|
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Previous topic
|
Next topic
|
|
 Wednesday, November 29, 2006
started 11/29/2006; 11:23:45 AM - last post 12/1/2006; 3:37:55 PM
|
|
Doc Searls - Wednesday, November 29, 2006 
11/29/2006; 3:23:45 PM (reads: 5792, responses: 6)
|
|
More thoughs on home schooling 
| | The concluding paragraph of the article concedes that unschooled children don¹t learn everything, that "there are definite gaps" in [one] unschooled student¹s education. Are we then to understand that at PS 666, all students do indeed "know everything," and find no "gaps" in institutionally-schooled children¹s educations? If the school systems have improved that much since I graduated from high school, I¹m at a loss to explain why I hear so much about our troubled school systems. |
| | Here¹s the real story: it¹s possible for unschooled kids to emerge from their childhood poorly-prepared for further academic life, and it¹s possible for institutionally-schooled kids to emerge from their childhood poorly-prepared for subsequent endeavors. On balance, does unschooling offer a better prospect than institutional schooling? Whom would we ask to discern? |
| | I've never met a home schooled kid who was not independent, wise beyond their years and an academic achiever. Of course the sum of everybody else I know includes lots of people who earn that same description. |
| | Most of America's founding fathers were home schooled. They had to be, since compulsory public education didn't come along for another generation or two; and private education was mostly conducted at home. Abraham Lincoln was home-schooled in the literal sense, and almost entirely self-educated. Consider the result. |
| | My favorite case for home schooling is one I reported here in May of last year: |
| | A friend of mine, a Ph.D. with specialties in psychology and statistics, once sat on a plane next to an older woman who had achieved a great deal — and spoke proudly of her five grown children, who were all achievers on their own, holding advanced degrees and honored positions in their professions. The woman credited their success to home schooling. |
| | My friend challenged her on that, saying that heredity must also have something to do with their success. "Yes," the woman replied. "It would if they hadn't all been adopted." |
| | Finally, there is AKMA's own disclosure: |
| | Our unschooled eldest son is beginning doctoral work at the University of Michigan with a Regents¹ Fellowship. Our unschooled second son is a sophomore at Marlboro College, doing OK last I checked. Our unschooled daughter has not ventured into the world of quantified educational evaluation. |
| | (And for anybody who thinks my own achievements might derive from formal education, correction is provided in Getting Flat, Part 2.) |
Audio over ethernet?
VRM for magazines
| | Jeff Jarvis: ...even when I do still read the magazine in print, I want a relationship with the magazine — and, more important, my fellow readers — online. Tag: vrm |
Looking for an answer that will help podcasters everywhere
New(s) approaches
| | I was explaining news and newspapers to the kid the other day (he's 10, and an observer of his parents 3-paper-a-day habit), when it occurred to me that two subjects may be linked: news and schools. |
| | Newspapers are in trouble, but they aren't going away. (Yes, they'll change radically, and shrink and get lean and get Net-savvy, etc. But they'll be around for decades to come.) Schools are in trouble, too, and aren't going away, either. |
| | So this morning I found my way to this piece in the NYTimes about "unschooling", or home schooling, which is how many families deal with our flawed and increasingly anachronistic school systems (private as well as public). And, one tab over in the browser here, I found myself catching up with Spot-on, Chris Nolan's syndicated journalism business, which is helping the flawed and increasingly anachonistic newspaper business from the inside. |
| | Made me think about what's dead and what's not dead, what we help from the inside and what we build as alternatives on the outside. |
| | Most of the fun, and the box office, goes to the disruptors, the guys and gals doing the New Thing. But much of the important work goes on inside the old institutions that really aren't dead but in serious need of re-animation. |
| | In fact, re-animation is what countless good teachers and families and administrators are trying to do in countless school systems (private as well as public). |
| | While re-animation is also being done in radio (commercial as well as public), in TV, in newspapers, in political parties, even in government bureaucracies. A lot of that work is far less thankful than the work being done outside. But it's no less important. |
Pro gnostications
discuss
|
|
MahendraSingh - Re: Monday, November 27, 2006
11/30/2006; 4:47:08 AM (reads: 848, responses: 0)
|
|
|
This is a great gift from nokia.
discuss
|
|
Scott Cleland - Re: Monday, Nov 27, 2006 Why Microsoft's vulnerable on Net Neutrality
11/30/2006; 2:50:21 PM (reads: 889, responses: 0)
|
|
|
Doc,
You have been an wise observer of all things tech for a long while. Don't you find Microsoft's support of net neutrality odd, when they are the last company on earth that would benefit from a regulated techcom industry?
I think you would find my open letter/blogpost to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer very interesting. http://www.precursorblog.com/node/231
This post highlights the unintended consequences of heavy handed intervention into the Internet that has done just fine thank you ever since the government commercialized it and got out the the Internet's way in 1995.
Thanks Doc.
Scott Cleland
discuss
|
|
Michael Markman - Re: Home Schooling
11/30/2006; 11:32:47 PM (reads: 1016, responses: 3)
|
|
|
Doc, have you really answered the question, "On balance, does unschooling offer a better prospect than institutional schooling?" No doubt there are outstanding individuals who came from home schooling, public schooling, Catholic schooling, Yeshivas, and prep schooling. But the question was "On balance..."
discuss
|
|
Doc Searls - Re: Home Schooling
12/1/2006; 3:47:38 AM (reads: 1130, responses: 1)
|
|
|
What's to balance? Before institutional schooling, home schooling was the norm. Now institutional schooling is the norm and home schooling is still an extreme rarity.
As for better prospects? For what, exactly? Lots of colleges take home-schooled students as well as institutionally produced ones.
Then there are the kids who have done both. I believe Aaron Swartz is one.
I believe the prospects for a kid's talents, curiousity, humor, independence, scholarshp and the rest of it -- are far better supported in a home schooling environment where all those qualities are encouraged, than in an institutional environment that is unlikely to do the same. But then, there are surely home schooling environments that suck and institutional ones that encourage and support all those qualities.
So, I dunno. I just believe we need to reframe our educational questions outside an insitutional framework that has long provided its own tendentious and self-justifying metrics.
discuss
|
|
Ed - Re: Home Schooling
12/1/2006; 7:37:55 PM (reads: 1013, responses: 0)
|
|
|
Couple of comments:
Unschooling is a subset of homeschooling. Unschooling is used to describe a method of homeschooling in which the child explores what interests them. Unschooling is also a small minority among homeschoolers - in my opinion - and I do homeschool and so I know a lot of homeschoolers. I've added my definition simply because homeschooling and unschooling seem to be used somewhat interchangably in this discussion.
Unlike government schooling - which is mandated to a certain degree at the Federal and State levels (more and more as time goes on) - homeschooling is very very diverse. It ranges from a very traditional academic approach to a complete hands off approach (extreme unschooling) and can also take on many many other facets. As such, it's difficult to talk about homeschooling as a stereotyped entity - how do you compare something that is very diverse with something that is quite definable?
For the record, I'm a fan of teaching somewhat traditionally, but also allow for a lot of time for kids to think about and explore their individual interests.
discuss
|
|
Russ Nelson - Re: Home Schooling
12/2/2006; 6:22:02 AM (reads: 1085, responses: 0)
|
|
|
In the greater scheme of things, the home schooling environments that suck are rare, and the insitutional one that astound are also rare. Ducks quack, and weasels kill for pleasure. A thing has a nature and you cannot take it far from that nature.
discuss
|
|
|
Copyright 2009 The Doc Searls Weblog
|
