[LyndsySimon]

I'm a father of two girls, ages four and nine.

Explaining things to them and seeing the dawn of understanding in their eyes in easily my greatest joy in life. As a parent, I basically get to relive this xkcd[0], over and over, every day.

We take it to an extreme - we unschool[1]. We do our best to treat our daughters as any other member of the family, expecting to act as adults to the extent that they're able to do so. My nine-year-old spends much of her days right now playing Roblox and Star Stable, but even that is punctuated by her coming to us with random questions about things she's interested in. If I'm not head-down on a project I take the time to explain as best I can. If I'm otherwise occupied I always at least take the time to say "Go search for <insert keywords>" and follow up with once I'm free.

The results have, so far, been incredible. Our oldest was a late reader by the standards of the testing done in government schools, but once she ran into something she wanted to do that could only be accomplished by reading, she achieved fluency more quickly than I would have ever expected. For what it's worth, that "something" was an online RPG where she had to do quests to progress. In order to do that, she had to be able to read the quest text.

These days she's engrossed in the "Pegasus" series by Kate O'Hearn, and devouring them at a rate of ~1k pages per week. She'll have finished the series by the end of this week and I'm hoping she'll pick up Asimov's "Norby" series next. If not, she'll find something else that interests her and continue reading well into the wee hours of the morning I'm sure.

0: https://www.xkcd.com/1053/ 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling

[azinman2]

My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it.

It’d be nice if traditional school had a better balance where personal interests could be explored in a structured and formally accepted way.

[fao_]

> My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it.

In my experience as an unschooled child who was in constant contact with the parents of other unschooled children, and other unschooled children, if a child isn't interested in something, that almost always changes over time. One example was where one kid did not wish to learn to read, until about the age of seven where he taught himself to read, without much struggle (and without parental intervention -- the parent found out about it because the kid kept the books under his pillow!), simply because he found a topic he was so interested in that he wanted to learn more about it.

I also know someone else who did not learn to read until the age of 6 or 7, after which he rapidly caught up, and at the age of 9 or 10 he sped through all three of the Lord of the Rings series, and was an avid reader. These are only two examples of something that was typical within unschooling circles.

One fundamental idea behind unschooling is that children develop at different rates, and thus in some cases, trying to force them to learn something before they are ready to learn can actually cause damage -- in a lot of cases this damage isn't visible, but that doesn't mean that it isn't there. I experienced this first hand, with a primary school maths teacher. This mathematics teacher misexplained things, and would constantly pile on the stress. It took me 6 years of unschooling to de-stress enough with regards to mathematics enough to simply add up efficiently (it felt like punching through a mental brick wall, I was completely unable to manipulate the numbers, despite being able to see them). Now at the age of 20 I am still filling in gaps in my mathematics education, through the right aids.

Something I would add is that most people learn the skills that are required for them in day-to-day life, so even if a child is not interested in mathematics, they tend to learn the basics just by helping out their parents with shopping. The most important thing that a child needs in their life is the willingness to learn, which is a skill that school rips out of our children.

[Ambroos]

This sounds great! I remember teaching myself to read before I was supposed to (very standard Belgian education), and probably as a result I was from that point on always ahead of my classmates simply because I'm very curious. I tended to read ahead for subjects that interested me, and not really bother for those that didn't. Teachers were sometimes annoyed because they really didn't understand why I could do insanely well for some subjects (or even some parts of some subjects) and do absolutely horrible for others, with no reasonable explanation for it. Especially as soon as I discovered computers and the internet, things changed rapidly as I was learning how to do things (and even program some PHP and create websites with Dreamweaver). You could basically say I unschooled myself almost right up until I finished our equivalent of high school (at 18).

And then I was royally screwed. I always had enough grades for teachers to pass me on almost all subjects, but in my last year of high school I was really stressed out about what I wanted to do at university, and stopped making an effort for a lot of subjects at high school that were suddenly going at a pace I couldn't follow in "zero interest mode". It took me two years and a detour via a central government exam to get my degree.

Then I was screwed again in my final year of university college (software development). While I did great in the actual software development courses, I couldn't get myself focused on subjects I didn't care about (because I never had to, so I had absolutely no study methods for things that don't interest me). So of course after three years when I should've had my degree, I had nothing. Even though I had been to all classes and seen everything, on some subjects I just didn't pass because they didn't interest me at all.

So I just quit and started working, which was absolutely fine. I found enough at work that interested me and I became a pretty decent developer in no time. 26 now and I'm still coding cool stuff, so I'd say it ended well.

Based on how my education went I'd say unschooling would've been a great fit, but I really wonder if an unschooled kid would be more or less likely to encounter the same problems I have. While for programming you can easily get your professional life going without a sign of a degree, for many fields that's not a possibility and you will have to study (a lot). If you've never _really_ had to just process and memorize things that don't interest you, that might get really hard. I fear that being unschooled might be great at the start, but there's a point where (for most fields) you have no choice besides going into a classic education system, and you'd be less prepared than other students...

[wellboy]

Would you say that not getting the degree was justified, since getting a degree is 50% the display of having the intellect to the subject and 50% the display of having the diligence, persistence and discipline to finish something, which is one of the most important traits in the professional world.

Not trying to be snarky, but genuinely interested.

Did the "inability" to focus on things you're not interested in impede you later in life, e.g. with taxes, social life, exercise etc?

[Ambroos]

Absolutely, not getting the degree was justified. I also believe that in some fields (software development) a degree isn't really necessary, and I'm glad most employers see the value in experience and willingness to learn.

Taxes and administration: not that complex in Belgium so I can't say much about that, but I value correctness a lot and that makes my administration easy to do (I never ever postpone doing my taxes, paying bills, ...). I usually find a way to make things interesting too, by keeping my administration as digital as I can. I'm always an early adopter.

Exercise: I struggle with this. Once I get going it usually goes quite well (but always have to combine it with something that does interest me, for example running with "Zombies, Run!", a sort of interactive audiobook/running trainer combination), but tend to stop completely if I hit roadblocks.

Social life: maybe. I have a great core group of friends that I've known since high school but that's about it, and I am not great at forming deep bonds. I have some work friends, but not at the level that I'd invite them over for dinner on a random week night. It's not at all at a problematic level though. I don't really know. I tend to be extremely honest and open about basically everything, and that scares / freaks out a lot of people, so it's not easy to make new good friends.

If you want to chat more, feel free to message me on whatever messaging platform you like. My username is always Ambroos or AmbroosV.

[nicoburns]

7 isn't really that late for reading. Lot's of well respected schoolin systems don't even attempt to teach reading until 7.

[fao_]

> 7 isn't really that late for reading. Lot's of well respected schoolin systems don't even attempt to teach reading until 7.

This is very interesting to me. I come from the UK, and the government's attitude to education is contrary to all of the pilot schemes, studies, and research I've seen. Namely they seem to have warmed their heads with the idea that the only way to advance learning is to put the student into the education system earlier and earlier. Rather than waiting until later (when they are ready), and improving material concerns so that good nutritional health from birth onwards is available to everyone.

[LyndsySimon]

> My problem is unschooling is that just because you’re not interested in something (as a kid) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t learn it.

I was initially concerned about this as well, but my experience so far is that it's not really an issue. We test regularly, both formally and informally, which I feel is very important so my wife and I have a good understanding of where she is relative to her peers. With the exception of the "sight words" portion of language testing in K-3, she has continues to be far ahead of them.

"Child-directed" doesn't mean "no parental involvement". Where a traditional school manages the things that she would be taught, we manage the things that she's interested in. We take care to do things as a family that expose her to skills that we think she needs to know.

If that sounds time-intensive... well, it is. My wife doesn't work outside the home and I work remotely. It's substantially less time-intensive than building a traditional curriculum and teaching it daily, though.

[owenversteeg]

Huh, that's the first time I've heard of unschooling, it seems like a really cool concept. If you don't mind me asking, where do you live and what are the laws like around unschooling there? How are people's reactions?

[LyndsySimon]

We're in Arkansas now, having moved from Virginia at the end of last year.

Virginia requires a Notice of Intent to be filed with the local school district and periodic standardized testing - there are some way around each of these things, but that's the course that the vast majority of homeschoolers take. It's annoying but not onerous.

Arkansas basically requires nothing at all.