> Everything I learned felt abstract and standardized. It was a conditional knowledge that existed in separation from the richly textured world just beyond the school’s plate-glass windows, which, for all their transparency, felt like the bars of a prison cell.
Tell that story to a kid in Africa who has to walk miles to get to school and the school might not have electricity or water and so on. They would say "So, you're telling me, you have free transportation to school, teachers, computers in ever classroom, air conditioned rooms, and you choose let your children learn to carve 'beautiful long bows' instead?"
Sorry that is how I feel. I can't shake the feeling that this is elitist. Like the article puts (as if pre-emptively trying to defend against a counter argument) this is like living some "Jeffersonian fantasies" -- that is exactly what I see here.
At the end of the day they are dooming these children to live in an isolated sheltered bubble. Which would have worked great in early settler days. Not today. Today unless they keep in that bubble they will be controlled and owned by those that understand how compounding interest rate works, how computers works, how the legal system works, how lobbying works, how quarks work, how genes work and so on.
Now with that said, it is their right to do it and it is nice to have that choice. This is what makes it great to live in this country. I personally think they are a little bit crazy for doing what they are doing.
My school has 1600 students but most of the building doesn't have air conditioning. The school had federal money to install central air conditioning but "borrowed" it to buy iPads for all the students. Then whatever they intended to reimburse the money fell through. (This was illegal.)
Somehow a PE teacher manipulated his way to become the Director of Human Resources for the district. He now lives in a million dollar house in the nicest housing edition in the city. He divorced his wife and married a new girl. She had no qualifications but he gave some 6-figure job in the school district. He also got his mother a job.
The district hired a new CFO, who quickly realized the district had two sets of books. He protested and was offered a bribe via an increased salary. He went to the FBI and subsequently wore a wire. The school district concocted a false sexual harassment charge against him and fired him.
He sued the school district. A federal grand jury was convened months ago but so far nothing has happened. Maybe the FBI is waiting to indict the various individuals involved once the civil suit is over. But it's been months and maybe there will be no indictments.
There's about 75,000 people in my city. We are far from progressive and this small town good ol' boy network has negatively effected our public schools.
The story doesn't even sound true but it's a great example of just how corrupted and messed up public education is in some cities.
As a urban parent who plans to unschool our three kids, I think this article only gives a single perspective to the unschool movement - namely a rustic one, which happens to be very popular with this movement.
What is overshadowed in the article, largely because it is an outdoorsy magazine, is that the philosophy behind unschooling is the difference rather than the specific skills learned.
Case in point, my kids will be getting hands on experience with robotics and computing as early as they can read and form abstractions - which includes mathematics and physics education. The distinction is that we will teach at the pace of their understanding and curiosity rather than set milestones in the form of testing.
I think your metaphor generalizes too widely however I do agree that done right, unschooling truly is a rich mans school (time, effort and materiel) because it is so narrowly tailored.
What you are describing sounds more like the author's definition of homeschooling than unschooling. That said, he is teaching them the skills to run a farm, so at what point are you exposing children to something rather than instructing them.
You have to do some instruction around the edges, but largely the idea is that you offer different avenues for exploration and then they choose which way to go. Homeschooling generally has a fixed curriculum, often as restrictive as traditional schools - so that is the distinction.
How can it be 'elitist' if the education is not only cheaper but its graduates are allegedly doomed to be exploited in their 'bubble'?
The reality is that school leavers are more likely to be exploited. Once cast out of their enclosures, which resemble almost nowhere else in the wider world, they are mentally unable to pursue their own interests.
>I personally think they are a little bit crazy for doing what they are doing
>Tell that story to a kid in Africa who has to walk miles to get to school and the school might not have electricity or water and so on. They would say "So, you're telling me, you have free transportation to school, teachers, computers in ever classroom, air conditioned rooms, and you choose let your children learn to carve 'beautiful long bows' instead?"
This is a bit of a false dichotomy. You can learn pretty much whatever you want without being locked in a brutalist concrete box with no windows with dozens of other restless children.
Honestly, I think I would have learned way more (and way faster) if I had just avoided elementary school and was given the latitude to study at my own pace (and maybe do some outdoorsy stuff like that mentioned in the OP). It wasn't until middle school that "normal" schooling (being locked in a room for hour-long sessions) became even remotely useful to me.
Of course, a lot of this is about finding a learning style that works; there is no universal learning style that is good for everyone. Which is why I agree with
>it is their right to do it and it is nice to have that choice.
>Tell that story to a kid in Africa who has to walk miles to get to school and the school might not have electricity or water and so on. They would say "So, you're telling me, you have free transportation to school, teachers, computers in ever classroom, air conditioned rooms, and you choose let your children learn to carve 'beautiful long bows' instead?
Why not? Teaching arithmetic appears to be a waste of time at best before sixth grade[0][1]. Children who receive no formal instruction in arithmetic catch up with their agemates who have been receiving that instruction and are better at word problems. If the most unnatural skill we teach in primary school shows no benefits from earlier instruction I sincerely doubt something that comes much easier, like reading, will show any long-term negative effects.
>At the end of the day they are dooming these children to live in an isolated sheltered bubble. Which would have worked great in early settler days. Not today. Today unless they keep in that bubble they will be controlled and owned by those that understand how compounding interest rate works, how computers works, how the legal system works, how lobbying works, how quarks work, how genes work and so on.
Those children learned to read. The only research I've been able to find on unschoolers suggests they function about one grade level behind[2]. I really doubt that has much of an impact on their long-term prospects and if it does...
They can still probably skip primary and middle school to little effect.
[1] L. P. Benezet (1935/1936). The teaching of Arithmetic: The Story of an Experiment. Originally published in Journal of the National Education Association in three parts. Vol. 24, #8, pp 241-244; Vol. 24, #9, p 301-303; & Vol. 25, #1, pp 7-8.
[2]Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science (Impact Factor: 0.46). 06/2011; 43(3):195-202. DOI: 10.1037/a0022697
ABSTRACT Although homeschooling is growing in prevalence, its educational outcomes remain unclear. The present study compared the academic achievements of homeschooled children with children attending traditional public school. When the homeschooled group was divided into those who were taught from organized lesson plans (structured homeschoolers) and those who were not (unstructured homeschoolers), the data showed that structured homeschooled children achieved higher standardized scores compared with children attending public school. Exploratory analyses also suggest that the unstructured homeschoolers are achieving the lowest standardized scores across the 3 groups.
Good point on the arithmetic. Ok let' teach them about patterns and shapes. Let's have them play games. Let's have school field trips to museums, the woods or farms. Let's teach kids about playing together, about negotiating and all those things.
There is a big gap between "well arithmetic doesn't work before 6th grade" and "let have them live in the woods and carve long bows".
Tell that story to a kid in Africa who has to walk miles to get to school and the school might not have electricity or water and so on. They would say "So, you're telling me, you have free transportation to school, teachers, computers in ever classroom, air conditioned rooms, and you choose let your children learn to carve 'beautiful long bows' instead?"
Sorry that is how I feel. I can't shake the feeling that this is elitist. Like the article puts (as if pre-emptively trying to defend against a counter argument) this is like living some "Jeffersonian fantasies" -- that is exactly what I see here.
At the end of the day they are dooming these children to live in an isolated sheltered bubble. Which would have worked great in early settler days. Not today. Today unless they keep in that bubble they will be controlled and owned by those that understand how compounding interest rate works, how computers works, how the legal system works, how lobbying works, how quarks work, how genes work and so on.
Now with that said, it is their right to do it and it is nice to have that choice. This is what makes it great to live in this country. I personally think they are a little bit crazy for doing what they are doing.