An Unschooling Manifesto

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2009/04/25.html#a2369

by jlhamilton • 17 years ago

135 89 17 years ago

blogs.salon.com

thesethings2• 17 years ago

I found this post pretty passionate and moving. I'm biased in that any writing about rethinking education is something I'm going to be pretty rah-rah about :D, but it's still a good read in that it's based both on his personal experience, and rigorous theory.

The book he's reviewing kind of suggests that schools deliberately have the effect of making students "small," which I don't necessarily agree with (I think many people in traditional formal education have pretty decent intentions, and at worst mostly get apathetic about their model). But still, I think it could only help the dialogue to have a book go "too far," in terms of describing the effects of the current state of education.

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

There are so many examples of how a ridiculously small change can make education so much better. And yet so few, really almost none of them are widely applied. This is also very much country-independent. Among HN readers, is there a country whose educational system would accept a non-conservative idea like this?

tomjen2• 17 years ago

You might be able to try it out in Denmark. Granted it would never fly in the public schools, but we have something called "free"* schools that are largely subsidised by the public, but with very wide rules for what they can do, so you might be able to use that.

* Free as in speech, but I don't think there is anything like that in the US.

paulitex• 17 years ago

Great post. I agree that you often need a radical to create enough noise around a real issue that deserves attention. Richard Stallman is a perfect example. A little extreme, but brings the conversation to a needed place.

The tough part here is the 'how'. Maybe we could start at the top and work down: University undergrad programs in North America could become a lot more like grad school, encouraging original thought from the get go.

thesethings2• 17 years ago

Here's my theory on the "How."

Similar to yours, but starting even a bit more removed:

Innovation will happen (and is happening) first in non-accredited adult (and maybe even non-accredited child) learning environments. Crazy theatrical lectures, Spanish classes disguised as video games, etc. People will have really positive experiences with this stuff, and it will trickle down.

It's probably too scary for some people to just hand over the keys to their kids' "real" education at first. Once people see how comfortable and successful changing stuff up is outside of schools, and it will feel less risky inside of schools.

I see the edge of this already happening on the Internet, with sites like edufire, for example.

3pt14159• 17 years ago

I was home schooled for grade 2 and 3 and private schooled the rest. Throughout that whole period my best years of learning were grades 11 and 12.

The reason for this was that during all other private school years I was forced to sit and trod through material that was far too easy. I never did the homework because I could still pull of 70s and didn't see the value in having a higher grade. I was invited to province wide math contests, but was only scoring 72% in math. Finally my math teacher in grade 11 asked me how this could be. (He also happened to be the vice principal) I told him clearly: I hate class and I hate homework. They are not challenging, so I refuse to put effort into them.

He suggested the exact same thing that article advocated. The change was immediate. By grade 12 I was scoring 97 in calculus, 95 in linear algebra and 92 in finite math. All because I could move at my own pace. When I had exhausted the course material my teacher gave me books like Aristotle's mathematical proofs. These changed my life.

Imagine if this type of freedom had been available my whole life. My parents tried when I was young (via homeschooling) but my social development suffered too much and I wasn't getting the passion for the subjects that teachers can impart.

If I were to raise children now I would insist on a school that used the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori style. It might not be the best for everyone, but for even slightly gifted children I think it will drastically improve their mental growth.

stanleydrew• 17 years ago

I think Montessori is unbelievable. I went to a Montessori school through third grade and loved it. But I don't think it works for everyone. My brother didn't enjoy it or do as well in the unstructured environment as I did.

So I think multiple kinds of education are necessary. The problem is that there's a lack of information about education options for most people. And perhaps an issue of affordability. You might say that the public school system ought to offer alternatives to the structured model. And maybe it should. I don't know how much that would cost. But I'm sure a lot of people would take advantage of it.

conflux0• 17 years ago

Agreed. I think there should be multiple ways of actually learning a subject that a student/parents can choose from, but that there should be a standard obviously for evaluating that learning. The problem with this kind of system is that a tremendous amount of responsibility is put on the child and parents who may or not comply with what he/she is expected to do.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

One of the great things about the market model is decentralized choice. Nobody has to decide what choices are offered for everybody. That decision is between the consumers and the producers.

And private school voucher programs that currently exist cost as little as 25% of the cost of educating that same child in public school.

jgilliam• 17 years ago

My parents tried to home school me in the late 80's, early 90's (they were very religious). It turned into unschooling, because I was able to plow through the "curriculum" in very little time, and then spent all the rest of my time online. My dad worked for IBM so we had computers around, but when I found out that computers could talk to each other, I fell in love.

This drove my parents nuts, they kept telling me I was throwing my life away, blah blah.

Well, it's obvious how that all turned out.

Let kids follow their passions, and they will LOVE learning, which is the most important life skill anyone can learn.

rkts2• 17 years ago

Typical nerd. I love learning, so everyone else must too! Fact: the majority of kids don't give two toots about learning and never will. Most kids need order and discipline. The follow your passions message is great for those with good judgment and disastrous for those without. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/iq.htm

Ardit202• 17 years ago

I presume you sampled the kids?

I think kids should be made to understand that learning is very very interesting. That word understand is the most important, if they are made to feel they have to then sure they wont like it, but if they are made to understand its extremely interesting well sure they'll like it.

derefr3• 17 years ago

You'll never find a four-year-old who doesn't love learning. Our culture does something to screw most of them up sometime soon after.

bokonist9• 17 years ago

I tend to think everyone loves learning stuff that's within their ability range. If you put a kid who simply is not naturally talented in math in a calculus class with a bunch of kids much smarter than him, then he will be miserable. But that same kid might naturally pick up the drums and learn to play them for fun, because he can be really good at it.

dkberktas• 17 years ago

I remember the years I spent in high school and college just to pass the courses. It was boring and useless. All the time I waited for the course to finish to that I can go to home and do whatever I wanted to do. What a waste of time.

PieSquared2• 17 years ago

Nah, I disagree. It's not that bad. I'm in 10th grade right now, and here's the way I see it: I spend a few hours in school every day, where most of the time is wasted, come home, and spend the remaining 6-8 hours of free time I have learning whatever I want.

I used to be pretty annoyed about school in general, but once I realised how much free time I really have, it's amazing how much I started getting done in that same time.

(As for the actually interesting or difficult classes, which sometimes do exist, you can do the same thing; for instance, in the first few months of my calculus class, I bought a textbook and finished learning the material until the end of the year. Now that class is just as relaxing and as much of a breeze as any other.)

ShabbyDoo• 17 years ago

>It's not that bad. I'm in 10th grade right now, and here's the way I see it: I spend a few hours in school every day, where most of the time is wasted,

Your standards for "not that bad" are low. Wasting half your day sucks. Why not just take the GED and go to college? If your state (presuming you are in the US) is anything like Ohio, you can go to a local college on the public school's dime and get both HS and college credit. No GED required.

I wasted so much time in school. When most people make this statement, it's blatant anti-intellectualism. For me, it's a testament to the inefficiency of public education in the US.

frossie• 17 years ago

Good for you PieSquared. May I ask how many hours you spend in school and what country you are in? One of the things that I have noticed is that in many countries school hours are getting longer and longer, so there is less time available to get kids to learn independently and grow in their own direction. No matter how good the schooling you receive is, or what its philosophy, it will never cater to you 100% as an individual.

(Upthread: I have read Jean Piaget so I am hoping that ahoyhere will allow me to post)

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned pg's essay on very similar issues from 2005, submitted a while ago to HN:

http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

tomjen2• 17 years ago

We all read it.

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

"The Grade 12 final examinations in those days were set and marked by a province-wide board, so universities could judge who the best students were without having to consider differences between schools."

United States college admission does not work in the same way, and that is one of the reasons that few schools in the United States would try quite the same experiment. The experiment I've been trying, after years of advocating a "learn in freedom"

http://learninfreedom.org/

approach to education, is negotiating with my oldest son about which distance learning courses and local brick-and-mortar courses make a coherent, college-preparatory program to fit HIS personal goals, and then letting him take on challenges that no other high school in town would let him take on. It will be interesting to see what a college admission committee will make of the experiment. In the United States, the college admission process is enough of a black box that applicants have to cast a wide net to make sure they have a decent, affordable college choice. High test scores alone

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/377882-how...

don't do the whole job of guaranteeing admission to a strong college program at an affordable price.

amalcon• 17 years ago

There's an idea I've been rolling around in my head for a while, wherein some portion of the day (say an hour) for each class would be dedicated to each student of one grade teaching one of the next younger grade (so two hours per day total per student, one teaching, one being taught). The idea has a lot of potential, both because it helps the educational system scale and provides much-needed individual attention. Individual attention is useful even if it comes from poor teachers. It's much too radical to be implemented in a modern public education system (too much politics there).

The reason I found this interesting is that it gives something to do with class size disparity: have the "best" students in the oversized class work in an independent study format for that hour. It's so simple.

gruseom2• 17 years ago

I would do something like this if I were running a school as well. There are many obvious benefits to having older kids help younger kids. Besides, partitioning large groups of children by age is a weird idea if you think about it from a human point of view (as opposed to an industrial one).

dangrover• 17 years ago

I think the real test of learning something is being able to teach it to others.

I used to volunteer teaching after-school middle school classes with an organization called Citizen Schools and one big part of their methodology was trying to get kids to demonstrate their knowledge and pass it on to others in the end of whatever lesson they were doing.

eru7• 17 years ago

Sounds good. I'd think hard about how to assign mates, though. Perhaps just letting students choose their teacher/pupil would work. Some kids would get more than one pupil, other's none.

Or you'd better do a lottery to assign children 1-on-1.

Further experiments are needed.

russell• 17 years ago

One of the things I did with my kids was to push them to take courses at the local community colleges while they were still in high school. They got better quality instruction, more advanced topics, and college level credit. My son had credit for all but two math classes in EECS at UC Berkeley. My daughter was able to graduate in four years at UCLA, rather than drag on to 5 years because of schedule conflicts and oversubscribed classes.

jnorthrop• 17 years ago

The whole idea of unschooling is a little too utopian for me. Teaching is a skilled craft. A good teacher will work a classroom to keep all manner of kids involved and engaged. We've all had teachers like that. I had a 7th grade social studies teacher who was fantastic and an accounting professor in college who made accounting exciting. Accounting!

The problem in this country is well known. We have too many poorly trained and poorly paid teachers. And unfortunately with No Child Left Behind, we've stiffled the good teachers as well.

You can't just remove the teacher. Even the author's experience of independent study still relies on teachers to create the curriculum, produce learning materials and monitor progress through tests. That's a far cry to "go learn on your own."

derefr3• 17 years ago

> Teaching is a skilled craft.

In the 1800s they used to enlist prisoners to teach the newly-minted public schools, as their community service. These people had absolutely no qualifications to teach; however, the children produced from these schools were more equipped for the world of the time than any child today. (This is something from Gatto, so I have no idea if it's true, but it's a good argument if it is.)

scott_s2• 17 years ago

Then perhaps you should present it as an unsubstantiated claim, and not a fact.

kokofoo• 17 years ago

> eaching is a skilled craft. A good teacher will work a classroom to keep all manner of kids involved and engaged. We've all had teachers like that.

Amen to that. Not only is teaching a craft, I think it's a passion.

I took College Physics I with such teacher. Physics I was one of the toughest courses in my college. According to the student polls, 70% voted it as THE toughest course. Anyway, this professor was different (there're other professors teaching the same course). He didn't mind going unconventional way. For example, he claimed that he was the only person in the country who teaches force first then motion later rather than the other way around. (In fact, he refuses to teach the other way around.) The great thing about him was he provokes students' curiosity and appreciation to the subject. During the first day lecture, he concluded it with an experiment he claimed to be the greatest experiment ever performed on earth. He just threw a chalk up into the air and caught it back, and that was it. Then he asked why didn't the chalk "fall behind" for the earth was spinning and moving at many kilometers per second. He not only knows his stuff, he has a passion to teach, cares the students learn. In many ways he has a hacker attitude. I admit there'were students who hated him because he was tough on grades, and he didn't mind shushing those students who just took up most of the time with a lot of irrelevant, stupid questions. (He'd be patient at first, though.)

Back to the topic, I think unschooling might as well work for many people, but at the risk of not meeting such great teachers.

octane• 17 years ago

Yeah, I hated school too. It's not ever going to change because it's for the masses. That's its sole and express purpose. Why is anyone trying to redesign the system or otherwise shoehorn exceptional people into a system designed for the masses? Either drop out or shut up, in my opinion. Massive social structures don't have time for unique butterflies. That's the Reality of the situation with a capital R.

The optimum solution is to just get it done at an 75-90% level until you graduate HS or college and get on with your god damn life instead of fighting it for years and years and years and pulling yourself and others down in the process. Just give them the bare minimum of what they want while pursuing your own interests. It's politics 101.

This is why many, many successful people say "I dropped out", or "Oh, I was only a B and C student" instead of "I spent every waking moment of my life trying to rebel against the system in which I had no place in, attempting to reforming it form the inside to suit my specific needs to a tee."

kiba2• 17 years ago

Schools are not designed for the masses. It is designed to satisfy those who are in power and make them look good.

A better system is to go completely private. A real school would be something like "School of Grammatica" and "School of Mathematics" where you know, people learn actual reading, writing and mathematics without having to do 10 god damn standarized tests every year.

It would serve the masses without politicans getting pretenious for "saving the school system".

Then there will be tons of microschool which teaches different careers. You could have a School of Game Programming which might have a class like "Physics Programming" which combine mathematics, programming, and actual physics.

For those that alway want expensive, liberal art education, there's alway universities.

neilk• 17 years ago

Your idea of an all-private school system might indeed be better, if only because the current one has such severe shortcomings.

But there are benefits of education that just won't be incentivized at all in a market model, especially in whatever option the market makes available for people with lower incomes. Remember that the existing system was designed by big business in the first place, to turn out docile workers for German industry.

I'm not sure what the right model is, but I don't think it's market-centric or parent-centric. It has to be learner-centric.

turkishrevenge• 17 years ago

Wouldn't that kind of situation foster hyperspecialization? Real, true insight is the result of a degree of expertise plus a smattering of general knowledge. Not that public schools necessary provide that kind of education. Nor do so-called "liberal arts" schools for that matter--rather, they seem to serve as a dumping ground for the innumerate.

gills• 17 years ago

Your rant appears to be based, at least in part, on the assumption that massive social structures are in some way necessary and beneficial to the lives their constituents.

bokonist9• 17 years ago

The education system at this point is not a designed entity. It has evolved through the interplay of various political forces. It has no purpose. No one would design anything like our system if they were doing it from scratch. It's just no one has a plan to fix it ( or the authority to implement such a plan).

Alex39172• 17 years ago

"No one would design anything like our system if they were doing it from scratch."

I'd like to this so, but the sheer number of people who defend the current system suggests otherwise.

andylei• 17 years ago

>> No one would design anything like our system if they were doing it from scratch.

Why not? If I implemented a system, it would probably involve certain things that I wanted students of different age groups to learn (a curriculum). There would probably be people who were in charge of teaching them (teachers). Along the way, we'd measure how well they learned, or how we taught them (tests).

Why is this so preposterous?

aristus• 17 years ago

I finally engineered this for myself at age 14 or 15. I discovered that I could get into both the advanced courses and a dropout prevention program that let me out of school at noon to go work a job doing programming and animation.

miles• 17 years ago

Sudbury Valley

http://www.sudval.org/

"At Sudbury Valley School, students from preschool through high school age explore the world freely, at their own pace and in their own unique ways. They learn to think for themselves, and learn to use Information Age tools to unearth the knowledge they need from multiple sources. They develop the ability to make clear logical arguments, and deal with complex ethical issues. Through self-initiated activities, they pick up the basics; as they direct their lives, they take responsibility for outcomes, set priorities, allocate resources, and work with others in a vibrant community.

Trust and respect are the keys to the school’s success. Students enjoy total intellectual freedom, and unfettered interaction with other students and adults. Through being responsible for themselves and for the school’s operation, they gain the internal resources needed to lead effective lives.

Sudbury Valley School was founded in 1968. Located in an old stone mansion and a converted barn on the mid-nineteenth century Bowditch estate, the ten acre campus adjoins extensive conservation lands."

bmj2• 17 years ago

Could someone briefly explain how unschooling works for kids under ten? Do you just leave your five year old on her own, since her life is her own?

I'm not trying to be snarky--we home school our kids (although in a more classical way) and I agree with the assessment that the school system in the U.S. has failed (and I've read Illich and agree with much of what he says).

tokenadult4• 17 years ago

I'm homeschooling four children, and describe myself as an eclectic homeschooler with strong unschooling tendencies. My youngest is now six years old, and she spends a lot of each day drawing, building Lego constructions, doing kitchen chores with her mom, playing with her brothers, talking walks outdoors (with various members of the family keeping her company), or occasionally watching videos, some educational, and some not. She is close to being an independent reader. I give her a reading lesson each school weekday, and a math lesson. (My favored materials are Bloomfield and Barnhart's Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach

http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Linguistic-Approach-Leonard-Bloom...

and the Miquon Math

http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml

series.)

So I guide my children's activities, but they have a lot of free time and a lot of control over how they spend their time. I like promoting QUIET activities like drawing and reading, because much of my work is done at home.

aeroevan• 17 years ago

As someone who was homeschooled all the way through high school and am now working on my PhD in aerospace engineering, keep up the good work.

My bit of advice would be to join an active homeschooling group (if you're not part of one already). Not only will your kids have a (relatively) healthy social life, but they'll meet some really interesting people. I had (and still have) friends whose interests ranged from writing operas to fellow hackers. Most of my public school friends seemed boring in comparison.

mattchew• 17 years ago

Do you just leave your five year old on her own, since her life is her own?

Well, unschooling doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. Homeschoolers argue with each other over just these sort of questions.

My opinion, unschooling does not mean "no teaching" and it certainly does not mean "no parental involvement". Most of the unschoolers we know have younger kids, and they have lots of parental involvement. Mom (usually it is Mom) does activities with the kids and comes up with fun ideas and projects to do. They help the kids pursue what they're interested in and introduce new topics the kids might get excited about.

(We are not unschoolers, but we're fairly unschool-y. We have lessons, but we take a good deal of trouble to make lessons fun and interesting. Mostly we succeed.)

adbachman• 17 years ago

We're "unschooling" our kids (4 and 2, right now). At their age, it means pretty much the same thing it means at any other age, as I understand it.

To us, unschooling means we don't push an agenda. Neither I nor my wife are our childrens' teachers, in the classical sense. We know a hell of a lot more and have the experience to back it up, so when the occasion arises and the questions are asked, we're there with guidance. Which is pretty much what I'd expect any parent to do in similar situations.

The biggest difference between us and more mainstream parents is that we're not anxious about our kids' pre-reading skills or whether we enrolled in the right preschool.

> Do you just leave your five year old on her own, since her life is her own?

Of course not! That's the reactionary response most folks give in the unschooling discussion, but it's nowhere near the truth. We don't push bare academics (information without context) or arbitrary schedules because we don't believe those have any value. We're involved with our kids all day, every day, as far as we're able. No preschool, no highly structured "educational opportunities". Live life, meet people, do stuff that matters, don't be anxious about how your kids compare.

MaysonL• 17 years ago

Check out The Day I Became an Autodidact http://www.amazon.com/Day-I-Became-Autodidact/dp/0440550130

snprbob86• 17 years ago

I know that this is highly tangential to the discussion, but I think it's worth sharing...

The author mentions Acquire, which is a brilliant board game of particular interest to this startup crowd. Sure, it is a gross oversimplification of the equity markets, but it is still oddly relevant and a whole lot of fun. It is very easy to learn and games have a bounded duration. Highly recommended for expert gamers and complete non-gamers alike.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5

eru7• 17 years ago

Board gaming in general strikes me as a good tool for education. It usually requires quick thinking, basic arithmetic, strategy, negotiation. In my experiences fondness for gaming also correlates well with mathematical ability.

ahoyhere• 17 years ago

OK guys, since this conversation comes up every single time...

Yes, public school systems can be very good, and tailored to individual students. Look at Scandinavia, especially Finland and Sweden.

Yes, lots of people do extremely well without structure and authority figures breathing down their backs.

Yes, teachers are underpaid, and yes, paying them more will not solve the fundamental issue.

Yes, unschooling kicks ass, and no, your excuses don't really make sense.

No, you don't need to keep rehashing your story to defend your choices or whatever, will you please take the chip off your shoulder already. It's the internet, nobody knows (or cares) that you dropped out, or that you stuck with it and graduated.

Yawn.

And if you're going to debate - on the Internet - you might want, in the spirit of hacking, to brush up on the material on the topics that already exists by eminent people who've spent much longer thinking about it than you. E.g. if you haven't read John Holt & John Taylor Gatto & Jean Piaget[1], why are you bothering to write?

[1] On the other hand, I will accept novel theories about why all these men are named John.

eru7• 17 years ago

> [1] On the other hand, I will accept novel theories about why all these men are named John.

Selection bias?

sown• 17 years ago

I wanted to do this in high school so badly. I had friends whom I had met outside of school who had done this and it always seemed like they were a head in life. My co-worker has done this with his children and they are all starting college 2 years earlier or so.

flipbrad2• 17 years ago

Brings to mind an amazing book - Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society. Essential reading if you're interested in this topic (and who wouldn't be? http://www.preservenet.com/theory/Illich/Deschooling/intro.h...)

davidmathers• 17 years ago

I dropped out of school in 8th grade. Shortly after that I got my first modem. My education came mostly from learning what I needed to learn to be able to participate in adult discussions and debates that I found online.

Ideally I would have preferred a (very) small amount of structure, guidance and discipline. But I have no regrets. The actual other option was California public school.

flipbrad2• 17 years ago

Part of the problem is an obsession with diplomas and enforced curricula. Jobs will not hire unless you have the necessary diplomas - until that changes, forced, regimented, rote and curriculum-based learning is the only real option on a massive scale. Consider the alternative: employers become agnostic about your educational background (or even totally blind to it) and instead test each applicant on the relevant skillset for the position - a society that only tests on entry, not on exit. If singular test panels aren't good enough, bring back apprenticeships, internships, etc.

As IT progresses arguments bringing up signal to noise ratios and using school leaver's certificates, a-level grades and university diplomas as first-pass filters become less relevant.

It's win-win for everyone except those who were provided with a prestigious education through the funds and connections of their parents. Employers are exposed to a maximally broad base of candidates - who may have followed an educational path that's totally unique and has made them much better suited to the job than one that distracted, bored, diffused and brainwashed them; candidates get in on merit not so much on the paid-for (private) resources made available to them (though your dad's library or mum's financial freedom to stay at home and teach you will always be one source of inequality).

An Unschooling Manifesto

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