Raising your children to conform to society's standards is awful. Everyone needs to raise their kids with an eye towards them being either a political revolutionary or a space ranger or else they might as well just be voting republican and attending Klan rallies.
1) I'm not an educator, but there is no way that unschooling is going to result in adults that are worth anything in the adult world. Nobody, at the age of 6, stands up and says "Mommy! I want to learn to spell and do basic math!" instead "Yay cartoons and bikes and dirt and pretend!"
I didn't realize the Montessori method was so unknown to a lot of people. Kids like to learn. Hell, they do it by accident. Kids are just built to learn shit and they tend to want to emulate the larger world. My daughter is very eager the learn the alphabet, for example. She's not even 2. They also learn shit by playing, especially when they're very young.
Well yeah I'm sure it works great up to the point where you have to start learning multiplication and division and how to work in a structured environment like the rest of the world.
Free spirit all you want, odds are your boss is still going to want you there at 9.
A.) Kids will learn math and shit voluntarily. Because math is awesome. Hell, you could even argue that traditional school is the worst way to learn these things because kids and people don't enjoy being forced to do things.
B.) I think you greatly overestimate the benefit that that "structured environment" has when going out into the world to work and such.
Not everyone likes math. What do?
Kids like math, they will want to learn it.
Besides, what good is a fucking public school going to do them if that's the case?
Way to dance around the subject there, chief.
"Not everyone likes math."
"Yeah huh!"
What good is unschooling them gonna do?
Public school at least tries to teach them. What good does not teaching your kid that sometimes you can't just do whats fun and need to do what WORKS?
The Muffin Man on
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Deebaseron my way to work in a suit and a tieAhhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered Userregular
edited May 2011
My parents let me have a garden, bought me transformers, and didn't talk to the press about their enlightened and not at all batshit retarded parenting techniques. I turned out fine.
My parents let me have a garden, bought me transformers, and didn't talk to the press about their enlightened and not at all batshit retarded parenting techniques. I turned out fine.
I'm not that optimistic about Jazz.
Well how can you expect him to grow up well adjusted when he has a stay at home Mom? Thanks a lot Mrs. Stepford
So I just skimmed through the last 16-odd hours of posts and I've noticed that nobody has presented any evidence that this is harmful.
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
You mean I'm supposed to let them run wild?
Unschooling doesn't mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.
But, what about math?
It's easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
Anyway, any suggestions for what to get for C. that would teach her to do math...
OK, let's start with you. "Teach her to do math" is not what you want to do. Schools do that. If you want that, pack her off. Let her explore the world we all inhabit, and discover the mathematical patterns that underlie it all. Let her have her own money to spend. Let her put fruit on the scale at the store, and see the numbers on each side of the dot, and the same kind of numbers on the cash register (ta-da, decimals, fractions, division!) Let her help figure out which is the best value, the five-pound bag of oranges for one dollar, or the fifty cents a pound ones? LIFE is education. REAL LIFE is the best education. Children sit in schools playing with plastic coins, setting up play stores to spend them. Come on. This is not necessary. Paper and pencil math can be approached later, with the foundation of real life experience to build on. (She's *probably* too young for strictly abstract math, by the way, although every child is unique.)
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Announcing to the press that you're duding up your son cause fuck those gender bending hippies, would be a political statement.
Man bites dog is news. Not the other way around.
Every time 15-month old Timmy has a blue Rocket shirt and Janey has a pink pony shirt, it's a statement. The extent to which this statement is very common and not newdworthy isn't the point. there are 30k comments on the yahoo! Article. Decent number of page hits vs. the hits you'd get from "Area Mom buys daughter EZ-Bake oven."
It's a statement but it doesn't say much and it's not insightful or inciteful.
So I just skimmed through the last 16-odd hours of posts and I've noticed that nobody has presented any evidence that this is harmful.
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
You mean I'm supposed to let them run wild?
Unschooling doesn't mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.
But, what about math?
It's easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
Anyway, any suggestions for what to get for C. that would teach her to do math...
OK, let's start with you. "Teach her to do math" is not what you want to do. Schools do that. If you want that, pack her off. Let her explore the world we all inhabit, and discover the mathematical patterns that underlie it all. Let her have her own money to spend. Let her put fruit on the scale at the store, and see the numbers on each side of the dot, and the same kind of numbers on the cash register (ta-da, decimals, fractions, division!) Let her help figure out which is the best value, the five-pound bag of oranges for one dollar, or the fifty cents a pound ones? LIFE is education. REAL LIFE is the best education. Children sit in schools playing with plastic coins, setting up play stores to spend them. Come on. This is not necessary. Paper and pencil math can be approached later, with the foundation of real life experience to build on. (She's *probably* too young for strictly abstract math, by the way, although every child is unique.)
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Real life is a great education, but you're just plain not going to learn geometry (from quilts, miniature golf, or anything else) until you sit down, learn about angles, and break out the protractor, compass, and pencil. And (and I'm sure there are some exceptionally motivated homeschooling parents out there) you've also got parents who just keep homeschooling even though either they're not good at it or it's not a good fit for their kid. My neighbor's son is 12. His parents are unwilling to teach him how to speak properly. He has no speech impediments (they've had him tested), but you'd never know it to listen to him. Yellow is yewwow. Cool is keel. Awesome is ah-sohm. He also can't spell - because he doesn't want to so his mother avoids the subject in favor of math which he enjoys. Even if he wasn't going to start winning spelling bees, in a real school he'd be exposed to and graded on the subject matter.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room
Yeah I'm calling bullshit.
really?
Most of us aren't amish quilt makers and I hire people with objectively less skills (and probably a horrible grasp of algebra) at math to paint my rooms for me.
Honestly, if you want real world math that you can use on a daily basis stick to algebra, exponents, and logarithms.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
What good is unschooling them gonna do?
Public school at least tries to teach them. What good does not teaching your kid that sometimes you can't just do whats fun and need to do what WORKS?
The thing is that everyone I know who "doesn't like math" all seem to have had shitty teachers. The idea that some kids just don't like math and that such a thing is a good argument against homeschooling strikes me as bizarre.
I mean, I could've also replied with "obviously this method is not suitable for those kids then" but then we wouldn't be on this awesome irrelevant tangent now would we?
So I just skimmed through the last 16-odd hours of posts and I've noticed that nobody has presented any evidence that this is harmful.
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
You mean I'm supposed to let them run wild?
Unschooling doesn't mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.
But, what about math?
It's easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
Anyway, any suggestions for what to get for C. that would teach her to do math...
OK, let's start with you. "Teach her to do math" is not what you want to do. Schools do that. If you want that, pack her off. Let her explore the world we all inhabit, and discover the mathematical patterns that underlie it all. Let her have her own money to spend. Let her put fruit on the scale at the store, and see the numbers on each side of the dot, and the same kind of numbers on the cash register (ta-da, decimals, fractions, division!) Let her help figure out which is the best value, the five-pound bag of oranges for one dollar, or the fifty cents a pound ones? LIFE is education. REAL LIFE is the best education. Children sit in schools playing with plastic coins, setting up play stores to spend them. Come on. This is not necessary. Paper and pencil math can be approached later, with the foundation of real life experience to build on. (She's *probably* too young for strictly abstract math, by the way, although every child is unique.)
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Real life is a great education, but you're just plain not going to learn geometry (from quilts, miniature golf, or anything else) until you sit down, learn about angles, and break out the protractor, compass, and pencil. And (and I'm sure there are some exceptionally motivated homeschooling parents out there) you've also got parents who just keep homeschooling even though either they're not good at it or it's not a good fit for their kid. My neighbor's son is 12. His parents are unwilling to teach him how to speak properly. He has no speech impediments (they've had him tested), but you'd never know it to listen to him. Yellow is yewwow. Cool is keel. Awesome is ah-sohm. He also can't spell - because he doesn't want to so his mother avoids the subject in favor of math which he enjoys. Even if he wasn't going to start winning spelling bees, in a real school he'd be exposed to and graded on the subject matter.
I hate to get off topic, but I have friends who have never stepped foot into a public school but can do advanced math (hell, even program) etc. etc.
I also have friends who can't use two, too, and to correctly. Street runs both ways I suppose.
So I just skimmed through the last 16-odd hours of posts and I've noticed that nobody has presented any evidence that this is harmful.
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
You mean I'm supposed to let them run wild?
Unschooling doesn't mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.
But, what about math?
It's easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
Anyway, any suggestions for what to get for C. that would teach her to do math...
OK, let's start with you. "Teach her to do math" is not what you want to do. Schools do that. If you want that, pack her off. Let her explore the world we all inhabit, and discover the mathematical patterns that underlie it all. Let her have her own money to spend. Let her put fruit on the scale at the store, and see the numbers on each side of the dot, and the same kind of numbers on the cash register (ta-da, decimals, fractions, division!) Let her help figure out which is the best value, the five-pound bag of oranges for one dollar, or the fifty cents a pound ones? LIFE is education. REAL LIFE is the best education. Children sit in schools playing with plastic coins, setting up play stores to spend them. Come on. This is not necessary. Paper and pencil math can be approached later, with the foundation of real life experience to build on. (She's *probably* too young for strictly abstract math, by the way, although every child is unique.)
Or wait - and I know this is a crazy idea - why don't we have people who have degrees in teaching show children this kind of stuff during the day? Then when you go grocery shopping, you can supplement your child's education with all this other stuff!
Because by itself, it sounds like a load of goose shit. It's like people think that when a kid comes home from school, their learning must stop. Who says you can't teach a kid at school and at home?
ChillyWilly on
PAFC Top 10 Finisher in Seasons 1 and 3. 2nd in Seasons 4 and 5. Final 4 in Season 6.
There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room
Yeah I'm calling bullshit.
"It takes Gary 4 hours to paint a house. It take Sue 3 hours to paint a house. How long will it take them to paint a house if they work together?"
EDIT: No, really, how long will it take them? If you can't solve the problem, consider the possibility that the traditional way of learning math has failed.
I'm terribly amused that the definition of "the real world" commonly used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught.
What makes you think they aren't being actively taught?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
What good is unschooling them gonna do?
Public school at least tries to teach them. What good does not teaching your kid that sometimes you can't just do whats fun and need to do what WORKS?
The thing is that everyone I know who "doesn't like math" all seem to have had shitty teachers. The idea that some kids just don't like math and that such a thing is a good argument against homeschooling strikes me as bizarre.
I mean, I could've also replied with "obviously this method is not suitable for those kids then" but then we wouldn't be on this awesome irrelevant tangent now would we?
I had great teachers and I was only fired up about math when it could be used in financial calculations and stats. Anything relating to pi and degrees can go fuck itself.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
A lot of these things require highly specialized and applied uses of "the maths" and for the most part are not something that the vast majority of people need to know to get the most out of life on a daily basis.
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
Which argument are you referring to?
1) "I'm an adult and I've never had to use calculus in the real world."
2) "We can teach kids math in the real world; we don't need a classroom."
I'm assuming (1) but I wanted to be sure.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
So I just skimmed through the last 16-odd hours of posts and I've noticed that nobody has presented any evidence that this is harmful.
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
You mean I'm supposed to let them run wild?
Unschooling doesn't mean not being a parent. Children need loving adults interested in helping them grow and learn. Choosing to build a lego village will include the opportunity to learn math and culture, maybe even history depending on the type of village. We do chores, have a family life, and participate in the wider community. The children are actively engaged in living and learning during all of this.
But, what about math?
It's easy to see how children can learn many things without using traditional, formal methods of teaching, but many people see math as a huge stumbling block, mainly, because most of us have learned to hate math because of the way it was taught in school. There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room. Shifting perspectives, from textbooks to the real world is sometimes difficult, but math that is actually used is math truly learned.
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
Anyway, any suggestions for what to get for C. that would teach her to do math...
OK, let's start with you. "Teach her to do math" is not what you want to do. Schools do that. If you want that, pack her off. Let her explore the world we all inhabit, and discover the mathematical patterns that underlie it all. Let her have her own money to spend. Let her put fruit on the scale at the store, and see the numbers on each side of the dot, and the same kind of numbers on the cash register (ta-da, decimals, fractions, division!) Let her help figure out which is the best value, the five-pound bag of oranges for one dollar, or the fifty cents a pound ones? LIFE is education. REAL LIFE is the best education. Children sit in schools playing with plastic coins, setting up play stores to spend them. Come on. This is not necessary. Paper and pencil math can be approached later, with the foundation of real life experience to build on. (She's *probably* too young for strictly abstract math, by the way, although every child is unique.)
Is that why Joe the Plumber is a tax expert?
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Did you just not read the quote? The whole point is that you teach them that. You're supposed to actively engage them about it. It's not that hard if you're willing to spend a lot of time on it.
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
A lot of these things require highly specialized and applied uses of "the maths" and for the most part are not something that the vast majority of people need to know to get the most out of life.
So? I don't need to know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but I learned it in school and you don't see me whining about it.
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught.
What makes you think they aren't being actively taught?
The fact that your quote proposes the grocery store should double as a primary means of education. Nobody is setting up a desk or pulling out pen and paper in the King Sooper to figure out which bag of oranges is the better buy and why. It's a good story problem though, I'll grant you that.
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Did you just not read the quote? The whole point is that you teach them that. You're supposed to actively engage them about it. It's not that hard if you're willing to spend a lot of time on it.
What the website says, and how it's practiced are two different things. Have you ever met an unschooling parent? I have. Her kids couldn't be integrated into a regular school at this point because they're too far behind. But by God they've been to Denver a bunch of times to go to the aquarium!
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
Which argument are you referring to?
1) "I'm an adult and I've never had to use calculus in the real world."
2) "We can teach kids math in the real world; we don't need a classroom."
I'm assuming (1) but I wanted to be sure.
1, yes.
I view the attempts to remove math curriculum from schools as follows: yeah, many of the people won't need calculus in their adult lives. Some of them will. By lowering the requirements for everyone, you WILL be taking away from some of the students that need it.
I'm terribly amused that the definition of "the real world" commonly used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
I think it's fair to say that those are professions which should be actively avoided by the (many) math-phobes of the world. While it's extremely awesome that there are cool, high-paying jobs for people who are good at math, I think it's also realistic to draw a line somewhere in the educational process which allows people who hate math (and those people are legion) to stop studying it without hamstringing themselves for life in general.
Now obviously, if someone has their heart set on being an engineer they will have to suck it up. But not everyone needs to study calculus. It is not a "general knowledge" subject, nor is it a thing you need in life outside of particular professions.
What good is unschooling them gonna do?
Public school at least tries to teach them. What good does not teaching your kid that sometimes you can't just do whats fun and need to do what WORKS?
The thing is that everyone I know who "doesn't like math" all seem to have had shitty teachers. The idea that some kids just don't like math and that such a thing is a good argument against homeschooling strikes me as bizarre.
I mean, I could've also replied with "obviously this method is not suitable for those kids then" but then we wouldn't be on this awesome irrelevant tangent now would we?
I've always wondered why liking math is the main way a lot of people judge a math education. I'd prefer my kid to be competent in math over liking math. Really, making a subject fun is only a positive insofar as it conserves teacher time and effort by motivating the kids to work on it without active monitoring.
What the hell's wrong with being well-rounded anyhow? So you know some things you don't need at your job? Congratulations! You're smarter for it, and you're welcome!
The thing that jumps out to me the most regarding the unschooling thing is the whole philosophy of letting kids decide what they want to do.
I mean, it may make them happy in the short run, it might not, but in the long run our society is geared in such a way that there is a pretty massive and very well-documented link between the ability of people to delay gratification and their success. I would think that any kid in an unschooling environment would naturally tend to seek out as much and varied stimulus as possible (I think the "lol they'll just watch cartoons" is a bit of a red-herring, though; these seem like the sort of people who wouldn't own a TV, or maybe even a computer), and would probably not learn, well, "hard work."
And yeah, entrepreneurs all have ADHD blah blah blah -- in all odds your kid is not going to be Richard Branson. He's going to be someone who needs to sit at a desk and complete tasks on deadline whether he would choose to or not.
I'm sure kids can learn algebra this way, I'm just not sure they can learn to not eat the marshmallow.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
A lot of these things require highly specialized and applied uses of "the maths" and for the most part are not something that the vast majority of people need to know to get the most out of life.
So? I don't need to know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but I learned it in school and you don't see me whining about it.
Nut up and learn about our world, bitches.
How can you learn about the world if you're ignorant of how we arrived to the current world we live in?
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Did you just not read the quote? The whole point is that you teach them that. You're supposed to actively engage them about it. It's not that hard if you're willing to spend a lot of time on it.
What the website says, and how it's practiced are two different things. Have you ever met an unschooling parent? I have. Her kids couldn't be integrated into a regular school at this point because they're too far behind. But by God they've been to Denver a bunch of times to go to the aquarium!
So she's doing it wrong?
I guess I don't see what that has to do with anything unless your point is that for the vast majority of parents it probably isn't a good idea. Which is something I can totally get behind because it's an incredible amount of work.
It's all well and good to do real world examples, but if your kids aren't learning their times tables and whatnot it's going to be a stumbling block later on.
Not all classrooms teach math effectively, this is true, but many do. Dismissing the entire education profession is just silly and dismissing teaching math traditionally because kids don't like it is also bad. I applaud tying it to the real world, because that is missing from most classroom environments and is vitally important, but there's a lot of very good traditional teaching techniques too.
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
A lot of these things require highly specialized and applied uses of "the maths" and for the most part are not something that the vast majority of people need to know to get the most out of life.
So? I don't need to know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but I learned it in school and you don't see me whining about it.
Nut up and learn about our world, bitches.
How can you learn about the world if you're ignorant of how we arrived to the current world we live in?
When I say I don't "need" to know, I'm using the same definition of "need" as the people who are arguing that most people don't "need" mid-level math skills.
I would be more ignorant if I didn't know that, I agree. Which is why I'm glad I learned it in school, even though it's not critical to my day-to-day life.
I view the attempts to remove math curriculum from schools as follows: yeah, many of the people won't need calculus in their adult lives. Some of them will. By lowering the requirements for everyone, you WILL be taking away from some of the students that need it.
Eh, I don't want to remove math curriculum from high schools, but I do think the core curriculum should focus more on basic number theory, probability, and statistics. I'd also like to see more done with math at different bases, which a lot of curricula shy away from because it was unfairly derided in the 80s as "new math" (even though it is a really, really good way to teach kids math).
High schools don't - and can't - teach everything useful in the real world. Some material gets left behind for college. High schools should be teaching the most important general knowledge useful for the majority of students. "Calculus isn't used in the real world" is a false statement and I don't support it. However, "There are forms of math other than calculus that are useful for more students and currently are undertaught" is a statement I can get behind.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
However, "There are forms of math other than calculus that are useful for more students and currently are undertaught" is a statement I can get behind.
I'd agree with that, probably.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I'm terribly amused that the commonly-used definition of "the real world" used in this type of argument doesn't include mechanical engineering, architecture, construction, chemistry, electrical engineering, structural engineering, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, sales analysis, any sort of simulation work whatsoever, actuarial work, tons of non-actuarial analysis done at insurance firms, mathematical modeling (used to be my job at an aerospace company you have heard of!), building models for gambling, software design, economics, city planning, etc.
Which argument are you referring to?
1) "I'm an adult and I've never had to use calculus in the real world."
2) "We can teach kids math in the real world; we don't need a classroom."
I'm assuming (1) but I wanted to be sure.
1, yes.
I view the attempts to remove math curriculum from schools as follows: yeah, many of the people won't need calculus in their adult lives. Some of them will. By lowering the requirements for everyone, you WILL be taking away from some of the students that need it.
I don't think you need to remove any math from any curriculum, I just don't see a prime directive to teach as much math as possible to everyone in the world.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
It's all well and good to do real world examples, but if your kids aren't learning their times tables and whatnot it's going to be a stumbling block later on.
Not all classrooms teach math effectively, this is true, but many do. Dismissing the entire education profession is just silly and dismissing teaching math traditionally because kids don't like it is also bad. I applaud tying it to the real world, because that is missing from most classroom environments and is vitally important, but there's a lot of very good traditional teaching techniques too.
I believe the objection against normal schools is usually not so much about the techniques as it is about the schools generally sucking at keeping kids interested.
There are a great many ways to encounter math in the real world. Geometry can be found in quilt making, algebra in painting a room
Yeah I'm calling bullshit.
"It takes Gary 4 hours to paint a house. It take Sue 3 hours to paint a house. How long will it take them to paint a house if they work together?"
EDIT: No, really, how long will it take them? If you can't solve the problem, consider the possibility that the traditional way of learning math has failed.
That's pretty easy. Gary paints one quarter of a house an hour, while Sue paints one third. I had a very standard education that taught me to boil everything down to numbers and formulas. I still hate math because there's no challenge on paper and my memory is too shitty to do calculations in my head (I can't even remember how to spell my middle name).
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At 6 she starts making me dinner and it better be on the table when I get home.
Way to dance around the subject there, chief.
"Not everyone likes math."
"Yeah huh!"
What good is unschooling them gonna do?
Public school at least tries to teach them. What good does not teaching your kid that sometimes you can't just do whats fun and need to do what WORKS?
I'm not that optimistic about Jazz.
Well how can you expect him to grow up well adjusted when he has a stay at home Mom? Thanks a lot Mrs. Stepford
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Also, all sorts of fuckmuppetry about unschooling going on in here. From the fucking FAQ on fucking unschooling.com:
Oh, and from another part of the same site, cryptically called "questions and answers:"
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yeah I'm calling bullshit.
really?
Well I guess if you have enough rooms to teach them algebraic equations with.
Anyway, the whole thing makes it sound like they thing public school is a 1970s british boarding school.
All their fun little games to teach kids math? They do that in public school.
It's a statement but it doesn't say much and it's not insightful or inciteful.
This all sounds great - as a supplement to a real education. Unless you've already been introduced to the concept a decimal point on a cash register doesn't mean anything. Dividing in the supermarket in one's head is something that many adults cannot do (and is why many stores have signs that break stuff down to price per ounce) let alone children. Yes, I know that 5 lb / $1 means 20 cents / lb. My children who will one day learn about fractions, decimals, and division will not just magically know that without being actively taught. Elementary school teachers spend a lot of time getting their degrees and certification not because fractions are super hard, but because the pedagogy that goes into teaching children is complex. How do you teach somebody what division is? Or addition? This is what they're learning. It's more involved than "hey honey, let's go to the supermarket!"
Real life is a great education, but you're just plain not going to learn geometry (from quilts, miniature golf, or anything else) until you sit down, learn about angles, and break out the protractor, compass, and pencil. And (and I'm sure there are some exceptionally motivated homeschooling parents out there) you've also got parents who just keep homeschooling even though either they're not good at it or it's not a good fit for their kid. My neighbor's son is 12. His parents are unwilling to teach him how to speak properly. He has no speech impediments (they've had him tested), but you'd never know it to listen to him. Yellow is yewwow. Cool is keel. Awesome is ah-sohm. He also can't spell - because he doesn't want to so his mother avoids the subject in favor of math which he enjoys. Even if he wasn't going to start winning spelling bees, in a real school he'd be exposed to and graded on the subject matter.
Most of us aren't amish quilt makers and I hire people with objectively less skills (and probably a horrible grasp of algebra) at math to paint my rooms for me.
Honestly, if you want real world math that you can use on a daily basis stick to algebra, exponents, and logarithms.
The thing is that everyone I know who "doesn't like math" all seem to have had shitty teachers. The idea that some kids just don't like math and that such a thing is a good argument against homeschooling strikes me as bizarre.
I mean, I could've also replied with "obviously this method is not suitable for those kids then" but then we wouldn't be on this awesome irrelevant tangent now would we?
I hate to get off topic, but I have friends who have never stepped foot into a public school but can do advanced math (hell, even program) etc. etc.
I also have friends who can't use two, too, and to correctly. Street runs both ways I suppose.
Or wait - and I know this is a crazy idea - why don't we have people who have degrees in teaching show children this kind of stuff during the day? Then when you go grocery shopping, you can supplement your child's education with all this other stuff!
Because by itself, it sounds like a load of goose shit. It's like people think that when a kid comes home from school, their learning must stop. Who says you can't teach a kid at school and at home?
"It takes Gary 4 hours to paint a house. It take Sue 3 hours to paint a house. How long will it take them to paint a house if they work together?"
EDIT: No, really, how long will it take them? If you can't solve the problem, consider the possibility that the traditional way of learning math has failed.
What makes you think they aren't being actively taught?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I had great teachers and I was only fired up about math when it could be used in financial calculations and stats. Anything relating to pi and degrees can go fuck itself.
A lot of these things require highly specialized and applied uses of "the maths" and for the most part are not something that the vast majority of people need to know to get the most out of life on a daily basis.
Which argument are you referring to?
1) "I'm an adult and I've never had to use calculus in the real world."
2) "We can teach kids math in the real world; we don't need a classroom."
I'm assuming (1) but I wanted to be sure.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Is that why Joe the Plumber is a tax expert?
Did you just not read the quote? The whole point is that you teach them that. You're supposed to actively engage them about it. It's not that hard if you're willing to spend a lot of time on it.
So? I don't need to know that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, but I learned it in school and you don't see me whining about it.
Nut up and learn about our world, bitches.
The fact that your quote proposes the grocery store should double as a primary means of education. Nobody is setting up a desk or pulling out pen and paper in the King Sooper to figure out which bag of oranges is the better buy and why. It's a good story problem though, I'll grant you that.
What the website says, and how it's practiced are two different things. Have you ever met an unschooling parent? I have. Her kids couldn't be integrated into a regular school at this point because they're too far behind. But by God they've been to Denver a bunch of times to go to the aquarium!
1, yes.
I view the attempts to remove math curriculum from schools as follows: yeah, many of the people won't need calculus in their adult lives. Some of them will. By lowering the requirements for everyone, you WILL be taking away from some of the students that need it.
I think it's fair to say that those are professions which should be actively avoided by the (many) math-phobes of the world. While it's extremely awesome that there are cool, high-paying jobs for people who are good at math, I think it's also realistic to draw a line somewhere in the educational process which allows people who hate math (and those people are legion) to stop studying it without hamstringing themselves for life in general.
Now obviously, if someone has their heart set on being an engineer they will have to suck it up. But not everyone needs to study calculus. It is not a "general knowledge" subject, nor is it a thing you need in life outside of particular professions.
I've always wondered why liking math is the main way a lot of people judge a math education. I'd prefer my kid to be competent in math over liking math. Really, making a subject fun is only a positive insofar as it conserves teacher time and effort by motivating the kids to work on it without active monitoring.
I mean, it may make them happy in the short run, it might not, but in the long run our society is geared in such a way that there is a pretty massive and very well-documented link between the ability of people to delay gratification and their success. I would think that any kid in an unschooling environment would naturally tend to seek out as much and varied stimulus as possible (I think the "lol they'll just watch cartoons" is a bit of a red-herring, though; these seem like the sort of people who wouldn't own a TV, or maybe even a computer), and would probably not learn, well, "hard work."
And yeah, entrepreneurs all have ADHD blah blah blah -- in all odds your kid is not going to be Richard Branson. He's going to be someone who needs to sit at a desk and complete tasks on deadline whether he would choose to or not.
I'm sure kids can learn algebra this way, I'm just not sure they can learn to not eat the marshmallow.
How can you learn about the world if you're ignorant of how we arrived to the current world we live in?
So she's doing it wrong?
I guess I don't see what that has to do with anything unless your point is that for the vast majority of parents it probably isn't a good idea. Which is something I can totally get behind because it's an incredible amount of work.
Not all classrooms teach math effectively, this is true, but many do. Dismissing the entire education profession is just silly and dismissing teaching math traditionally because kids don't like it is also bad. I applaud tying it to the real world, because that is missing from most classroom environments and is vitally important, but there's a lot of very good traditional teaching techniques too.
Basically jclast said it
When I say I don't "need" to know, I'm using the same definition of "need" as the people who are arguing that most people don't "need" mid-level math skills.
I would be more ignorant if I didn't know that, I agree. Which is why I'm glad I learned it in school, even though it's not critical to my day-to-day life.
Eh, I don't want to remove math curriculum from high schools, but I do think the core curriculum should focus more on basic number theory, probability, and statistics. I'd also like to see more done with math at different bases, which a lot of curricula shy away from because it was unfairly derided in the 80s as "new math" (even though it is a really, really good way to teach kids math).
High schools don't - and can't - teach everything useful in the real world. Some material gets left behind for college. High schools should be teaching the most important general knowledge useful for the majority of students. "Calculus isn't used in the real world" is a false statement and I don't support it. However, "There are forms of math other than calculus that are useful for more students and currently are undertaught" is a statement I can get behind.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'd agree with that, probably.
I don't think you need to remove any math from any curriculum, I just don't see a prime directive to teach as much math as possible to everyone in the world.
I believe the objection against normal schools is usually not so much about the techniques as it is about the schools generally sucking at keeping kids interested.
That's pretty easy. Gary paints one quarter of a house an hour, while Sue paints one third. I had a very standard education that taught me to boil everything down to numbers and formulas. I still hate math because there's no challenge on paper and my memory is too shitty to do calculations in my head (I can't even remember how to spell my middle name).