<story><title>When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/opinion/sunday/unschooling-homeschooling-remote-learning.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ohazi</author><text>I can see homeschooling being potentially more interesting&amp;#x2F;engaging for a certain kind of student after the basics are out of the way, but this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; He didn&amp;#x27;t even learn how to read until he was around 10.&lt;p&gt;to me, is &lt;i&gt;fucking terrifying&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;All of the people I know who did better on their own than in a classroom were able to do so because they could gobble up half a library in a weekend. I think you need to be able to read abnormally well for this unschooling concept to work as intended, and so good reading skills is one of the few things that I absolutely would not compromise on.</text></item><item><author>t0mbstone</author><text>I was homeschooled until the age of around 10, and then my family adopted a new approach called &amp;quot;lifestyle of learning&amp;quot;, which is just another way of saying &amp;quot;unschooling&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I was allowed to skip schoolwork, as long as I was doing &lt;i&gt;something&lt;/i&gt; productive.&lt;p&gt;I hated schoolwork, so I started spending all my spare time tinkering with stuff on the computer. I wasn&amp;#x27;t allowed to play video games (since they aren&amp;#x27;t productive), but I was allowed to BUILD video games. I was also allowed to build web sites and do programming.&lt;p&gt;By the age of 13, I was doing contract web development work, and by the age of 16, I was employed full time at a local web development company.&lt;p&gt;My parents wouldn&amp;#x27;t let me get a drivers license and car until I had at least passed the GED, so I spent a couple of months cramming for it by studying a 2 inch thick book about how to pass the GED. I passed it without too much trouble (I think I got a 98% in math, if I remember correctly).&lt;p&gt;My career has developed across multiple companies over the last 20 years, and I&amp;#x27;m currently making around $150K a year as a software engineer. I never did go to college.&lt;p&gt;They took &amp;quot;unschooling&amp;quot; even further with my younger brother. He didn&amp;#x27;t even learn how to read until he was around 10. He ended up having to cram for his GED to get a drivers license, too. He ultimately ended up getting a job as a waiter, then as bank teller, then put himself through college and got a degree. He now owns a house worth around $400K and has a career as a software engineer at the banking company that initially hired him as a teller.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: &amp;quot;Unschooling&amp;quot; worked for my family because they combined it with at least a base of traditional education.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>barry-cotter</author><text>&amp;gt; to me, is fucking &lt;i&gt;terrifying.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why? It takes 40 contact hours to teach a nine year old to read, according to John Taylor Gatto. You can teach all of primary school Math in the same time to a 12 year old. What’s the point of doing it earlier? There are little or no compounding gains from doing so. Countries that start teaching reading at 4 don’t do better than those that wait until 7. See France versus Germany or Finland.&lt;p&gt;The entire point of the zone of proximal development is that you can spend weeks teaching something to a six year old that a nine year old will pick up in an afternoon because they’re just more developed.</text></comment>
<story><title>When You Get into Unschooling, It’s Almost Like a Religion</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/opinion/sunday/unschooling-homeschooling-remote-learning.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ohazi</author><text>I can see homeschooling being potentially more interesting&amp;#x2F;engaging for a certain kind of student after the basics are out of the way, but this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; He didn&amp;#x27;t even learn how to read until he was around 10.&lt;p&gt;to me, is &lt;i&gt;fucking terrifying&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;All of the people I know who did better on their own than in a classroom were able to do so because they could gobble up half a library in a weekend. I think you need to be able to read abnormally well for this unschooling concept to work as intended, and so good reading skills is one of the few things that I absolutely would not compromise on.</text></item><item><author>t0mbstone</author><text>I was homeschooled until the age of around 10, and then my family adopted a new approach called &amp;quot;lifestyle of learning&amp;quot;, which is just another way of saying &amp;quot;unschooling&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Basically, I was allowed to skip schoolwork, as long as I was doing &lt;i&gt;something&lt;/i&gt; productive.&lt;p&gt;I hated schoolwork, so I started spending all my spare time tinkering with stuff on the computer. I wasn&amp;#x27;t allowed to play video games (since they aren&amp;#x27;t productive), but I was allowed to BUILD video games. I was also allowed to build web sites and do programming.&lt;p&gt;By the age of 13, I was doing contract web development work, and by the age of 16, I was employed full time at a local web development company.&lt;p&gt;My parents wouldn&amp;#x27;t let me get a drivers license and car until I had at least passed the GED, so I spent a couple of months cramming for it by studying a 2 inch thick book about how to pass the GED. I passed it without too much trouble (I think I got a 98% in math, if I remember correctly).&lt;p&gt;My career has developed across multiple companies over the last 20 years, and I&amp;#x27;m currently making around $150K a year as a software engineer. I never did go to college.&lt;p&gt;They took &amp;quot;unschooling&amp;quot; even further with my younger brother. He didn&amp;#x27;t even learn how to read until he was around 10. He ended up having to cram for his GED to get a drivers license, too. He ultimately ended up getting a job as a waiter, then as bank teller, then put himself through college and got a degree. He now owns a house worth around $400K and has a career as a software engineer at the banking company that initially hired him as a teller.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR: &amp;quot;Unschooling&amp;quot; worked for my family because they combined it with at least a base of traditional education.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>quesera</author><text>&amp;gt; to me, is fucking terrifying.&lt;p&gt;The non-intuitive thing about basic reading and math skills is this:&lt;p&gt;If you delay the learning, you learn it &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; more quickly.&lt;p&gt;So the (ordinary, with no developmental issues) kid who doesn&amp;#x27;t read until 10, can exceed his or her peers in just a couple years.&lt;p&gt;The very unfortunate corollary, however, is this:&lt;p&gt;The kid with developmental issues might go undiagnosed for a longer time than necessary, with long-lasting repercussions and follow-on effects. It&amp;#x27;s even possible to reinforce a mild issue and turn it into a larger one.&lt;p&gt;This then becomes a classical optimization problem. Optimize for the common case for broad benefit, or optimize for the rare case with significant negative effects. There is no right answer for everyone.</text></comment>