Do we have any unschoolers here?

Off-topic
1

I heard a lady being interviewed this afternoon while changing stations, and this caught my attention. I grew up going to public schools in many states. Some were great others were abhorant, but all in all I did well. School was essentially easy for me, and test taking very easy. So I have always felt that if you lived in the right area, and you were involved with their education, they would excel.

My half sister on the other hand struggled through school, and would have done anything to be anywhere else. I also have two half brothers that made it through the regular school system. One graduated from college with a EE degree, while the other graduated with a communications degree. The youngest did ok in school, but like my sister would have rather have done other things. Especially music related.

I guess my point is, not all of us are the same, and I am certain that some would learn much faster in a educational process different than the traditional programs. Public or Private, they both have many of the same issues. Private only looks like it works better primarily because they only take the best kids to start with. The top 10% in my high school would test similar to the top 10% in any private school. I think parenting had as much to do with the excellent performance at our school as the faculty did.

So I was just curious if anyone here had experiences with this untraditional system that they could share. The idea is interesting.

Dang it, I mistyped the title. Ironic wouldn’t you say?

2

well…not really, but i was homeschooled for the first three grades of my life (if you count kindergarten as a grade) and i think it gave me a good start, i had the individual attention to learn the basics quickly, and because i was with my mom most of the time, she was able to instill values in me at an early age…I think this is part of the reason i do well in public school…

3

Taken from the latest issue of The Link. More articles can be found HERE
—–

The Richest Man in the World Has Some Advice for Us about College . . .

(P.S. He didn’t take it himself)

by John Taylor Gatto

  1. William Faulkner

On April 12, 2005, the August “New York Review of Books” pronounced William Faulkner “the most influential innovator in the annals of American fiction,” a man well-deserving of his Nobel Prize.
Faulkner, a high school dropout, was later able to enter the University of Mississippi on a special waiver for ex-WWI servicemen. After a single year there he dropped out with a ‘D’ in English. Between that time and his Nobel Prize he never returned to college.

  1. Bill Gates and China

On February 28 of this year, Bill Gates of Microsoft, told a gathering of the 50 American state governors that the United States has reached a competitive crisis which we were losing. This could best be combated by making college prep the sole function of secondary schooling, college prep for everyone, and college, too.
Those who couldn’t afford it should be subsidized by the states. In Erving Goffman’s chilling locution, college was to become a “Total Institution,” controlling all work in the economy.

Gates’ speech was headlined in the European press, where I read about it the following day at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, which I was leaving for Guangzhou, China. When I landed there, it was big news in China, too, if the English language “China Daily” can be believed.
It was the first thing my Chinese hosts wanted to talk about — this radically utopian idea of college for all.

  1. But … Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I asked my hosts to consider this: If Gates’ proposal was such a great idea, then how was it that Gates, like Faulkner, dropped out of college his freshman year? And why didn’t he ever go back? And how was it that from among millions of college-trained techies, Gates decided to hook up with another dropout, Paul Allen, to found Microsoft?
That could have been a million-to-one coincidence, of course, except for the fact that Steve Jobs, the brains behind Apple, dropped out of Reed College after one semester. And never went back to college, not for a single day! Was it only an accident that Jobs chose to partner with another dropout, Steve Wozniak, in the founding of Apple?
Michael Dell of Dell Computer didn’t bother with college either. Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, said he didn’t have the time to waste on college. Is the penny beginning to drop? These multi-billionaires, who’ve changed the face of the global society in technology, were all dropouts. What do you make of that?

4

Yeah man!!
I’m like the definition of unschooling…because I want to LEARN, not do pointless busy works just to get an ‘A’ on ‘the test’ if I don’t understand it. Schools don’t teach a love of knowledge as they should…teachers only do their thing because they want money, not because they want to educate the next generation. As a result of these beliefs, I’ve failed a lot of classes, and last year decided, screw school, and screw graduating!! I am still in school, but only to learn…last year I took three classes (algebra 2, chemistry, french) and this year I’m taking four (trig, physics, english, and french). I’m not gonna graduate, of course, but I don’t care!! I’m going to get a GED instead, and eventually go to college.

Well, reading deeper into the website, I guess I’m not technically an ‘unschooler,’ but I definitely believe in and agree with their cause…

5

Interesting point you make. I came from Arizona to Georgia to live with my Dad in 8th Grade. I had never had any parental infuence or direction. I was a wild child completely out of control. I was the sole caretaker of my younger sister. I still did very well in school because I wanted to. When I got to Georgia the teachers took particular pride in not only giving out BS busy work, but grading it as well. I wasn’t used to this, and never did any homework. At the six week(mid term) report card I came home with C’s and D’s. My Dad lost it, and wanted a conference with my teachers. In the meeting my Dad said “I don’t understand how this is possible? He has brought home nothing but A’s on his tests.” The teachers said " Sure, that’s true. He just hasn’t turned in ANY homework which is half his grade." About that time my Dad turned to me and glared like nobody’s business. I should mention, that EVERY single day when I came home from school I had been asked “Do you have any homework?”

Well from that point forward I had to take a sheet of paper to my teachers each day saying that they had my homework. My grades went back to were they should have been, and everyone but me was happy. My Dad felt like I wasn’t capable of being trusted or getting grades on my own. So any success I had as a student was due to his “9 1/2 boot in my ass.” The funny thing was from that point forward even though I was required to sit in my room and “study” for hours each night, I refused to do a single page of reading or homework in that room. I would do it in class, on the bus, waiting for the bus or before class started. I resent the way the school doled out busy work to this day, which is why I found this approach interesting.

This all came up again because my friends kids are in a local private school. I was talking to them and they said that they get up at 6am get home around 4pm, and with the exception of dinner, are doing homework until 10:30 or 11:00pm every night. I was blown away. In my experience it just doesn’t require that much assigned homework to get the material. I said, my kids would be out of that school yesterday. I think this is almost bordering on child abuse. Kids need to be kids, and this can’t be done doing BS busy work for five hours each night. I think the school is about to have a mutiny of parents. Her kids are in 7th and 10th grade by the way. I never had that kind of homework on a regular basis, not even with my 8th Grade punishment.

6

yeah busy work pisses me off…I think (although i hate to admit it) some homework is necessary but some teachers take it too far…what i really hate though is make up work…if i were a teacher, students who were absent (and excused absence mind you) would be responsible for the material covered not the work done.

7

Evan Bryne (sorry on the spelling?) does ‘unschooling’.

I’ve been homeschooled all my life, and still am. I wouldn’t servive an entire day in public school… I get the same amount of work done in a few hours that public school takes all day plus homework…

8

I too hate “busy work”… actually started a fight between my ex and I… She told me to do something, which I’d already done, and she told me to do something else which was totally uneeded (I forget what it was, stupid fights ;)) and I told her she was just making “busy work” for me so I wasn’t going to do it :wink:

She’s a 2nd grade teacher… coincedence maybe? :wink:

I failed out of the 1st college I went to because I was learning too much… just not what they wanted to teach me :wink: And it was useful (mostly computer-related) stuff too, I wasn’t just learning about beer consumption :stuck_out_tongue:

9

I agree…homework should really be optional, and a students grades should be determined by tests. The teacher should teach the material in the class, answer questions or whatever, then assign homework students can do if they want to understand it better. Then the test will show if they really know how to do it. Actually my math teacher does just that…homework is optional. And he was a high school dropout. Coincidence?

10

School is something that always got in the way of doing something interesting or fun. But that’s what institutionalization is all about.

11

One of my college statistics classes had an interesting appraoch. We had computer projects that we could do through out the class. There were six total. We could either do the projects which took about 12 hours to program(each), at a lab since it wasn’t PC based, or take the midterm and final. Every day that projects were due, everyon in class handed in a project but me. I always felt uneasy, but I was sure I would do well on the tests. The day of the test maybe 5 out of 25 skipped the test and took their project grades. I did the test each time, and ended up with an A. I would say that besides my starting of the first project I may have had 1/3 the time invested for an A that anyone else in the class had. I’m not saying the projects weren’t beneficial to some of the students, I was in a time managment mode my last year and couldn’t spare the time. I worked full time and carried a full schedule through my entire college education. So I was always trying to find eficiencies.

12

I am going to graduate but I am sorta like potter, but I am going to graduate. But it is interesting because I was thinking about this yesterday during English.

13

You think perhaps that’s a tad over-cynical? There may be some teachers who do it only for the mony, but given that the money isn’t very good perhaps they have some other motive? (beyond long holidays)

As for homework - to learn something effectively you have to spend some time working at it on your own. You can never learn something to a great depth by someone else explaining it, you have to go through everything yourself to find the things that you thought you understood when introduced, but are actually more complex. It is not an effective use of a teachers time for that to be done while they sit there doing nothing, hence they teach the material in class and then you put in the extra time as homework.

The idea of homework being optional is nice in theory, but sadly teachers are employed to teach people. I imagine very few are in a position to say ‘yeah, I know all my students are failing, but it’s okay because it’s there choice’. Ideally homework should be done because the teacher has motivated their students to do it, but that won’t work with all people so other methods are required.

I agree that the idea of everyone going to college (henceforth to be called university, dammit) is silly idea. Not everyone needs the skills that university teaches, and many people will be very succesful on their own. However, while those mentioned have done lots of amazing things, that has generally been through being successfull businessman (except for the writer, of course), however those businesses were made possible because of developments in science and engineering. Those were made, and will continue to be made, by an awful lot of university educated people.

It’s very easy to get annoyed at being asked to do work and just call it busy work, and when at school the relevance of what you’re learning can seem a bit vague. In most cases, that means that you don’t know why it’s relevant, not that it isn’t relevant.

John

14

We defenitely need more university graduates. They make good employees, and I am always looking for good employees.:wink:

In my friends situation with his daughters studying for 5 hours a night after an 8 hour school day, that is just assinine. That is a teacher using repetitive excersises rather than sound teaching to educate the kids.

Maybe they need to take the Evelyn Woods Course.

15

If you couldn’t survive a day in a public school how are you going to survive a day at an actual job?

16

home education, it works for some and not for others.
i’ve been home educated my whole life and just because your home educated doesn’t mean that your not set up for life (as it were)as it seems some to be saying but maybe they’re not, how can you ever tell?

:wink: :smiley:

17

He’ll hire you.

18

maybe it’s because i have never been homeschooled but i don’t think it is the right way to go if your going o put your child into a public or private school. i know a boy called john he was homeschooled until his first year of high school so when he arrived he didn’t know how to act or what to say around the males females or teachers and he is still learning. luckily enough he was put into a private school i don’t think he would have survived in a public school because homeschooling cant teach you life experience and how to react

19

Because an actual job involves a lot less meaningless busiwork than public school.

At a job, you have a goal, you learn/work out how to achieve it, you d it, you move on. After work, you go home and don’t think about it till the next day. In public school, you work one job-equivalent listening to lectures (often full of inaccuracies) then when the whistle blows, you go home and you do a second job-equivalent of repetitious busiwork which produces no deliverable product and does not create anything of meaning.

I’ve heard that in the military, there is a punishment where one is made to first dig a hole, then to fill it back in again. A major reason why it is punishment is because the work is literally pointless. The majority of homework in public school is little different than that hole digging exercize; you don’t actually solve any real problems or work anything out, you just apply a process repetitiously to create an abstract list of answers.

20

There are those with jobs, that may actually argue that point.:smiley: