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| Wednesday, November 29, 2006 |
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More thoughs on home schooling 
| | The concluding paragraph of the article concedes that unschooled children don¹t learn everything, that "there are definite gaps" in [one] unschooled student¹s education. Are we then to understand that at PS 666, all students do indeed "know everything," and find no "gaps" in institutionally-schooled children¹s educations? If the school systems have improved that much since I graduated from high school, I¹m at a loss to explain why I hear so much about our troubled school systems. |
| | Here¹s the real story: it¹s possible for unschooled kids to emerge from their childhood poorly-prepared for further academic life, and it¹s possible for institutionally-schooled kids to emerge from their childhood poorly-prepared for subsequent endeavors. On balance, does unschooling offer a better prospect than institutional schooling? Whom would we ask to discern? |
| | I've never met a home schooled kid who was not independent, wise beyond their years and an academic achiever. Of course the sum of everybody else I know includes lots of people who earn that same description. |
| | Most of America's founding fathers were home schooled. They had to be, since compulsory public education didn't come along for another generation or two; and private education was mostly conducted at home. Abraham Lincoln was home-schooled in the literal sense, and almost entirely self-educated. Consider the result. |
| | My favorite case for home schooling is one I reported here in May of last year: |
| | A friend of mine, a Ph.D. with specialties in psychology and statistics, once sat on a plane next to an older woman who had achieved a great deal — and spoke proudly of her five grown children, who were all achievers on their own, holding advanced degrees and honored positions in their professions. The woman credited their success to home schooling. |
| | My friend challenged her on that, saying that heredity must also have something to do with their success. "Yes," the woman replied. "It would if they hadn't all been adopted." |
| | Finally, there is AKMA's own disclosure: |
| | Our unschooled eldest son is beginning doctoral work at the University of Michigan with a Regents¹ Fellowship. Our unschooled second son is a sophomore at Marlboro College, doing OK last I checked. Our unschooled daughter has not ventured into the world of quantified educational evaluation. |
| | (And for anybody who thinks my own achievements might derive from formal education, correction is provided in Getting Flat, Part 2.) |
Audio over ethernet?
VRM for magazines
| | Jeff Jarvis: ...even when I do still read the magazine in print, I want a relationship with the magazine — and, more important, my fellow readers — online. Tag: vrm |
Looking for an answer that will help podcasters everywhere
New(s) approaches
| | I was explaining news and newspapers to the kid the other day (he's 10, and an observer of his parents 3-paper-a-day habit), when it occurred to me that two subjects may be linked: news and schools. |
| | Newspapers are in trouble, but they aren't going away. (Yes, they'll change radically, and shrink and get lean and get Net-savvy, etc. But they'll be around for decades to come.) Schools are in trouble, too, and aren't going away, either. |
| | So this morning I found my way to this piece in the NYTimes about "unschooling", or home schooling, which is how many families deal with our flawed and increasingly anachronistic school systems (private as well as public). And, one tab over in the browser here, I found myself catching up with Spot-on, Chris Nolan's syndicated journalism business, which is helping the flawed and increasingly anachonistic newspaper business from the inside. |
| | Made me think about what's dead and what's not dead, what we help from the inside and what we build as alternatives on the outside. |
| | Most of the fun, and the box office, goes to the disruptors, the guys and gals doing the New Thing. But much of the important work goes on inside the old institutions that really aren't dead but in serious need of re-animation. |
| | In fact, re-animation is what countless good teachers and families and administrators are trying to do in countless school systems (private as well as public). |
| | While re-animation is also being done in radio (commercial as well as public), in TV, in newspapers, in political parties, even in government bureaucracies. A lot of that work is far less thankful than the work being done outside. But it's no less important. |
Pro gnostications
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