Ben Draper from the Homeschool Macomber Center Writes About Freedom, Boredom and Happiness in Education

Tweet

The Macomber Center is a home education resource center in Framingham, MA, for families interested in giving their children an opportunity to come together to socialize and learn. The Center follows a pedagogical model of free, democratic education, where children are natural learners and guide their own education. The values of responsibility, freedom and respect are at the core of this group. Visit the Macomber Center's website. You can find the original writings here and here.

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence” – Aristotle

When I speak with other people who share the unique experience of having gone to a democratic free school, what we end up talking about is not how it prepared us for success in adulthood – we take that as a given – but how grateful we are to have had such an idyllic, happy childhood; that we were free to spend every day doing just what we wanted.  

People in the worlds of unschooling and progressive education spend a great deal of time arguing that these alternatives do an even better job preparing children for success than traditional education.  This has, of course, been necessary in order to legitimize these alternative movements within the mainstream.  But it leaves intact the basic assumption that childhood is merely a means to an end, that the purpose of childhood is to prepare for adulthood.  But childhood, just like all of life, is to be lived fully and enjoyed.

Why Unschooling Isn’t Uneducation

Tweet

Excellent article written by Misha at Simplicimom. "Simplicimom is an online magazine for any mom looking to make life a little simpler and a lot more fun. Being a mom can be hard, but it doesn't have to be." Visit Simplicimom or see the original article.

I think a lot of people get confused. I think a lot of people think that because my – or other people’s children – are unschooled it means that they aren’t educated. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because we don’t follow a set curriculum and do A,B,C,D before a child reaches a certain age, doesn’t mean they aren’t learning. They are learning all of the time. What’s great about it is that I’m not constantly “on them” to do this, that or the other thing.

I was worried for years that Liam couldn’t do his multiplication tables. He still can’t just reel them off to you like I learned how to in school. This infuriated me. We sat for hours with work books and flash cards. I even sent him to school half days so he could take advantage of a special education math program (he is slightly autistic). They couldn’t teach him his times tables either. I’ve done all kinds of programs – visual, auditory, picture-based. But if you ask Liam right now, what’s 4 times 3 – he won’t be able to tell you.

How I Would Unschool My Kids

Tweet

James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, author and blogger. He maintains a blog at JamesAltucher.com where he discusses his experiences as an entrepreneur and his theories for success and happiness. He is an advocate of the idea that one shouldn't send one's kids to college and that one should never own a home. You can find this original writing at his website here.

My dad hit me when I got bad grades. Particularly when I was young and got a bad grade in “Conduct”. Happiness was an “A”. Even better: an “A+”. Sadness was an “F”. It was almost like a joke. Like the only way to get an “F” is if you tried to screw up almost as much as you tried to get an “A”.

But in twelve years of basic schooling I can’t’ remember anyone asking where the “E” was. It goes A, B, C, D (which was really horrible to get a D. It means you were trying somewhat (so as to avoid the “F”) but you were just plain stupid and got a D. Not even a C.) and then, the magic “F”. Which was more than just a letter but a one-letter acronym. None of the other letters stood for anything. They were just letters. They could’ve been replaced by numbers (Claudia tells me in Argentina they were graded by numbers from one to ten. No letters). It’s not like “A” stood for Amazing. Or “B” Boring. “C” Crazy. “D” Dumb. You could’ve just replaced them by 1, 2, 3, 4. Or a “1+”. But F was irreplaceable.

The Beginner’s Guide to Unschooling

Tweet

Leo Babauta is the creator of zenhabits. He is a writer of numerous books, is a vegan and an unschooling dad.

There’s nothing I get asked about more as a parent than unschooling, and nothing I recommend more to other parents.

It’s an educational philosophy that provides for more freedom than any other learning method, and prepares kids for an uncertain and rapidly changing future better than anything else I know. My wife and I unschool four of our kids, and have been for several years.

And yet, as powerful as I believe unschooling to be, I’ve never written about it, because the truth is, I certainly don’t have all the answers. No one does.

The beauty of unschooling is in the search for the answers. If anyone had all the answers, there would be no search. And so what I’d love to teach unschooling parents and kids is that the search is the joy of it all.

Ban guns? Maybe we should also ban school!

Tweet

Roger Schank is an American artificial intelligence theorist, cognitive psychologist, learning scientist, educational reformer, and entrepreneur. He has worked at faculty positions at Stanford University and Yale University. He is the author of, Coloring Outside the Lines, and his website is here. This post was written December 16, 2012. The original can be found here.

In the wake of the recent school shooting, I can add my voice to the millions who think that easy ownership of hand guns and assault weapons is absurd, but there is another point to be made. Can’t we at least start to debate whether having schools is such a good idea? 

Below are some of the questions typed into google in the last week that landed the searcher on one of my outrage columns. They paint a picture in the aggregate of students who are very unhappy in school.  Were these searches made by just some odd kids? Or is it possible that most children find school difficult, threatening, and uncomfortable?