Is Unschooling Beneficial or Harmful for Child Development?

[Evo]

I'm willing to bet they'd be rather dim and without passion for anything even in a public school. I had a passion for learning as a child, but public school beat that out of me. It took me nearly 10 years to recover from public school to continue my education.

I had my books taken away from me starting when I was 8 years old because the teacher discovered that by the 3rd week of school I had completed the entire year's workbook. They had no programs for motivated "gifted" children.

Long story short, thanks to a new teacher that was hired when I was 11 that thought the idea of making me sit and do nothing in class because, as one teacher put it, "I can't teach two classes, the other kids can't keep up with you, so you will have to slow down", she changed everything. I finished High School at the age of 14, went to France to visit family for a year and started college at 16.

So, I know all about the limitations of bad public schools, but a really smart, motivated kid will overcome it. I consider myself "self taught" and due to that I missed out on so much. I do not recommend it, there is nothing that can compare to people that have formal educations. What these parents are doing to their children is so bad on so many levels.

 

[rootX]

I had my books taken away from me starting when I was 8 years old because the teacher discovered that by the 3rd week of school I had completed the entire year's workbook. They had no programs for motivated "gifted" children.

Long story short, thanks to a new teacher that was hired when I was 11 that thought the idea of making me sit and do nothing in class because, as one teacher put it, "I can't teach two classes, the other kids can't keep up with you, so you will have to slow down", she changed everything. I finished High School at the age of 14, went to France to visit family for a year and started college at 16.

So, I know all about the limitations of bad public schools, but a really smart, motivated kid will overcome it. I consider myself "self taught" and due to that I missed out on so much. I do not recommend it, there is nothing that can compare to people that have formal educations. What these parents are doing to their children is so bad on so many levels.

But, learning something few years earlier doesn't make a big difference. There is a lot beyond learning more and more ... I don't think exceptional kids should be pushed to their abilities, if they want they will do it themselves.

 

[Desiree]

the public school sapped me of my will to succeed in life.

Speaking of life, I think I know little bit more about it than you do. Believe it or not, there is no such thing as "success or failure" in life. Eventually everybody dies some day, whether or not they succeeded in becoming a physicist, an engineer, a doctor, a Wall street billionaire...or a failure who has got no money, no house of their own, and no academic achievements what so ever.

Life as I know it, has inherently no purpose or meaning, it just keeps going on and on with constant births and deaths...

 

[Evo]

But, learning something few years earlier doesn't make a big difference. There is a lot beyond learning more and more ... I don't think exceptional kids should be pushed to their abilities, if they want they will do it themselves.

I can't emphasize enough how important a real education is. I think it was Moonbear that really summed up the difference that going to grad school makes in finally putting it all together and showing you have the ability to do something with all of that knowledge. You aren't going to get to that level by sitting on the couch watching tv for 20 years.

Sorry, I'm not going to agree that all schools are a waste of time and teachers are worthless.

 

[DavidSnider]

Life as I know it, has inherently no purpose or meaning, it just keeps going on and on with constant births and deaths...

... Thank you Desiree, and now here's Tom with the weather.

 

[rootX]

I can't emphasize enough how important a real education is. I think it was Moonbear that really summed up the difference that going to grad school makes in finally putting it all together and showing you have the ability to do something with all of that knowledge. You aren't going to get to that level by sitting on the couch watching tv for 20 years.

Sorry, I'm not going to agree that all schools are a waste of time and teachers are worthless.

I was not saying that exceptional children shouldn't be given real education but wanted to say more along the lines that providing home education or special education to those children might not be good for them in the long run. Doesn't starting school at 14-16 alienate children or produce some negative effects on them that harm them in the long run?

 

[ideasrule]

It's one thing to give a child a choice, it's another to, in essence, not give them one. The older male child said that his parents pulled him out of school in the 1st grade, age 6-7. Seriously, ask any 6 year old "would you rather get up and go to school or lay in bed, watch tv, and eat junk food all day?" What do you think the answer would be?

The answer may not be as obvious as you think. Laying in bed, watching TV, and eating junk food all day gets boring very quickly.

 

[Evo]

The answer may not be as obvious as you think. Laying in bed, watching TV, and eating junk food all day gets boring very quickly.

But they've been doing it since they were 6-7 years old, they're 17-18 now.

 

[DavidSnider]

But they've been doing it since they were 6-7 years old, they're 17-18 now.

So what? Do you really think public school motivates people to do things? There was no shortage of Junk food eating-tv watchers in my neighborhood when I was 17-18.

 

[Evo]

So what? Do you really think public school motivates people to do things? There was no shortage of Junk food eating-tv watchers in my neighborhood when I was 17-18.

Because they also said that they have never seen a textbook. And they don't learn anything, and they don't even know elementary school math.

 

[rootX]

So what? Do you really think public school motivates people to do things? There was no shortage of Junk food eating-tv watchers in my neighborhood when I was 17-18.

Going back and reviewing your previous posts, you seem to be bashing public schools while offering no feasible alternative. Yes, I agree public schools are not perfect but they are better than what people in the OP are doing.

Slacking in public school is just as easy. How many people look back on K-12 and remember it as a time of great productivity?

The flip side with public school is they give you such a homogenized breadth-first education where everything just turns to a bowl of mush. If you want to explore deeper, you have to do it on your own, because the teacher has to accommodate to the lowest common denominator.

 

[DavidSnider]

Going back and reviewing your previous posts, you seem to be bashing public schools while offering no feasible alternative. Yes, I agree public schools are not perfect but they are better than what people in the OP are doing.

The feasible alternative is to eliminate compulsory schooling. Get rid of the disruptions and let the moonbear's and evo's of the world hit their stride without feeling guilty.

 

[russ_watters]

If done correctly, "unschooling" does not lead to being "uneducated." I'm not saying these parents are doing it correctly, however.

By definition, children are incapable of making the necessary choices to do it correctly, so the very notion of doing it correctly is an oxymoron.

I do find it interesting that the members of a science board are jumping to conclusions without examining evidence.

It shouldn't be. It is a requirement of this forum that those making extrordinary claims must substantiate them. You've done little to support your position and thus the reaction has been negative.

 

[russ_watters]

Slackers will slack whether they are 'unschooled' or not. Learning is up to the individual.

A slacker with a college degree can still get a job and perform at it if he ever choses to mature. A former slacker who can barely write his own name but becomes mature enough to realize it cannot. It is better to force-feed kids the tools so that when they hit 20 or 30 or whatever age they mature, they have them and don't have to start over as if they were 8.

 

[russ_watters]

Well, maybe it's time to make new history by not believing in the "education is a must" thing any longer. In my opinion, one needs to be literate, not necessarily be a college/high school graduate. There are a lot of jobs which actually don't need formal education.

Getting an education isn't just about getting/performing in a job, it is about being a generally functional member of society.

...and frankly most of the pioneers of science actually discovered things out of their own curiosity while they had little or no formal education at all.

That's a common misrepresentation. The pioneers of science were by definition uneducated in the things they were discovering because they were discovering them! That's what a "pioneer" is!

At the same time, the pioneers were typically educated in everything relevant that was known at the time. They most certainly did not start completely from scratch.

 

[russ_watters]

The feasible alternative is to eliminate compulsory schooling. Get rid of the disruptions and let the moonbear's and evo's of the world hit their stride without feeling guilty.

One of the biggest problems facing the US today is our dismal high school graduation rate. We need to increase compulsory education, not decrease/eliminate it. Discussion of the few exceptionals is a red herring. Children are children. They need to learn what they need to learn. These things are obvious tautologies and the arguments being used against are self-contradictory. Such as:

The answer may not be as obvious as you think. Laying in bed, watching TV, and eating junk food all day gets boring very quickly.

But they've been doing it since they were 6-7 years old, they're 17-18 now.

So what? Do you really think public school motivates people to do things? There was no shortage of Junk food eating-tv watchers in my neighborhood when I was 17-18.

Point proven to be blatantly/obviously wrong, goalposts moved! The whole line of argument is just plain silly.

 

[zomgwtf]

I was not saying that exceptional children shouldn't be given real education but wanted to say more along the lines that providing home education or special education to those children might not be good for them in the long run. Doesn't starting school at 14-16 alienate children or produce some negative effects on them that harm them in the long run?

I don't know about this rootX. Here in Canada they do various 'standard testing' at a young age to determine various things about students. I scored quite well and was doing great in school, far ahead of the rest of my classmates. My mother was offered to have me put into program for gifted students. My mother refused... on the same basis your using . She also refused to allow me to skip two grades on the same basis.

After awhile of being ahead all the time and swallowing a lot of information I just got bored of school. I didn't care about it, I understood it but I really couldn't be bothered to waste my time completing the assignments etc. Why waste my time?

It started around grade 8. In grade 6 I was doing grade 10-11 level maths and was studying various sciences on my own time... I had started reading the encyclopedia at my grandparents house but they had packed it away when they moved. I just really stopped caring about school by this point, I saw no point to it at all.

I truly feel had my mother decided to put me in a more intensive program tailored to my needs that I would have strived. Even in my senior years of high school, I didn't go to school a lot and I hardly ever did assignments, only the ones I thought were interesting. However I always seemed to get great grades when I showed up for tests.

 

[Proton Soup]

i don't see this as an either/or, but i do think there is a small minority of children that would do well with this method. i'd expect the average unschooled to compare with the average dropout, which, on average, is less than average, i think.

 

[Desiree]

We need to increase compulsory education, not decrease/eliminate it... Children are children. They need to learn what they need to learn.

Wow! You sound like those Indian parents who want (and pressure) their older son to become a doctor and their younger daughter to marry a doctor only!

 

[Borg]

I still find the original story tragic. It was like watching a train wreck. Just because there are cases where 'unschoolers' have succeeded doesn't mean that those two will. I'm sure that the reporter tried to find the worst example in order to sensationalize the story for the GMA show.

It would be interesting to know what the success rate is for this type of education. I did a quick Google search to see if I could get any real numbers on the success rates for this type of education. Unfortunately, most of the articles appeared to be from home school academies that were trying to boast about how great home schooling is in order to sell their products.

 

[russ_watters]

Wow! You sound like those Indian parents who want (and pressure) their older son to become a doctor and their younger daughter to marry a doctor only!

There is a lot of difference between becoming a doctor and finishing high school. Besides the extra years of education, becoming a doctor happens in adulthood and costs money. Finishing high school happens at the end of childhood and is free. There is no excuse for not taking advantage of it.

And as someone pointed out earlier, even a burger flipper type job often requires (or at least looks favorably on) a high school education.

 

[russ_watters]

I know I'm going backwards now, but...

It's just so stupid, for most of history an edcuation was the privilege of the wealthy. Women were denied formal educations as were the poor. And now we have people that willingly decide to remain uneducated. So many people fought for so long for the opportunity to get an education and these people throw it away.

Much of this can be settled using history as the guide. The current level of development relies heavily on an educated populace and free/comuplsory education is truly one of the great triumphs/enablers of a developed society.

 

[Kajahtava]

People should be free to make stupid choices. The quaestion is if parents should be allowed to make stupid choices for their children... but as long as parents can fill their children with nonsense and send them to church, it's only fair.

In an ideal world though, teachers and parents would not be allowed to teach children things that are disproven by the scientific method, this includes nonsense like dressing warm outside, eating from the floor and all those other methods of control of children and excuses for censorship that people invented.

 

[Borg]

That said, it is extremely alienating. The sort of vitriol you see in these posts is pretty much the reaction I got from everybody I knew growing up.

High school was no picnic for some of us either.

 

[Evo]

I personally hated school, but how else is a child going to learn how to handle rejection, disapointment, the possibiliy of failure and how to turn these situations around? Unless they can stay isolated for the rest of their life, learning how to cope with these challenges as they grow and develop, they are not going to be able to handle with life around other people.

And yes, it's a good thing to be faced with the little disappointments and failures, or at least the risk of them. It makes you a stronger person. And before someone turns this into a "you're advocating abuse!", no, I'm talking about realizing you aren't going to have mommy and daddy handing out gold stars for getting out of bed in the morning and handing you sugar covered donuts because you managed to put socks on. Very few people have the opportunity to live a life where they are never faced with adversity and are coddled and pampered and have every need attended to. What's going to happen to these kids when their parents die and they are adults with no skills or knowledge?

 

[mgb_phys]

I love the presumed relationship between high school and education.
Schools are about getting high average marks in this years standardized tests so that their funding increases, teaching is about making sure your class scores the necessary marks.

Originally universal education was necessary because it children needed to at least be able to count and write their name to deal with these new fangled steam engines - as long as they were still allowed an 8 week holiday in july and August to get the harvest in.

Now all high school teaches is that you have to jump through the necessary set of hoops and not bother with anything that isn't on this quarter's test - which is probably pretty good training for most corporate jobs.
I was going to say the only extra skill needed was powerpoint - but that's already the major part of the curriculum for most schools.

 

[CharmedQuark]

I find it interesting that no one has mentioned the fact that these kids and others like them would still get to vote if they felt so inclined. Now that is a scary thought.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The parents and kids are delusional. They will be working at Subway and living in their parents basement. I hope they interview the family again in ten years. That boy can barely speak straight.

 

[mgb_phys]

They will be working at Subway and living in their parents basement.

With the current grade inflation Subway will be a graduate job in 10years time.
There are also a lot of PhDs living in their parents basement.

That boy can barely speak straight.

How unlike the oratorical eloquence of the typical high school student.

(sorry feeling very old grumpy and "bah -kids today" this morning!)

 

[zomgwtf]

I think people are being extremely unfair.

Saying that 'they can vote'! is an extremely rediculous concept, I'm sure that in school they hardly teach you ANYTHING that you need to be able to vote. Like what do you NEED TO KNOW to understand politicians ideas? Nothing that you get from school. A lot of what is taught in school is actually completely useless to most people.

I also think what Greg said is unfair. I can go to plenty of American school and find people who can't speak properly ALL OVER. I'm sure if even you were in an interview in your home, meaning no prior preperation for the questions that are coming that you wouldn't be able to speak straight either. Even when kids his age do prepare to give a presentation in front of a 30 person class they stammer about and are extremely nervous... like really?

I see more delusion coming from these forums towards education than I do about these people. I am a firm believer that intelligence is not about what you know or how much you can remember, or what grades you achieve in school. I do think that school opens up opportunities that otherwise probably wouldn't have been known to a person... and that it is a pretty great accomplishment of developed nations. I can't say I believe that not going to school will make you a failure in life or more stupid than the next chump who did go to school. Maybe you won't live up to your maximum potential or something because you hadn't been exposed to various subjects etc. but probably 99% of people don't live up to their maximum potential anyways.

 

[lisab]

Having a high school (or college) education says this about someone: he is capable of doing something he doesn't want to do. And that is very valuable to an employer, because no job is without drudgery.

Do the "unschooled" kids in that video have that kind of discipline? Well if I was an employer and had to choose between one candidate with evidence that he does have it (in the form of a formal education), versus an unschooled kid who has no such evidence, guess which one I'd pick. I'm not going to gamble on an unknown.

So, a formal education may make you more employable. I'm not saying employability is the most important aspect of a human being, but hey, at some point you *do* have to pay the bills.

 

[NeoDevin]

Saying that 'they can vote'! is an extremely rediculous concept, I'm sure that in school they hardly teach you ANYTHING that you need to be able to vote. Like what do you NEED TO KNOW to understand politicians ideas? Nothing that you get from school. A lot of what is taught in school is actually completely useless to most people.

So to be able to grasp economic policies doesn't require high school math? To be able to understand the impact of social policies doesn't require history/social studies? To understand the relative importance of science fields doesn't require high school science? Heck, the kids in the OP probably can't even read the campaign posters. If anything we should be pushing for more mandatory education.

 

[zomgwtf]

Having a high school (or college) education says this about someone: he is capable of doing something he doesn't want to do. And that is very valuable to an employer, because no job is without drudgery.

Do the "unschooled" kids in that video have that kind of discipline? Well if I was an employer and had to choose between one candidate with evidence that he does have it (in the form of a formal education), versus an unschooled kid who has no such evidence, guess which one I'd pick. I'm not going to gamble on an unknown.

So, a formal education may make you more employable. I'm not saying employability is the most important aspect of a human being, but hey, at some point you *do* have to pay the bills.

Wouldn't you be more impressed by the kid who taught themselves math and science by their own choice than the kids who just sit in class and remember what they need to know?

Those type of 'do what you don't want' jobs in my opinion are really only low level entry jobs. A major thing in America is being able to do what you enjoy doing, you don't enjoy your job then WHY ARE YOU THERE? If that's the only type of jobs that a diploma can get you then who cares about it? If these people say chose to go to college I would be MUCH more impressed by their abilities over someone who went to high school prior to meeting them.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

A lot of what is taught in school is actually completely useless to most people.

K-12 is about discovering interests and good learning habits.

I also think what Greg said is unfair. I can go to plenty of American school and find people who can't speak properly ALL OVER.

Yeah but at least those kids were given a chance to succeed. If you've never taken a proper english or speaking class, odds are you're going to be challenged in communication.

I'm sure if even you were in an interview in your home, meaning no prior preperation for the questions that are coming that you wouldn't be able to speak straight either.

He didn't look nervous, rather he had trouble processing his thoughts and relaying a decent response.

I see more delusion coming from these forums towards education than I do about these people. I am a firm believer that intelligence is not about what you know or how much you can remember, or what grades you achieve in school.

Would you ever claim a feral kid has appropriate intelligence?

 

[Evo]

What benefit is intelligence without knowledge? The problem is that these kids are not choosing to pick up a book and teach themselves. The mother was proud to say that they'd never touched a textbook.

Perhaps they dredged the bottom of the barrel with this family, but right now that's the example we are working with. I wonder how representative of the people involved in this backwards movement they are? I haven't seen an outcry anywhere from families that believe in this type of lack of responsibilty saying "wait a minute, our kids spend most of their time learning!".