Sit down, shut up and stop thinking, we'll do it for you

[masterfedora]

I have a number of interests that I regularly pursue, but none has caught my attention and changed my way of thinking so much as when I learned of unschooling. Now unschooling is an "education" method used by some parents to allow their children to grow and learn naturally through their own interests. Years of reading forums, mailing lists, blogs,

Comments

[masterfedora]

One of the problem lies in the fact that we equate learning with school. Our society is astounded by people learning on their own. The best example I can give right now cause I'm tired is way back when I was in like third grade. We were learning about the solar system, got to Pluto and said something like "We don't know much of anything about Pluto." and I proceeded to spout out a bunch of facts like the giant nerd I was and am. She was shocked, my fellow students were appalled, and I was confused. Oh and the source of my Plutonian knowlege? A Mickey Mouse computer game my dad bought for me where Mickey explores the solar system looking for magic crystals or something.

Because our society thinks school is necessary for learning it gives parents an excuse to be lazy. I don't have to encourage my children's quest for knowledge or answer their questions cause school will do that for me. They don't have to learn at home, that's what school is for. Now I don't mean that we should take what they do at school and do it at home, good God no, that would be terrible. I mean parents and anybody who spents time with kids really should encourage their interests and the pursuit of them. Even if somebody sends their kids to school out of some deluded obligation to do so, they should still do this. Anything less is failure as a parent.

Now I know that's harsh, especially since I don't have kids, but I don't really care. My mother at the time of my growing up was a single mother who worked constantly. She was also a drunk and kinda benignly negligent. However my mother also encouraged us to read what we liked, watch what we liked, take apart crap to see how it worked, bring home all sorts of pets, grow weird plants in the windowsills, go exploring, question everything etc etc. My overworked frazzled drunk mother who could barely remember her children's names most of the time managed to do this. I sincerely hope other parents could do it as well.

Do yourself a favor. Google "School Sucks: The END of Public Education". It's a podcast and the guy is making a lot of good points. I think you'd enjoy it.