Unschooling

mr dave · 04-20-2010, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Conan

All for it. The End.

What? Don't know what i'm talking about? Pssh. Where have YOU been? Anyway watch this:

Extreme Parenting: 'Radical Unschooling'

Ignoring the horrible, horrible bias that Good Morning America prides itself on... what do you think? I myself am a long time critic of the U.S Public Schooling system and I've always been of the notion myself that when kids reach high school age they should be treated as people... i.e allowed to make their own decisions regarding education.... they should learn about what they want to learn about. Will some end up dumb as rocks? Maybe. But it's no better then how dumb kids in the Public School System seem to be - where it's all about passing the next test, not really about "learning" at all... it's just stress.

Now, I know this will never fly. If you don't get your GED you'll probably never end up with a decent job. But I do think major reform is needed for US Public Schooling, and I for one - somebody whose graduated high school years early, definitely support movements like this.

so... how is that going to prepare a young person for the working reality of doing what the job needs you to do as opposed to doing what your ego wants to do? it's the same logic that has people trying to validate wearing pajamas to the office.

i'm not a fan of watching articles so here's the text version if anyone is interested - Unschooling: Homeschooling Without Books, Tests or Classes - ABC News

on one hand i totally agree that there needs to be an overhaul to the public education system in north america (i'm only familiar with the Canadian side of things - the biggest difference seems to be scale rather than policy). on the other putting full control of the education in the child's hands has me wondering how they're eventually going to deal with legitimate conflicts of interest.

it's like one of the doctor's in one of the related articles states - "The whole concept of cooperating with your kid, it's kind of cool in theory, and if a child was a little adult I think it would be great, but he's a child."

^ this is the fatal flaw in the parent's belief that their special little angel is more special than all the other special little angel snowflakes out there. not unlike this great quote from the mom - "They have experiences and knowledge that other people don't," - really??? i'm pretty sure that happens to absolutely everyone as they progress along their individual paths through life. last time i checked i didn't limit myself from learning about things that interested me because i had to learn about things that did not, nor have i ever met anyone that did.

just how much preparation for the realities of working for a living do these kids have or do mummy and daddy plan on taking care of them until they're in their 40s and all of a sudden it's the kids turn to start taking care of the parents?