do this in school, albeit sometimes with topics that haven't been very useful to me, and probably never will be. (I've never needed to know the stages of mitosis or the organelles in a cell or much else I learned in biology, and probably never will.)
Then the other concern for me is topics that aren't immediately interesting to many, often math or history or grammar. It may very well be much better practice than usual education to customize the information to the particular interests of the student. It should be possible to make most of the applications of the math specific to their interests. I wouldn't be confident enough in unschooling to pass up forcing them to learn basic math early.
And I think history becomes really interesting to quite a lot of children if it's something more than making them memorize facts and dates. I think a semi-structured approach there may be most beneficial. Perhaps make them study history, but let them study whatever part of history they choose? And I think a person teaching a child individually could ask them much better questions than in a classroom setting. It can be much more of a discussion, and one could ask them questions that make them think, rather than quizzing them on the year Caesar was killed or the names of the ships in which Christopher Columbus travelled. To me, the content isn't nearly as important as the critical thinking skills and ability to understand people it can encourage. Possibly an exception would be basic American history in order to understand how the political system works and why. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2011 : 22:12:35 [Permalink]
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Machi4velli wrote: | I'm not sure all children will develop the mental discipline to learn to study when left to their own devices, and I think this is very much a skill that's useful regardless of what your future is. And, I'm in the same position as you mentioned in the blog post marf, I learned how to do this in school, albeit sometimes with topics that haven't been very useful to me, and probably never will be. (I've never needed to know the stages of mitosis or the organelles in a cell or much else I learned in biology, and probably never will.) |
Yeah, I've never viewed it as a problem that we don't actually use most of what we learn in school. It really bugs me and even saddens me when kids say, "I'm never going to use this. Why am I learning it?" I was taught to try to enjoy learning for its own sake. And the utilitarian purpose is that when kids are exposed to a wide variety of things, many of which they wouldn't have checked out on their own, they get more opportunities. The best example I know from my own life is that my parents put my brother and I in a summer theater camp when we were kids. Just because it was something that looked both fun and educational. I totally sucked at acting and got little out of the experience. But my brother discovered a hidden talent. I guarantee that he never would have asked to do a theater camp on his own before that first summer. But now he's 31 years old, finishing up his Masters in Theater, and he's been a working actor for years. It is his passion. It even lead to meeting his wife, who is also an amazing actor. The whole course of his life was shaped because my parents thought Theater summer camp would be a neat experience for us. We never know how something we learn as a kid might be a catalyst for major future choices. This is why learning for its own sake is such an important value.
| Then the other concern for me is topics that aren't immediately interesting to many, often math or history or grammar. It may very well be much better practice than usual education to customize the information to the particular interests of the student. It should be possible to make most of the applications of the math specific to their interests. I wouldn't be confident enough in unschooling to pass up forcing them to learn basic math early. |
I think there are many little nuggets of wisdom in the unschooling philosophy. Many of them are already applied in schools, especially those that practice what is called "progressive education."
| And I think history becomes really interesting to quite a lot of children if it's something more than making them memorize facts and dates. I think a semi-structured approach there may be most beneficial. Perhaps make them study history, but let them study whatever part of history they choose? And I think a person teaching a child individually could ask them much better questions than in a classroom setting. It can be much more of a discussion, and one could ask them questions that make them think, rather than quizzing them on the year Caesar was killed or the names of the ships in which Christopher Columbus travelled. To me, the content isn't nearly as important as the critical thinking skills and ability to understand people it can encourage. Possibly an exception would be basic American history in order to understand how the political system works and why. |
I totally agree. I used to work at an independent K-8th Quaker school and the teachers there took this approach. They were always trying to contextualize the subject matter, and they collaborated often with each other so there was as much cross-discipline stuff going on as possible. I enjoyed making art classes relevant to what kids were learning in language arts and history and science when it made sense to do so, and I liked having my art lessons reinforced in various ways by the classroom and other "specials" teachers. I think it really helps the kids retain information and feel more engaged. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Thoughtful blog post on unschooling
