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.
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
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).
Like when you sit back and think about it it doesn't just roll off the tongue or you're staring blankly at that field on the form? Because at this point your name should be less spelling skill and more muscle memory (regardless of whether you're signing something or typing it out).
Math is everywhere in the real world, but you need to have some understanding of math in order to appreciate that fact and pass information along to some one who doesn't understand math. Even relatively simple geometry tends not to reside on the tip of the tongue. I'm not explicitly advocating the public school system as the best solution to the problem of how to teach math, but I would say that there are a lot of parents out there who are not sufficiently numerate to impart an understanding of math to their children through the use of real world examples.
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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?
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 think the problem though is that math is about learning a process to achieve something and one's abilities get stronger the more you do it. I don't really think the same applies to ignorance of undynamic information.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
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.
Everybody in my school learned basic probability, but we focused on it much more heavily in number theory. We did some basic stats, and learned how to apply imaginary numbers in real life. (I was the only person among my group of friends senior year who knew that imaginary numbers weren't really imaginary. To this day I get great pleasure showing people how fractals are made.)
I also learned that one thing that I probably shouldn't bring up here but I will anyway. I learned why
0.999... = 1
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.
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
Among people I've met my school was one of the few that offered it. I'm amazed at the number of people I've met who never learned to reconcile a checkbook or to understand how loan payments work. I don't expect people to whip up their own amortization tables (though writing that program was a fun one in first-year C programming) but they should know how to read it and what it means.
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mrt144King of the NumbernamesRegistered Userregular
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
My school had 2 tracks and it was roughly similar except that Trig was absent and probability and stats were in its place.
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
My school had 2 tracks and it was roughly similar except that Trig was absent and probability and stats were in its place.
Prob and Stats was a one-term elective in my school. I really think it should have been required. It was the class with the most real world examples and most everyday-useful material in it. Also, more people need to understand sets so that we all understand the Monty Hall problem. Prob and Stats would have fixed that, people!
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.
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
My high school had five different math tracks: three with three years "integrated math" ending in "topics in precalculus," "pre-calculus," and "Introduction to Calculus (or AB calc if you get good grades and take a short summer course)," a SIMMS track ending in SIMMS pre-calc, and an extra advanced track with two years integrated followed by trig&precalc and a choice between AB and BC calc. The only problem in the whole system was that you had to take the advanced math courses in middle school to enter the highest track.
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).
So Gary hase 64 coins in a line on his desk(Sue can't see them), Sue needs to figure out the order they are in. Every time Sue asks a complete sequence of 64 coins, Gary will check Sue's guess against the coins and give an answer(Yes/No). Is there anyway for Sue's job to be done in approximately the same amount of time Gary does his job in. Show your work.
I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised by the level of educational and cultural conformity I'm seeing here. Any relatively highly educated parent should surely be capable of unschooling a child through middle school at least, but if you're halfway decent at it absolutely through highschool. The objections I'm seeing seem quite silly.
Yeah, how about you do bring a pad and pencil to the grocery store! Maybe you actually brush up in your algebra and geometry so you can teach it more effectively! Hey, how bout you even peek at more structured curricula for some extra guidance and ideas! If your hold asks a question you don't know the answer to, could you be so radical as to either tell them you'll find out, or more shockingly even show them how and have them help you do it?!
By the time hey get into things like calculus you probably would need the help of some textbooks, but does this really seem like the type of program that appeals to people so narrow-minded that that would be a problem?
As for the gender thing, it doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like they're presenting "girl" things and "boy" things and saying, "You can be either!" rather than presenting "things" and saying, "Some people only think boys or grips should do these things, but it's best to do the things you like!" obviously they aren't likely to restrict to only one gender, but still not my favorite approach.
edit: how obvious is it I'm poring from a smartphone? :-P
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).
So Gary hase 64 coins in a line on his desk(Sue can't see them), Sue needs to figure out the order they are in. Every time Sue asks a complete sequence of 64 coins, Gary will check Sue's guess against the coins and give an answer(Yes/No). Is there anyway for Sue's job to be done in approximately the same amount of time Gary does his job in. Show your work.
I don't think I really understand the problem here. Can you either restate it or spoiler the answer? Because at first blush Gary's job is always faster (simple checking) unless Sue is just blindly guessing instead of formulating a strategy.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
Math, English and Dutch were the three subjects everyone in our highschool had to take for 6 years. And everyone had to do at least some calculus and trig. (after 4 years you could choose between taking more probability and statistics or that plus extra calculus)
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).
Like when you sit back and think about it it doesn't just roll off the tongue or you're staring blankly at that field on the form? Because at this point your name should be less spelling skill and more muscle memory (regardless of whether you're signing something or typing it out).
My mom used to use a version of the name with a "c" instead of a "k" as the password to the family computer. Luckily, my great uncle was in show business, so google will give me the correct spelling.
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).
So Gary hase 64 coins in a line on his desk(Sue can't see them), Sue needs to figure out the order they are in. Every time Sue asks a complete sequence of 64 coins, Gary will check Sue's guess against the coins and give an answer(Yes/No). Is there anyway for Sue's job to be done in approximately the same amount of time Gary does his job in. Show your work.
I don't think I really understand the problem here. Can you either restate it or spoiler the answer? Because at first blush Gary's job is always faster (simple checking) unless Sue is just blindly guessing instead of formulating a strategy.
The answer's quite simple:
She punches him in the face, grabs all the money, and runs like hell.
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).
So Gary hase 64 coins in a line on his desk(Sue can't see them), Sue needs to figure out the order they are in. Every time Sue asks a complete sequence of 64 coins, Gary will check Sue's guess against the coins and give an answer(Yes/No). Is there anyway for Sue's job to be done in approximately the same amount of time Gary does his job in. Show your work.
I don't think I really understand the problem here. Can you either restate it or spoiler the answer? Because at first blush Gary's job is always faster (simple checking) unless Sue is just blindly guessing instead of formulating a strategy.
If I could prove the answer, I'd be rich and famous. Thats P v NP. The biggest unanswered question in comp sci, a proof is worth $1,000,000 bucks(literally).
My high school had two tracks. No personal finance. Symbolic reasoning and computer programming were offered in lieu of pre-calc and calc. I opted for that when my mom finally confessed that she's never used calculus a day in her life since completing her Ph.D.
Much like teaching science, I like the idea of teaching mathematics because children should have the benefit building their own knowledge base on the foundation of thinkers who came before. I can eschew pedantically informing my children about things like Newtonian physics and instead give them some ropes and pulleys in the hopes that they'll figure it out themselves, but that's almost literally asking them to reinvent the wheel.
The issue with whether or not math should be formally taught is compounded by the fact that mathematical expression is actually a language which has rules that everyone is supposed to know but which we aren't going to learn from daily exposure the same way we learn our native tongues. If you aren't taught the rules to the language everyone else is using, you're never going to understand why 10 - 4 * 2 = 2 and not 12.
I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised by the level of educational and cultural conformity I'm seeing here. Any relatively highly educated parent should surely be capable of unschooling a child through middle school at least, but if you're halfway decent at it absolutely through highschool. The objections I'm seeing seem quite silly.
Yeah, how about you do bring a pad and pencil to the grocery store! Maybe you actually brush up in your algebra and geometry so you can teach it more effectively! Hey, how bout you even peek at more structured curricula for some extra guidance and ideas! If your hold asks a question you don't know the answer to, could you be so radical as to either tell them you'll find out, or more shockingly even show them how and have them help you do it?!
By the time hey get into things like calculus you probably would need the help of some textbooks, but does this really seem like the type of program that appeals to people so narrow-minded that that would be a problem?
As for the gender thing, it doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like they're presenting "girl" things and "boy" things and saying, "You can be either!" rather than presenting "things" and saying, "Some people only think boys or grips should do these things, but it's best to do the things you like!" obviously they aren't likely to restrict to only one gender, but still not my favorite approach.
Maybe I am narrow-minded and dumb, but we wouldn't put teachers through so much schooling and accredidation if it was as easy as "brush up on your geometry and bring a pad of paper with me to the store." I'll do all of those things anyways and try to find opportunities to learn at home, but I'll do those things as a supplement to a more structured education.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised by the level of educational and cultural conformity I'm seeing here. Any relatively highly educated parent should surely be capable of unschooling a child through middle school at least, but if you're halfway decent at it absolutely through highschool. The objections I'm seeing seem quite silly.
Yeah, how about you do bring a pad and pencil to the grocery store! Maybe you actually brush up in your algebra and geometry so you can teach it more effectively! Hey, how bout you even peek at more structured curricula for some extra guidance and ideas! If your hold asks a question you don't know the answer to, could you be so radical as to either tell them you'll find out, or more shockingly even show them how and have them help you do it?!
By the time hey get into things like calculus you probably would need the help of some textbooks, but does this really seem like the type of program that appeals to people so narrow-minded that that would be a problem?
As for the gender thing, it doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like they're presenting "girl" things and "boy" things and saying, "You can be either!" rather than presenting "things" and saying, "Some people only think boys or grips should do these things, but it's best to do the things you like!" obviously they aren't likely to restrict to only one gender, but still not my favorite approach.
Maybe I am narrow-minded and dumb, but we wouldn't put teachers through so much schooling and accredidation if it was as easy as "brush up on your geometry and bring a pad of paper with me to the store." I'll do all of those things anyways and try to find opportunities to learn at home, but I'll do those things as a supplement to a more structured education.
That's because being a school-teacher isn't that easy. But you're not trying to teach a group of 30 unknown kids something while having a bunch of other responsibilities towards them.
Maybe I am narrow-minded and dumb, but we wouldn't put teachers through so much schooling and accredidation if it was as easy as "brush up on your geometry and bring a pad of paper with me to the store." I'll do all of those things anyways and try to find opportunities to learn at home, but I'll do those things as a supplement to a more structured education.
Well, literally every teacher I've ever known has bitched about accreditation procedures being a waste of time. My best math teacher in high school was an ex-engineer who quit when they forced him to go to math classes because he didn't have a math degree.
Meanwhile, my father taught community college for 30 years with his comp sci knowledge gained entirely on the fly in the space program.
I this is not so much about training (After all, the dad here is some kind of trained educator) but educational theory philosophy. There's a lot of 'people hate math but they need it so fucking sit them down and force it down their ignorant throats' going on in here. I think what he's saying is hey, maybe they hate it not because they hate math but because you sit them down and force it down their ignorant throats for their own good.
Student directed learning models like Montessori aren't the standard within the US public education system, but they're also not 'fuck it, let the kid do whatever he wants and maybe he'll learn something I guess'. And as a corollary I think he's implying that given that a big part of the problem with the US ed system is that kids aren't engaged in it and don't find it useful, dismissing "Maybe we should let the kids learn more about what excites them" as a crazy proposition may be counterproductive.
Granted, unschooling seems a lot less structured than Montessori, but I'm not very familiar with it so I can't say much there.
I have to say, I'm somewhat surprised by the level of educational and cultural conformity I'm seeing here. Any relatively highly educated parent should surely be capable of unschooling a child through middle school at least, but if you're halfway decent at it absolutely through highschool. The objections I'm seeing seem quite silly.
Yeah, how about you do bring a pad and pencil to the grocery store! Maybe you actually brush up in your algebra and geometry so you can teach it more effectively! Hey, how bout you even peek at more structured curricula for some extra guidance and ideas! If your hold asks a question you don't know the answer to, could you be so radical as to either tell them you'll find out, or more shockingly even show them how and have them help you do it?!
By the time hey get into things like calculus you probably would need the help of some textbooks, but does this really seem like the type of program that appeals to people so narrow-minded that that would be a problem?
As for the gender thing, it doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like they're presenting "girl" things and "boy" things and saying, "You can be either!" rather than presenting "things" and saying, "Some people only think boys or grips should do these things, but it's best to do the things you like!" obviously they aren't likely to restrict to only one gender, but still not my favorite approach.
edit: how obvious is it I'm poring from a smartphone? :-P
I don't think people are saying it's not possible. (Well, maybe some are.) I'm sure it works for some parents and kids. However, I'm willing to say that I don't think that it will go better than average if applied over a large group.
Given how poorly prepared large numbers of kids are for regular school, I'm highly skeptical that they'll do better with their educations solely in the hands of the parents who have already failed at doing their part in the task.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the unschooling thing, or perhaps my brain is just broken by having had a traditional education, but... isn't a certain degree of enforced drill and repetition necessary in learning something?
I mean, I could explain (given enough time and a large enough white board) almost anything to a child, starting from first principles. But they aren't going to retain it. If I explain why the X in 2x + 7 = 17 has to be the number 5 I'm sure they'll understand it, but if I then ask them a couple of days later what the y in 3y - 4 = 5 is I expect I'd get a blank look. Or, to get away from math, if I tell them what nouns and adjectives and verbs and tenses and predicates and adverbs and clauses and phrases are and then explain what all of the grammatical constructs in the sentence "Edgar went to the store with Laurance, both two months ago and today, to buy several items: a cup, a pen, five baloons, and two strings." then it shouldn't really be a problem for them to follow along. But if they don't diagram sentences for a while then when I ask them to do it somewhere down the line, are they going to be able to?
Learning by doing is fine for manual skills, and just reading and discussing is probably sufficient for history/cultural studies or literature, and I'm sure you could teach a kid to speak a language via some form of immersion, but there are a lot of bits of knowledge that you just have to memorize, and memorization takes repetition. And - particularly in math or the sciences - more advanced concepts highly benefit from the intuitive grasp of more basic concepts that you will have gained by repeating them so many times.
I'm not sure how you could get that without something at least basically akin to a traditional curriculum. You could maybe skew the curriculum or change the way you teach things based on what the kid is interested in, but if it's just "teach children based on what they feel like doing at the time" then I feel like they're going to end up lacking.
If I could prove the answer, I'd be rich and famous. Thats P v NP. The biggest unanswered question in comp sci, a proof is worth $1,000,000 bucks(literally).
Merge Gary and Sue's mind into one hive mind. When one knows something, the other immediately knows it, too.
I read the first few pages of this topic and saw something repeated a few times:
"Sex is just the physical parts, gender isnt."
What about the hormones our physical parts produce that affect our behavior? Increased Testosterone during puberty is what makes men larger and more aggresive... not gender roles.
All im saying is I don't buy that gender is purely a societal construct... gender roles do have some correlation with the physiological differences between males and females.
Edit: if this has been covered already I apologize.
MistaCreepy on
PS3: MistaCreepy::Steam: MistaCreepy::360: Dead and I don't feel like paying to fix it.
I read the first few pages of this topic and saw something repeated a few times:
"Sex is just the physical parts, gender isnt."
What about the hormones our physical parts produce that affect our behavior? Increased Testosterone during puberty is what makes men larger and more aggresive... not gender roles.
All im saying is I don't buy that gender is purely a societal construct... gender roles do have some correlation with the physiological differences between males and females.
Edit: if this has been covered already I apologize.
Social constructs have more of an influence over long term sustained behavior than hormones.
Young girls, when rambunctious, are told more often than young boys to behave and be more "lady like." Young boys, well, you've heard the phrase, "boys will be boys."
The same thing extends to sexual behavior, where it's more acceptable for a male to be sexually promiscuous, and not so much for a female.
Same thing goes for aggression.
The way you're raised will always have more of an affect than your biology. Biology will lean you in a particular direction, but is rarely a determinant. I'd place my bet on a stable household as to whether someone with an "alcoholic gene" is going to become an alcoholic.
Sex is what you physically are. Gender is the "idea" of what you are supposed to be behaviorally.
Granted, unschooling seems a lot less structured than Montessori, but I'm not very familiar with it so I can't say much there.
My wife's practice is in child development, and she has a lot of positive things to say about Montessori. Contrary to the perception that it's structureless, Maria Montessori had a very precisely defined structure for how she believed education should ideally work. In practice, the quality tends to vary pretty widely between individual schools teachers within a school, but that's true of all schools. Generally, students who have attended at least two Montessori schools and studied with at least three different Montessori-trained teachers will perform statistically better on standardized tests than students who only attended one school or studied with fewer teachers. The more ways a child is exposed to problem solving, the better he becomes at it. An extension of this is that there's some evidence that in Montessori schools, you can not only run into problems where class sizes are too big but also where they're too small.
She also has some positive things to say about homeschooling. A homeschooled student's performance on standardized tests tends to be higher than students from similar households (in terms of income level and parental education level) who attend public schools. That's not necessarily saying a lot, I don't think, because even in homeschooling you can see that the single greatest determining factor on the quality of the education your kids will receive is the zip code in which you live. But by necessity homeschoolers have a lot of parental involvement in their education, which is not necessarily true of every kid sent through a public school.
The thing is that while Montessori and homeschooling generally have been widely studied, there's a dearth of peer-reviewed, scientific studies on unschooling and absolutely no proof that it works. My wife says she's never seen anything to support it, and I just spent half an hour looking for any study of any type on non-schooling on the Department of Education's ERIC library and came up with a giant goose egg.
There's also the factor that homeschooled kids lose a lot of interactivity with other children.
But I guess if you're trying to screw your kid up by keeping their gender a secret, you'll probably screw him up in homeschooling anyhow so it's a moot point.
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Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
Maybe unschooling works if the parents are well educated but many children are not so fortunate. My parents were unable to really help me on much of my schoolwork past elementary. And their education was very lackluster. When the parents don't speak English or don't speak it well that adds another layer of difficulty.
The thing is, if you're willing to seriously engage with your children from a young age, there's no reason you can't teach them traditional formula, equations, etc and also explore real world examples and find alternative approaches.
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Muse Among MenSuburban Bunny Princess?Its time for a new shtick Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
"Timmy, get up! We're gonna be late, I don't want to get fired!"
"But mom I don't want to file any more reports!" :x
Traditional schooling is more convenient for households were both parents work, otherwise you'd have "take your children to work day" on the daily! The Montessori schools sound interesting though. I'd heard of them before, but had not seriously looked into them.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
I read the first few pages of this topic and saw something repeated a few times:
"Sex is just the physical parts, gender isnt."
What about the hormones our physical parts produce that affect our behavior? Increased Testosterone during puberty is what makes men larger and more aggresive... not gender roles.
All im saying is I don't buy that gender is purely a societal construct... gender roles do have some correlation with the physiological differences between males and females.
Edit: if this has been covered already I apologize.
Social constructs have more of an influence over long term sustained behavior than hormones.
Young girls, when rambunctious, are told more often than young boys to behave and be more "lady like." Young boys, well, you've heard the phrase, "boys will be boys."
The same thing extends to sexual behavior, where it's more acceptable for a male to be sexually promiscuous, and not so much for a female.
Same thing goes for aggression.
The way you're raised will always have more of an affect than your biology. Biology will lean you in a particular direction, but is rarely a determinant. I'd place my bet on a stable household as to whether someone with an "alcoholic gene" is going to become an alcoholic.
Sex is what you physically are. Gender is the "idea" of what you are supposed to be behaviorally.
Re: Bolded. Prove it. At the moment there no reason to prefer this as article of faith against alternatives.
But there are some good reasons to believe that the underlying effects of hormones and their long term effects on the brain are powerful in subtle ways we do not realise.
A counterpoint to your claims is that of abstinence only education and the kinds of social groups and social pressures which are operant on people in the communities that wholly embrace these ideas.
But when the rubber hits the road here, it's most definitely biology that wins out over community. The social constructs are not hugely powerful at all - in fact, they are worse than useless. First time sexual experience in these communities tends to be almost a year earlier than their peers from a more liberal community.
I suspect that the answer is more complicated than the radical progressives would have it.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
my problem with homeschool/unschool is that while I can't confirm or deny its effectiveness at teaching the concepts and theories is that the vast majority of post-secondary education facilities have requirements like "the candidate has obtained a C or better in Calculus 122, English 122, and Chemistry 122" and "the candidate has completed 5 electives in the field of X." To say it in a better way, requirements are based on the public schooling standards of the region they exist in. The same goes for work which requires a high school diploma.
For a homeschool or unschool I think the only way to get around that is to obtain a GED or equivalent, which will most likely end in one of a handful of situations:
the unschooling worked optimally and getting the GED is a breeze
the unschooling worked optimally, but having never been exposed to the way public school expresses the problems in the accredited exams the kid has no idea how to even express his/her knowledge in the answer box.
the unschooling worked sub-optimally and the kid has issues answering some key aspect of the exam where the unschooling may have overlooked.
the unschooling worked sub-optimally and the kid has to Billy Madison their way through the public schooling system to catch up on their education.
With that said, I actually like the idea of an optimized Montessori or unschooling because I like the idea of having a generation or two of super-specialist workforce who are leagues ahead (in their respective fields) of where they would have been sticking with the standard K-12 system. Unfortunately, one of the more important lessons I learned from my BCS was to never rely on the best case scenario and to bechmark on the worst case.
I imagine the true optimal education system would be one wherein the generally agreed upon basic knowledge requirements of the current public school system (math, language, science, etc) are taught in the traditional way but are supplemented with exploration based on the student's interests, with some sort of retrospective at regular intervals which ultimately selects what kind of specialization track to send them on.
as far as the actual topic, I think there's an aspect of risk mitigation that the parents seem to be sorely lacking on. While there's a good chance the kids will turn out to be great people with good heads on their shoulders who are incredibly comfortable with themselves and tolerant of other people, there's likely a better chance that they're applying far too much pressure on their kids who will quite likely begin to question "Why me? Why do I have to be different? What did I do to deserve opposition at every corner? I just want to be a normal kid like everyone else." Which is remarkably similar to the problem the parents are probably trying to avoid. That problem being the identity-questioning a "normal" kid might have if they were raised with the "wrong" gender-identity all along.
To use the least offensive comparison I can think about, there's a character in a fantasy series I read when I was a kid who was half-elf and at first he was all "hey cool, I've got something in common with everyone!" until he realized the truth that he was simply ostracized by the humans because of his elf blood, and ostracized by the elves for his human blood, and unliked and mistrusted by everyone. I don't know why a parent would actively try to force that kind of unnecessary turmoil on their kid if at best it all comes out in the wash anyway, or at worst simply adds to the already long list of issues every teen has to go through.
edit: and just to be clear, I used "normal" and "wrong" above not to make associations with the connotations they might imply, but simply for lack of an easy way to describe the average person.
Granted, unschooling seems a lot less structured than Montessori, but I'm not very familiar with it so I can't say much there.
My wife's practice is in child development, and she has a lot of positive things to say about Montessori....The thing is that while Montessori and homeschooling generally have been widely studied, there's a dearth of peer-reviewed, scientific studies on unschooling and absolutely no proof that it works. My wife says she's never seen anything to support it, and I just spent half an hour looking for any study of any type on non-schooling on the Department of Education's ERIC library and came up with a giant goose egg.
This is what I was trying to say. Montessori is a specific educational method, and it seems to work pretty well. I have no idea what 'unschooling' actually means, and as far as student-lead teaching methods that believe intrinsic motivation leads to more student engagement I'm not sure why you would choose unschooling over a good Montessori private school (or heck daycare at that age) given the fact that it seems so poorly defined.
Maybe when I've got time I'll start up an actually thread for this spinoff.
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acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
edited May 2011
thread spin-off would be greatly appreciated, I find it an interesting topic and it seems many of the people ITT agree.
I imagine the people choosing unschooling over Montessori are doing so due to unavailability of Montessori programs in their area. There's not a school in my city that offers the program. I know if I were trying alternative teaching theories for my hypothetical children, even though I'm admittedly a I-think-I-know-best type person I'd want a professional instructor who can be held accountable for their teaching methods, and unschooling cannot possibly offer that kind of guarantee, which is why the red flag was immediately raised in my DANGER cortex.
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I like the way it was handled in my high school. If you weren't a math person you went down one math track: Pre-Algebra -> Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Personal Finance
And if you were a math person you went down a different track: Geometry -> Algebra -> Trigonometry -> Pre-Calculus -> Calculus
That way you weren't artificially slowing down or speeding up kids who weren't fit for either track, and since the Calculus track moved faster you got your Pre-Algebra and Algebra in the same term and your Personal Finance was covered as a small project in Economics.
Like when you sit back and think about it it doesn't just roll off the tongue or you're staring blankly at that field on the form? Because at this point your name should be less spelling skill and more muscle memory (regardless of whether you're signing something or typing it out).
Also on Steam and PSN: twobadcats
I think the problem though is that math is about learning a process to achieve something and one's abilities get stronger the more you do it. I don't really think the same applies to ignorance of undynamic information.
Huh?
You hate math because it's too easy?
That makes sense to me. Sounds like a decent way to do it.
My school didn't have tracks, it was linear. Most people got up to second-year algebra and stopped. After second-year algebra, you had the option of taking pre-calculus or number theory. Most people took pre-calc because number theory was a dead-end. It wasn't a prerequisite for anything and it was perceived as being a frilly "not really math" elective. I took number theory and I'm really really glad I did (even though I struggled through first-year calc later on).
We also didn't have personal finance classes.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I also learned that one thing that I probably shouldn't bring up here but I will anyway. I learned why
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Among people I've met my school was one of the few that offered it. I'm amazed at the number of people I've met who never learned to reconcile a checkbook or to understand how loan payments work. I don't expect people to whip up their own amortization tables (though writing that program was a fun one in first-year C programming) but they should know how to read it and what it means.
My school had 2 tracks and it was roughly similar except that Trig was absent and probability and stats were in its place.
Prob and Stats was a one-term elective in my school. I really think it should have been required. It was the class with the most real world examples and most everyday-useful material in it. Also, more people need to understand sets so that we all understand the Monty Hall problem. Prob and Stats would have fixed that, people!
My high school had five different math tracks: three with three years "integrated math" ending in "topics in precalculus," "pre-calculus," and "Introduction to Calculus (or AB calc if you get good grades and take a short summer course)," a SIMMS track ending in SIMMS pre-calc, and an extra advanced track with two years integrated followed by trig&precalc and a choice between AB and BC calc. The only problem in the whole system was that you had to take the advanced math courses in middle school to enter the highest track.
So Gary hase 64 coins in a line on his desk(Sue can't see them), Sue needs to figure out the order they are in. Every time Sue asks a complete sequence of 64 coins, Gary will check Sue's guess against the coins and give an answer(Yes/No). Is there anyway for Sue's job to be done in approximately the same amount of time Gary does his job in. Show your work.
Yeah, how about you do bring a pad and pencil to the grocery store! Maybe you actually brush up in your algebra and geometry so you can teach it more effectively! Hey, how bout you even peek at more structured curricula for some extra guidance and ideas! If your hold asks a question you don't know the answer to, could you be so radical as to either tell them you'll find out, or more shockingly even show them how and have them help you do it?!
By the time hey get into things like calculus you probably would need the help of some textbooks, but does this really seem like the type of program that appeals to people so narrow-minded that that would be a problem?
As for the gender thing, it doesn't seem like a great idea. It seems like they're presenting "girl" things and "boy" things and saying, "You can be either!" rather than presenting "things" and saying, "Some people only think boys or grips should do these things, but it's best to do the things you like!" obviously they aren't likely to restrict to only one gender, but still not my favorite approach.
edit: how obvious is it I'm poring from a smartphone? :-P
--LeVar Burton
I don't think I really understand the problem here. Can you either restate it or spoiler the answer? Because at first blush Gary's job is always faster (simple checking) unless Sue is just blindly guessing instead of formulating a strategy.
Math, English and Dutch were the three subjects everyone in our highschool had to take for 6 years. And everyone had to do at least some calculus and trig. (after 4 years you could choose between taking more probability and statistics or that plus extra calculus)
Of course that wouldn't work in US highschool
My mom used to use a version of the name with a "c" instead of a "k" as the password to the family computer. Luckily, my great uncle was in show business, so google will give me the correct spelling.
The answer's quite simple:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If I could prove the answer, I'd be rich and famous. Thats P v NP. The biggest unanswered question in comp sci, a proof is worth $1,000,000 bucks(literally).
Much like teaching science, I like the idea of teaching mathematics because children should have the benefit building their own knowledge base on the foundation of thinkers who came before. I can eschew pedantically informing my children about things like Newtonian physics and instead give them some ropes and pulleys in the hopes that they'll figure it out themselves, but that's almost literally asking them to reinvent the wheel.
The issue with whether or not math should be formally taught is compounded by the fact that mathematical expression is actually a language which has rules that everyone is supposed to know but which we aren't going to learn from daily exposure the same way we learn our native tongues. If you aren't taught the rules to the language everyone else is using, you're never going to understand why 10 - 4 * 2 = 2 and not 12.
Maybe I am narrow-minded and dumb, but we wouldn't put teachers through so much schooling and accredidation if it was as easy as "brush up on your geometry and bring a pad of paper with me to the store." I'll do all of those things anyways and try to find opportunities to learn at home, but I'll do those things as a supplement to a more structured education.
That's because being a school-teacher isn't that easy. But you're not trying to teach a group of 30 unknown kids something while having a bunch of other responsibilities towards them.
Well, literally every teacher I've ever known has bitched about accreditation procedures being a waste of time. My best math teacher in high school was an ex-engineer who quit when they forced him to go to math classes because he didn't have a math degree.
Meanwhile, my father taught community college for 30 years with his comp sci knowledge gained entirely on the fly in the space program.
Student directed learning models like Montessori aren't the standard within the US public education system, but they're also not 'fuck it, let the kid do whatever he wants and maybe he'll learn something I guess'. And as a corollary I think he's implying that given that a big part of the problem with the US ed system is that kids aren't engaged in it and don't find it useful, dismissing "Maybe we should let the kids learn more about what excites them" as a crazy proposition may be counterproductive.
Granted, unschooling seems a lot less structured than Montessori, but I'm not very familiar with it so I can't say much there.
I don't think people are saying it's not possible. (Well, maybe some are.) I'm sure it works for some parents and kids. However, I'm willing to say that I don't think that it will go better than average if applied over a large group.
Given how poorly prepared large numbers of kids are for regular school, I'm highly skeptical that they'll do better with their educations solely in the hands of the parents who have already failed at doing their part in the task.
I mean, I could explain (given enough time and a large enough white board) almost anything to a child, starting from first principles. But they aren't going to retain it. If I explain why the X in 2x + 7 = 17 has to be the number 5 I'm sure they'll understand it, but if I then ask them a couple of days later what the y in 3y - 4 = 5 is I expect I'd get a blank look. Or, to get away from math, if I tell them what nouns and adjectives and verbs and tenses and predicates and adverbs and clauses and phrases are and then explain what all of the grammatical constructs in the sentence "Edgar went to the store with Laurance, both two months ago and today, to buy several items: a cup, a pen, five baloons, and two strings." then it shouldn't really be a problem for them to follow along. But if they don't diagram sentences for a while then when I ask them to do it somewhere down the line, are they going to be able to?
Learning by doing is fine for manual skills, and just reading and discussing is probably sufficient for history/cultural studies or literature, and I'm sure you could teach a kid to speak a language via some form of immersion, but there are a lot of bits of knowledge that you just have to memorize, and memorization takes repetition. And - particularly in math or the sciences - more advanced concepts highly benefit from the intuitive grasp of more basic concepts that you will have gained by repeating them so many times.
I'm not sure how you could get that without something at least basically akin to a traditional curriculum. You could maybe skew the curriculum or change the way you teach things based on what the kid is interested in, but if it's just "teach children based on what they feel like doing at the time" then I feel like they're going to end up lacking.
Merge Gary and Sue's mind into one hive mind. When one knows something, the other immediately knows it, too.
Million dollars, please!
"Sex is just the physical parts, gender isnt."
What about the hormones our physical parts produce that affect our behavior? Increased Testosterone during puberty is what makes men larger and more aggresive... not gender roles.
All im saying is I don't buy that gender is purely a societal construct... gender roles do have some correlation with the physiological differences between males and females.
Edit: if this has been covered already I apologize.
Social constructs have more of an influence over long term sustained behavior than hormones.
Young girls, when rambunctious, are told more often than young boys to behave and be more "lady like." Young boys, well, you've heard the phrase, "boys will be boys."
The same thing extends to sexual behavior, where it's more acceptable for a male to be sexually promiscuous, and not so much for a female.
Same thing goes for aggression.
The way you're raised will always have more of an affect than your biology. Biology will lean you in a particular direction, but is rarely a determinant. I'd place my bet on a stable household as to whether someone with an "alcoholic gene" is going to become an alcoholic.
Sex is what you physically are. Gender is the "idea" of what you are supposed to be behaviorally.
Fix't for the times.
My wife's practice is in child development, and she has a lot of positive things to say about Montessori. Contrary to the perception that it's structureless, Maria Montessori had a very precisely defined structure for how she believed education should ideally work. In practice, the quality tends to vary pretty widely between individual schools teachers within a school, but that's true of all schools. Generally, students who have attended at least two Montessori schools and studied with at least three different Montessori-trained teachers will perform statistically better on standardized tests than students who only attended one school or studied with fewer teachers. The more ways a child is exposed to problem solving, the better he becomes at it. An extension of this is that there's some evidence that in Montessori schools, you can not only run into problems where class sizes are too big but also where they're too small.
She also has some positive things to say about homeschooling. A homeschooled student's performance on standardized tests tends to be higher than students from similar households (in terms of income level and parental education level) who attend public schools. That's not necessarily saying a lot, I don't think, because even in homeschooling you can see that the single greatest determining factor on the quality of the education your kids will receive is the zip code in which you live. But by necessity homeschoolers have a lot of parental involvement in their education, which is not necessarily true of every kid sent through a public school.
The thing is that while Montessori and homeschooling generally have been widely studied, there's a dearth of peer-reviewed, scientific studies on unschooling and absolutely no proof that it works. My wife says she's never seen anything to support it, and I just spent half an hour looking for any study of any type on non-schooling on the Department of Education's ERIC library and came up with a giant goose egg.
But I guess if you're trying to screw your kid up by keeping their gender a secret, you'll probably screw him up in homeschooling anyhow so it's a moot point.
"But mom I don't want to file any more reports!" :x
Traditional schooling is more convenient for households were both parents work, otherwise you'd have "take your children to work day" on the daily! The Montessori schools sound interesting though. I'd heard of them before, but had not seriously looked into them.
But there are some good reasons to believe that the underlying effects of hormones and their long term effects on the brain are powerful in subtle ways we do not realise.
A counterpoint to your claims is that of abstinence only education and the kinds of social groups and social pressures which are operant on people in the communities that wholly embrace these ideas.
But when the rubber hits the road here, it's most definitely biology that wins out over community. The social constructs are not hugely powerful at all - in fact, they are worse than useless. First time sexual experience in these communities tends to be almost a year earlier than their peers from a more liberal community.
I suspect that the answer is more complicated than the radical progressives would have it.
For a homeschool or unschool I think the only way to get around that is to obtain a GED or equivalent, which will most likely end in one of a handful of situations:
the unschooling worked optimally and getting the GED is a breeze
the unschooling worked optimally, but having never been exposed to the way public school expresses the problems in the accredited exams the kid has no idea how to even express his/her knowledge in the answer box.
the unschooling worked sub-optimally and the kid has issues answering some key aspect of the exam where the unschooling may have overlooked.
the unschooling worked sub-optimally and the kid has to Billy Madison their way through the public schooling system to catch up on their education.
With that said, I actually like the idea of an optimized Montessori or unschooling because I like the idea of having a generation or two of super-specialist workforce who are leagues ahead (in their respective fields) of where they would have been sticking with the standard K-12 system. Unfortunately, one of the more important lessons I learned from my BCS was to never rely on the best case scenario and to bechmark on the worst case.
I imagine the true optimal education system would be one wherein the generally agreed upon basic knowledge requirements of the current public school system (math, language, science, etc) are taught in the traditional way but are supplemented with exploration based on the student's interests, with some sort of retrospective at regular intervals which ultimately selects what kind of specialization track to send them on.
as far as the actual topic, I think there's an aspect of risk mitigation that the parents seem to be sorely lacking on. While there's a good chance the kids will turn out to be great people with good heads on their shoulders who are incredibly comfortable with themselves and tolerant of other people, there's likely a better chance that they're applying far too much pressure on their kids who will quite likely begin to question "Why me? Why do I have to be different? What did I do to deserve opposition at every corner? I just want to be a normal kid like everyone else." Which is remarkably similar to the problem the parents are probably trying to avoid. That problem being the identity-questioning a "normal" kid might have if they were raised with the "wrong" gender-identity all along.
To use the least offensive comparison I can think about, there's a character in a fantasy series I read when I was a kid who was half-elf and at first he was all "hey cool, I've got something in common with everyone!" until he realized the truth that he was simply ostracized by the humans because of his elf blood, and ostracized by the elves for his human blood, and unliked and mistrusted by everyone. I don't know why a parent would actively try to force that kind of unnecessary turmoil on their kid if at best it all comes out in the wash anyway, or at worst simply adds to the already long list of issues every teen has to go through.
edit: and just to be clear, I used "normal" and "wrong" above not to make associations with the connotations they might imply, but simply for lack of an easy way to describe the average person.
Maybe when I've got time I'll start up an actually thread for this spinoff.
I imagine the people choosing unschooling over Montessori are doing so due to unavailability of Montessori programs in their area. There's not a school in my city that offers the program. I know if I were trying alternative teaching theories for my hypothetical children, even though I'm admittedly a I-think-I-know-best type person I'd want a professional instructor who can be held accountable for their teaching methods, and unschooling cannot possibly offer that kind of guarantee, which is why the red flag was immediately raised in my DANGER cortex.