<story><title>How I got into MIT when I was 14</title><url>http://laura-whatawonderfulworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/lovely-way-to-learn.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>droithomme</author><text>Just so everyone is clear, she was unschooled, which is pretty different from conventional homeschooling. There&apos;s no curriculum at all, kids drive their own learning. If they want to play video games all day they are welcome to. If they want to sleep till noon that is fine.&lt;p&gt;As unlikely as it seems to someone who has been through conventional schooling, what actually happens in these cases is the child&apos;s natural curiosity is not squashed by rote work. As a result they drive their own learning, motivated by the natural curiosity of all humans. It is hypothesized that punishment and boring tasks are needed to squash this natural state, and some like educational reformer John Galt [edit: sorry, I meant John Gatto; freudian slip there] even claim that doing so is the purpose of conventional modern classroom schooling which was established in the late 19th century to create an underclass of unquestioning factory workers who can obey directions from authority figures.&lt;p&gt;Regardless of how this all happens, unschoolers tend to be the most interesting and well educated people around. This idea is very threatening to most people, so reactions are often hostile when they are encountered and it is frequently claimed that each achieving unschooler is an aberration.</text></comment>
<story><title>How I got into MIT when I was 14</title><url>http://laura-whatawonderfulworld.blogspot.com/2012/01/lovely-way-to-learn.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>As a parent who made the decision to pull my kids out of school and to home school them, it is a scary thing. Every parent that I&apos;ve met has struggled with the question of &quot;Is this the right choice? if I choose differently will my child have a &apos;better&apos; life?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Once my wife and I decided, we were &apos;all in&apos; as it were and put the angst of &apos;what if&apos; behind us. It turned out to be the right choice for our kids, they thrived, and while it certainly had an economic impact, its hard to say of the three choices, private school + two parents working, public school + two parents working, or homeschool + one parent working what the opportunity cost was or would turn out to be, the opportunity to engage kids in learning for learning&apos;s sake is priceless.</text></comment>