::Plop::
Traditional Education, ‘This Sort Of Thing Is Definitley My Bag, Baby’
And it isn’t either a big festering load of bullshit.
What are indigo children?
Indigo Chilluns.
Not to be confused with Inigo children. 
Fot TonyF and zellie - you guys didn’t go to high school? I’m way past having that option (out of school since 97) but that’s an intriguing thought. Mind if I ask questions?
- What country did you live in?
- What decade was this?
- Did your parents have to agree to or sign anything? What was their involvement?
- Did you follow some sort of program like the ones mentioned in this thread, or just stop going to school?
- I am guessing to get into junior college you need a GED (or your country’s equivilant). Did you get that?
- When did you move out of your parents’ house?
I don’t think I was quite smart or ambitious enough to have done this sort of thing, but I give you credit for pulling it off!!
Hippies
Unschooling is for adults. I’m currently unschooled but I’m still learning. Letting kids do this is pretty wrong unless the kid is some sort of genius/prodigy.
I still don’t get the point here. Yes, there are many good things about this system, but every single one of them also applies to traditional education. So unschooled kids can learn what they want, when they want. Schooled kids can learn what they want, when they want, too. Matter of fact, I’m not sure anyone ever learns anything unless they want to.
At the same time, however, unschooling takes a lot of opportunities away from these kids. Take me, for example: As a kid, I did indeed love taking things apart and putting them back together, and I did seek out opportunities to learn. Had I been unschooled, I probably could have put those skills to work, and become a pretty good mechanic or the like. As it is, I went to school, learned a lot of math and science, and went on to be a physicist, which is work a lot closer to my heart, and much more fulfilling to me. But I could not have pursued that goal unschooled. My mom’s a very smart lady, a teacher in fact. But she doesn’t know any math above basic algebra, and essentially no physics. Had I been unschooled, how would I have learned those subjects? And without learning those subjects, how would I have followed my calling?
What puzzles me even more, though, is this whole business of “indigo children”. Why on Earth would any parent be proud that their kid is an obnoxious, spoiled jerk? And if these kids are the natural-born leaders, and yet the majority of children born nowadays are actually indigoes, whom are they supposed to lead?
Well, you could go to the library and read books. Or buy textbooks. Hire a tutor. Watch NOVA. Use an educational computer program. Go online. Talk to someone in that field.
OK, but homeschooled kids have a lot more time to do that voluntary learning in, that’s all.
“Mom, I want to study physics, and I’m going to find out how to do it.” Then: self-study courses, correspondence courses, community college courses, finding a math-minded mentor to fool around with…there are tons of resources out there. Saxon Math, the ‘default’ most popular math supplier, could get a bright kid through calculus by 16 or so. It has a physics course too. There are a bunch of good math programs out there–Singapore is excellent for example. Then you get into the stuff available for kids who are interested, such as The Geometer’s Sketchpad and similar.
I’m not sure who brought up indigo children. What does a silly new-age ‘theory’ have to do with it?
I would have never lifted a finger to learn math if no one had forced me. What do you do when a kid shows absolutely no inclination to educate himself about anything? Do you just let them sit around forever without forcing them to get off their ass and learn how to read?
I don’t think I’m understanding this “unschooling” thing. It just sounds like coddling, hippie bullshit to me…and I am a coddling hippie.
It’s another one of those “the right kid in the right enviornment with the right parents gives great results” and I’m sure it will.
But not all kids are naturally curious about things. And some of those who are curious some of the time don’t always have the sustained level of curiousity it takes for unschooling to work. The more we learn, the more we realize that we don’t know. Unschooling depends on children’s wanting to know more and asking the follow up questions. If the kid doesn’t care - then…
Of the kids I know, I can think of a few for whom this would work. But, for most? More traditional methods would be more beneficial.
I’m largely of the opinion that anyone who thinks their kid is noteworthy because he fits neatly into The Latest Categorization (Indigo or ADD for instance) is a danger to the kid. I’m proud of my son, not because he’s an indigo (or whatever–FTR, I don’t necessarily subscribe to that whole system) but because he’s learned to master his temper and attitude, and is shaping up to become a kid with a strong sense of chivalry and confidence to back it up. I think there’s a danger any time someone focuses on what type of kid they have as opposed to who that kid is.
The last I’ll suggest about unschooling is to muse about the primary education received by such ne’er d’wells as Newton, Luther, Douglass, Washington, Lincoln…and then do the same about other public figures who have attended first rate institutions for their entire lives. Seems kinda hit or miss, like it really doesn’t matter so long as a person is taught responsibility fo his actions and to take an active part in learning.
No…that’s an example of “de-schooling” a bunch of kids socialized in a homophobic & repressive traditional school system. Once the poison of vicious persecution of those who are different is injected there is no antidote. Plus it’s fiction.
If you’d like a literary analogy of unschooling, look to the Old testament. Within a generation of inattentive unschooling the murdering has begun. It beautifully illustrates my personal belief that at heart we’re all just vicious, self-interested monkeys sans tails.
I find this really interesting, despite the fact that I’m not a parent, don’t plan to be so for a long time and most likely would never do something so untraditional anyway.
I can’t help but wonder if this style of education would have suited me. I am naturally curious and did a lot of my learning on my own. On the other hand, especially once I got to university, the pressure and deadlines made sure that I actually did my work, and I’m almost certain it would have taken me twice as long to progress as far without that structure.
I suppose this method would only work optimally for children who are naturally curious, self-disciplined, and yet who don’t mesh with traditional school. This population must be one in thousands.
Going by the standard description they’re sociopaths-in-training.
These stories are interesting.
But the thing is, I know lots of people who “unschooled” themselves, who today are “unjobbed,” “uncashed” and own an unhouse, an uncar, and have lots of uninvestments.
I wonder what the success rate of the “unschooled” is versus the success rate of people who dragged their asses to school. I’m betting that would either be an eye opener or would lead to a spirited game of No True Scotsman.
I’ve got to agree with this. I know that I would not have been motivated enough to learn about very much of anything. Untill I took highschool chemistry and physics, I was only really motivated enough to keep my parents from getting mad at me. Now that I’m in college and studying something that I want to study I am motivated, but I would never be here if *I[/] were “unschooled.”
Of course it might work well with other children.
See? This is a perfect example of where unschooling could have been useful. Here we have a blood-thirsty Viking warrior slotted inappropriately in a civilized educational faciliy where he is exercising his brain in a traditional way–but in spirit I believe he’d have been happier if his parents had recognized early on that his bliss lay in looting and pillaging coastal villages, and rather than buy him a new wardrobe of denims and t-shirts every year they had invested in a sturdy longboat and a stout war axe and taught him the ways of ruthless plunder. I see a man who has been failed by the system he reluctantly embraces.
I’m in the “right kid, right parents, right circumstances” camp.
I would have excelled in an unschooled atmosphere. My brother would have ended up studying Nintendo. He’s a smart smart guy, but his internal motivation is precisely zero. Unless prodded in some fashion, he would have spent his entire life playing Nintendo and hanging out. I collect degrees for sport, though. I was born curious and my natural inclination is to satisfy the curiosity. He is neither curious, nor (on the rare occasions when he wonders about something) inclined to actually seek the answer to his query. It’s a baffling attitude for people dedicated to fighting ignorance to come to grips with, but some people not only don’t feel compelled to battle ignorance in others, they can’t be arsed to battle their own.
Education is one of the ultimate YMMV categories of life. Some people you could plop down in a desolate swamp somewhere and they’d come wandering back to civilization after a time holding their shiny cold fusion machine in their hand or clutching a literary masterpiece (Lincoln, Newton, Einstein, etc.). Some people manage to get through 20 or 30 years of expensive, comprehensive, talented, motivated, assistance-filled education without actually learning anything.
Not going to school, not taking tests, not a care in the world? I knew quite a few “intellectually empowered” teenagers.
They didn’t turn out as well as hoped.