I can see the mother of this kind of child barging into McDonalds when the kid gets his first job, screaming at the manager about how her child should be able move from station to station during the day and do whatever job he wants to do because he gets bored easily. Then excusing the child quitting every job he ever has because those nasty people won’t allow him to choose his own work.
Precious Snowflake will never work at McDonalds, silly man. Precious Snowflake will be a novelist or an artist.
But yes.
(I hope Precious Snowflake marries well or her parents have generational wealth.)
Nobody tell Precious Snowflake that artists and novelists still have to meet deadlines. Not to mention suck up to patrons and write grants!
Hahahahahahahah…Totally. I can totally see a Suburban Achiever Mom reading about Unschooling, and being totally CONVINCED that it’s the perfect method for her Special Snowflake. Like she thinks that it means letting the child raise itself, rather then teaching the child life skills by using their interests as a “carrot”
Unschooling tends to work best in families that already have the “let the child lead the way” mentality.
And you DO have to admit that this sort of thing is much better then the Suburban Achiever Parent who wants to have a Perfect Child, with Honors/AP classes and Name Brand College with the requsiste Prestigious Job.
Hell, The Girl was unschooled for 17 years and is extremely smart and well rounded. She’s also at college right now and is going to graduate soon!
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/free_schools/ In the 60s they were called Free Schools. They were mostly in the rich republican neighborhoods of Detroit. The inner city kids didn’t get the experimental schools of the time. The idea was that a kids natural curiosity would result in him getting an education and he would gravitate toward his strengths. My nephew was in one and he spent a lot of time playing a guitar.
Well, I’ve already shared our experience (in which my “special snowflake” was allowed to do pretty much what he wanted and spent a lot of time reading, playing guitar, walking around taking photos, and yes, even playing video games:eek:, entered high school at 15 with no problems, has been a high achiever and is graduating soon) so just to reiterate that the approach is quite capable of producing funtional, even above average functioning, adults.
The idea that children must, from a very young age, be made to conform to schedules, deadlines, rules and structured education simply to train them to do so later in life is common but, imo, erroneous.
Children learn best by doing, through PLAY and hands-on exploration. And through being allowed to follow their own interests of the moment. They also learn through observation, of others and of the world around them.
This is true of adults as well. Throughout most of human history, this is how knowledge and skills have been passed from one generation to another. There is a reason the practice of apprentiship to a skilled tradesman or other expert has been a long-standing tradion for young people.; the best way to learn something is not from a professional “teacher” or from a book in a classroom, but from someone who actually DOES the thing you want to learn well, is interested and excited about it, and willing to let you watch and participate.
We start kids out at 5 (or younger) in a structured classroom setting partly on the assumption that unless we do, unless they have 12 years of this under their belts, they will never be able to hold down a job (many of which are boring, require conforming to sometimes irrational rules and schedules, following orders, working on things we have no interest in, much like school). And I refer not just to school, per se, but methods of homeschooling which follow this same sort of approach. This thread is about UNschooling, a very different approach.
But this isn’t necessarily true. In fact, it can be counterproductive. Kids can burn out on such structure very rapidly, as studies have shown. (the levels of interest and excitement about school tend to drop steadily every year instead of rising or even holding steady). As any educator knows, it is difficult to impossible to teach someone who has no interest in learning, and students increasingly fall into this category as they pass through the K-12 system.
A few cites from the voluminous literature on this phenomenon:
From Gallup, 2009:
“Half of students are engaged; they are highly involved
with and enthusiastic about school. The other half
of students are either going through the motions
at school or actively undermining the teaching and
learning process.
Student engagement peaks during elementary school,
decreases through middle school and 10th grade, and
plateaus through the rest of high school — seemingly
after some of the most actively disengaged students
drop out of school. This downward trend suggests
that we may be losing the hearts and minds of some
students in middle school, with involvement in and
enthusiasm for school declining from 5th through 10th
grade.”
A child who has been allowed to pursue a more natural (innate) way of learning throughout most of their childhood tends to retain what Einstein termed the “holy curiosity” and not hold the negative views towards learning many schooled (home or otherwise) kids pick up along the way. They come to trust their own interests and abilities and be much more self-motivated as opposed to relying on external motivations (grades, approval of authority).
I, a drop-out, did very well in college later because I WANTED to be there and was self-motivated to study what I was studying (Child Development). I was already working in the field and was highly interested. I’m currently doing very well in college because I am studying something I am currently very interested in and wanting to use in the real world/my current work (Film). I left school because I was daily compelled to study and do things which held NO interest for me, were not challenging, and the only motivation I had was getting good grades (and it was not a strong enough motivator for me:rolleyes:)
For me, going to school past 6th grade or so was like having a job I absolutely hated but couldn’t quit. (I suppose that is a lesson some consider worthwhile…I don’t. As an adult, I’ve had a few really awful jobs and I QUIT and found something better. Life is too short to spend most of it miserable).
My Unschooled son has done well in high school because it was HIS decision to attend and because he has been allowed to gravitate towards those areas which interest him most (newspaper, drama, taking AP courses instead of the standard ones which he found boring and easy). Unlike most, he is not there against his will or w/o a conscious choice.
Since it in no way takes 12 years to impart/learn the basic skills necessary to explore the world independently and procede to self-education (reading, math, principles of science) to MOTIVATED, interested children, the time is being spent for other purposes. Namely, to try and teach children who are UNmotivated and DIS- interested (and the time involved in discipline of those children in a group setting), to warehouse children while their parents work, and to condition children to accept the sort of situation they will be probably be expected to endure as working adults.
It would be wonderful if the schools, overall, COULD be changed, but I think the very nature of mass, compulsory schooling is diametrially opposed to sort of changes which need to be made. They can be improved, to be sure, and should be, but forced, one-size-fits-all, externally motivated methods are virtually unavoidable within the system, for both practical and economic reasons. (including the economic “need” to produce a very large lower-skilled working class and a much smaller class of highly skilled individuals to serve our current economic system which would collapse w/o the disparity)
I suspect your kid was not a “special snowflake” and/or has a natural discipline and motivation. Unless you are admitting to us that you are one of those “special snowflake” parents - and I wouldn’t want to believe that about a fellow doper. (Special snowflake parents - my child is so unique that ordinary rules should not apply to them. You’ve pretty much argued the opposite - that you were taking advantage of the natural tendencies in all children.)
I have a friend who went to “open school” and is pretty darn successful. He’s naturally pretty disciplined and he has an understanding that novelists have deadlines (he is, in fact, a novelist). Some of his classmates would have been better served learning that discipline and understanding through more traditional means.
To clarify on that last comment above, John Holt and John Taylor Gatto have both pointed out that there is always so much talk about how and why the schools are failing/not meeting their potential as institutions and what should be done about it.
In actuality, they argue, the schools are doing exactly what they were designed to do and functioning exactly as our culture/economy needs them to function.
Am I the only one who questions the idea, often put forth by politicians and educational experts, that if EVERYONE just got a great education they could go on to have a great job with great pay and all would be right with the world? :dubious: Um, explain to me how this would be possible given the current economic structure which depends upon a very large underclass/working class, a smaller middle to upper middle class, and a very small upper class? (It’s a pyramid scheme to be sure:p)
Exactly WHERE would all these highly-skilled and paying jobs come from if virtually everyone were qualified for and expecting them? B.S. We’d just have a very highly educated/skilled service industry and menial labor work force. (same as we do now to a lesser extent.) :smack:
This is not to suggest that teachers or others directly involved are aware of this agenda. They simply enact it with other, less suspect rationales, but enact it they do.
They are inculcating the next generation with the social and economic mores of our society (or rather, the mores we have ourselves been inculcated to accepted as such).
They are teaching our children to follow orders and not question authority figures, to comply with often arbitrary and illogical rules and schedules, to sit or otherwise do as instructed for hours a day, to work for external rewards rather than for internal interests or motivations, to spend time associating with abusive people or people they otherwise wouldn’t choose to associate with of their own free will due to compatability, and to forget about having the free time and energy to pursue anything not mandated by the teacher.
They are, in other words, training the ideal worker and citizen for a classist/ corporate/industrialist/fascist society.
They are teaching, as Gatto put it, that we are to stay in the class we have been assigned to and accept it without question. With relatively few exceptions, our public schools function to track students along pre-existing, pre-determined lines of education and occupation. (in the simplified version, you have the “shop” kids and the “college-bound” kids with the remainder falling somewhere in between.)
It is a recognized phenomenon both within the educational system and outside of it.
A few cites just in case this is debatable:
http://www.edweek.org/rc/issues/tracking/
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/volume98/issue24/school/
A public school education typically results in an education tailored to the socio-economic background of the entering students, both within and between districts which are highly inequitable as a result of disparities in funding due to property valuations…kids in a wealthier district are much more likely to have access to better facilities, faculty, materials, and options than those from poorer districts. (a fact that belies the supposedly “equality of education and opportunity” argument in favor of mass compulsory education).
Even within districts and individual schools, students are typically set on a track in elementary school based on their perceived “abilities” and such tracking tends to be not only inflexible but self-fulfilling; a child who is accessed as of lesser ability in 2nd grade will usually be placed in less challenging classes and not offered the more rigorous classes and enrichments reserved for those accessed as of higher potential and ability (i.e. those entering school from a more enriched background).
It can be difficult or impossible to break out of a track once one is set on it. And limited resources dictate that the special attention and opportunity afforded those set on the “gifted” track be designated accordingly.
The end result is that a majority of students receive an education which prepares them for a life spent working for someone else at a relatively low to moderate wage while a rel. few go easily on to higher education and a life as highly skilled and paid professionals.
Is it pure coincidence that our public school system produces, on average, exactly the mix of labor required for our economic system to operate? :dubious:
Is it a coincidence that some of the staunchest advocates for the institution of this system were wealthy industrialists who had a vested interest in both a steady flow of cheap, compliant, lower-skilled labor AND a reduction in self-educated entrepreneurs competing with their business interests? SURE it was. :rolleyes:
A rather long, but relevant excerpt from Gatto’s “opus” on the subject (available to read on-line for free via this link):
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
"From the beginning, there was purpose behind forced schooling, purpose which had nothing to do with what parents, kids, or communities wanted. Instead, this grand purpose was forged out of what a highly centralized corporate economy and system of finance bent on internationalizing itself was thought to need; that, and what a strong, centralized political state needed, too. School was looked upon from the first decade of the twentieth century as a branch of industry and a tool of governance. For a considerable time, probably provoked by a climate of official anger and contempt directed against immigrants in the greatest displacement of people in history, social managers of schooling were remarkably candid about what they were doing. In a speech he gave before businessmen prior to the First World War, Woodrow Wilson made this unabashed disclosure:
We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.
By 1917, the major administrative jobs in American schooling were under the control of a group referred to in the press of that day as “the Education Trust.” The first meeting of this trust included representatives of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the National Education Association. The chief end, wrote Benjamin Kidd, the British evolutionist, in 1918, was to “impose on the young the ideal of subordination.”
At first, the primary target was the tradition of independent livelihoods in America. Unless Yankee entrepreneurialism could be extinguished, at least among the common population, the immense capital investments that mass production industry required for equipment weren’t conceivably justifiable. Students were to learn to think of themselves as employees competing for the favor of management. Not as Franklin or Edison had once regarded themselves, as self-determined, free agents.
Only by a massive psychological campaign could the menace of overproduction in America be contained. That’s what important men and academics called it. The ability of Americans to think as independent producers had to be curtailed. Certain writings of Alexander Inglis carry a hint of schooling’s role in this ultimately successful project to curb the tendency of little people to compete with big companies. From 1880 to 1930, overproduction became a controlling metaphor among the managerial classes, and this idea would have a profound influence on the development of mass schooling…
…the 1934 edition of Ellwood P. Cubberley’s Public Education in the United States is explicit about what happened and why. As Cubberley puts it:
It has come to be desirable that children should not engage in productive labor. On the contrary, all recent thinking…[is] opposed to their doing so. Both the interests of organized labor and the interests of the nation have set against child labor.
The statement occurs in a section of Public Education called “A New Lengthening of the Period of Dependence,” in which Cubberley explains that “the coming of the factory system” has made extended childhood necessary by depriving children of the training and education that farm and village life once gave. With the breakdown of home and village industries, the passing of chores, and the extinction of the apprenticeship system by large-scale production with its extreme division of labor (and the “all conquering march of machinery”), an army of workers has arisen, said Cubberley, who know nothing.
Furthermore, modern industry needs such workers."
It seems that some here are arguing against the idea that MOST/ALL kids, if allowed to learn independently, will learn and develop into functional adults. I was merely presenting my disagreement with that line of thought.
My son doesn’t have any more of a “natural discipline and motivation” than any other kid, trust me. He may be fairly intelligent, but he tends to slack and put-off as much or more than anyone else. He is a typical teenager, who much prefers to download music, socialize, and play video games (usually simultaneously :D) BUT he is also motivated to do what he has to do to keep his grades up and graduate and move on to college and study something he is interested in. So he does. Because it matters to him, not to me or anyone else.
That was my point…he is NOT unique in that respect and yet he managed to learn at a high level and go on to do very well in a more structured setting despite his lack of such for most of his childhood.
The discipline and motivation he displays now is, imo, a direct result of not being forced to do that for which he felt no interest in for the years preceding his current choice of activities. He learned to discipline and motivate HIMSELF, not rely on someone else to do it for him/force him to do it.
As a result, I argue that he and others like him are better equipped to function in college, work and the “real world” in general…hell, no-one MAKES me go to class in college…if I don’t go and do the work, I fail (or make a poor grade) period.
Plenty of schooled kids who reach college and are shocked into realizing that they are woefully under-prepared and have a delusional opinion of their abilities. This is not something particular to home or UN schoolers.
My guess is that it comes down to biases/delusions of the teachers and/or parents. Overall, I think its better to have frequent positive feedback and develop a positive self-view than to have constant negative feedback and so come to consider yourself a dullard. You may have to adjust that view in light of new challenges, but better to have an overly strong opinion and have to adjust your skills upward than an overly negative opinion and never rise above it.
You tell me what’s typical. I wouldn’t describe any kid who is getting into Ivy League schools as such.
Just wanted to mention my daughter was “unschooled”. She didn’t take the SAT, but she just got a 27 on the ACT. I don’t know what Ivy League schools require but she most definitely qualified for the college she wanted to attend.
Also, I was a single parent for the first three years of the six I homeschooled my daughter. I don’t know how I managed it. It wasn’t easy. If you unschool you have to constantly find ways to explore that you really just don’t have to do when you turn a child’s education over to other people. I didn’t just plop her in front of a computer and say “find something interesting”. I just tried to incorporate her interests into other areas. She loved all things Asian so she studied Japanese language and culture. We used that for I guess what some people would see as different classes. Maths, language, economics, even exploring our sentence structures compared to theirs. It was student guided, but I gently led. I had to be so careful; she’d had her self-esteem damaged pretty bad in her school. That’s not a slam against all of them, but hers failed us. Even that was partially my fault. I asked but I didn’t ever push. I didn’t realize what my rights were back then.