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+--- Thread: 'Radical Unschooling' (/showthread.php?tid=4699)
'Radical Unschooling' - Wingless - 04-21-2010 09:06 AM
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/vid ... g-10413158
Give it a watch, its a report on a family that lets their kids basically do whatever they want. This does seem like a great idea, if the child isn't absolutely lazy as hell and can actually study something they can maybe extend into college education, trade school, etc. They look like they don't do much more than play video games (WoW on that one guy's laptop...ugh) and watch movies, then again we're not seeing everything about them, just what negative parts they want us to see, as usual. Thoughts?
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - CrayolaColours - 04-21-2010 09:27 AM
Why can't they be my parents? I'm not even fucking kidding. WHY?! THE LUCKY BASTARDS!!!!
Whenever that lady opened her mouth, the kids had a look on their face that said "bullshit" I lol'd.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - SoulRiser - 04-21-2010 11:01 AM
There's some more news about that here:
http://www.school-survival.net/blog/p/u ... erica/2094
Also, check the comments section on some of those articles...
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - LOON_ATTIC - 04-26-2010 12:26 PM
The video was too fucking slow and too much of a piece of shit to watch properly. What I saw made me rage (up to the part when they were growing plants. They actually are learning, seemingly...)
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - Ceiling Cat - 04-26-2010 12:45 PM
Lovely how they only caught the parts when those kids don't learn.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - CrayolaColours - 04-26-2010 12:47 PM
Ceiling Cat Wrote:Lovely how they only caught the parts when those kids don't learn.Fucking this. But hey, exposure is exposure.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - Ceiling Cat - 04-26-2010 12:53 PM
CrayolaColours Wrote:Not if it's a fucking propaganda against.Ceiling Cat Wrote:Lovely how they only caught the parts when those kids don't learn.Fucking this. But hey, exposure is exposure.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - CrayolaColours - 04-26-2010 01:34 PM
But, I think we're lucky we're even worth it enough to them to get our own propaganda bullshit thrown at us. Because, it'll make some people look into it more. Maybe they're looking for lulz at our "horrible idea", or maybe they're generally curious, and understand that if the news says it's true, it probably isn't. Either way, they'll be exposed, and maybe, those people in search of lulz will find common sense instead. And those that are curious, might become avid about the idea later.
I see this as a good thing. We can't expect people to jump on the bandwagon this quickly.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - Prince Rilian - 04-26-2010 03:29 PM
Wingless Wrote:, if the child isn't absolutely lazy as hell and can actually study something they can maybe extend into college education.fuck college
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - Aya - 04-27-2010 12:09 AM
Prince Rilian Wrote:Wingless Wrote:, if the child isn't absolutely lazy as hell and can actually study something they can maybe extend into college education.fuck college
I second this.
I went to college for two years and the only thing I learned was that I didn't need college to learn anything I was interested in.
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - xcriteria - 05-01-2010 11:27 AM
Interesting.
I think what's depicted there goes a bit to far. There are options between running wild, so to speak, and the insane discipline and forced schedule and content that school typically provides.
Some kind of structure can be very useful in learning. So can simply being presented with information and ideas that might not otherwise occur to you. And even the opportunity to be around others has value, as long as it isn't forced on you.
The ideal situation, as I see it, is to have assistance from some kind of experts -- in terms of content, as well as "how to learn" skills, but also have a substantial degree of input into the content you focus most on, and the majority of what you have to do each day.
The idea of developing your own plan and schedule is great, but simply doing whatever, whenever, has drawbacks at any age. Goals and plans have a lot of value.
I wonder how these parents ended up being so permissive, vs. the norm. Maybe it's just that as soon as someone gets into an idea, they have a tendency to take it to the extreme?
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - magikarp - 05-01-2010 02:14 PM
xcriteria Wrote:The idea of developing your own plan and schedule is great, but simply doing whatever, whenever, has drawbacks at any age.I think it's just a matter of what works in a particular situation.
I usually eat and sleep at pretty much the same time everyday, otherwise I sometimes don't and overcompensate later, or I just forget and get sick. Other than that, I don't find having a schedule helpful. I remember what I need to do (or I set it out on my desk so I don't forget), and then I do it when I'm in the mood for it. It works pretty well, although I'll admit that may only be because I'm not particularly busy.
It's might be useful to have a rough time of day set out for studying or working on things, especially if you sleep at unusual times. If I wake up in the late afternoon, I still feel after dinner like it's time to relax, even though I haven't had time to do anything yet. In cases like that it probably makes sense to get used to doing "important" things at roughly the same time everyday, but I don't think it's necessary to have a strict schedule.
I dunno, I see the value in some sort of rough schedule, but I know it only made things worse when my parents tried to decide when I would do things. (Like, they'd decide I should go to bed when they did, even though I could only get schoolwork done on the computer late at night when they weren't sitting there bitching about it.) Even when parents try to get kids to make their own schedules, the kids are pretty much always going to come up with the kind of thing they think their parents want instead of something that's going to be useful to them. There's always that difference between what's good for someone to do and what's good to make them do.
Quote:I wonder how these parents ended up being so permissive, vs. the norm. Maybe it's just that as soon as someone gets into an idea, they have a tendency to take it to the extreme?I know some unschoolers that have similar ideals. Most of them aren't nearly as permissive as they say they are, which might also be the case here. =P
Re: 'Radical Unschooling' - Prince Rilian - 05-02-2010 03:35 AM
The point of unschooling is that you are not trying to "teach" anything.
Something from John Holt was, paraphrased, that children need to see what lots of different adults do in their daily lives, including their jobs. That's how you solve the problem of "not knowing what there is to know". Short of that, I would buy lots of educational books for the household that I myself would be interested in, and they'd be there for the kids to see, too. Like, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Or anything by Richard Dawkins. Any evolution book by Mark Ridley. I'd like to buy lots of random educational books of whatever I see. I mean, just informative books. Not things that are meant to emulate school or things that are targeted at children. And I love puzzles and puzzle games, so I'd have that stuff too. Seeing me play with that stuff, the kids would want to, too. I'm interested in languages. And that's because of my mom. I'm pretty sure my kids would be interested in it too, though maybe not to the extent that I am, just because I'd be talking about it all the time.
But what's really stupid is when parents want their kids to "learn" stuff that they themselves don't give a shit about. They're like, "Yeah, you have to learn this stuff and then forget it, just like I did!" WTF? What matters for, like, jobbiness, is stuff that people actually do. And the ideal is to have a job doing things that you like. So just make sure your kid is exposed to a lot, to know what there is and what you can get paid for, and, CONSIDERING THAT THEY ARE INDIVIDUALS WITH THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS, they will develop their own god damned interests and desires. So many people want to just imprint a copy of themselves, or what they wish they were, onto their kids. YOUR KIDS ARE PEOPLE. gaaaaaahhhhh.