It is scary, though searches of students are subject to a more lenient standard than normal due to issues over school safety. School search and seizure cases make for some interesting reading.

Yes, such as law schools. The problem with those types of debts, incurred in education that won't pan out for many, is that the debt may be forgiven through Income Based Repayment or other programs, though it's not so easily dischargeable in bankruptcy as many other types of debt. I see the problem as stemming from unrealistic educational expectations in general, as well as hyped or outright fraudulent claims or omissions by some schools. I think a lot of this is due to lack of transparency in some key areas, same as the subprime mess, though of course also vastly different in the details. Kids heading off to college or grad school don't have the ability to accurately assess how much their degree will actually be worth, partly due to the shaky economy making predictions of employability guesswork, and partly due to lack of information. That means that market forces don't work well any more to influence education choices; someone can do her best to pick a profession, then can go into a years-long course of study and come out the other side with nothing. For a long time it's been the norm to rack up big debt to get a professional degree. It's risky now in a way it's never been before to go into those fields, but I wouldn't say that it's just the debtors' problem, any more than I'd blame someone who finances a car and signs a lease, then loses his job.

"Nurture Shock" is written by journalists, not child psychologists, but it summarizes some psychological research. OP, you might want to go straight to some material by research psychologist Carol Dweck herself ("Mindset: The New Psychology of Success") to get her ideas straight from the horse's mouth. I made a page here some time ago, with links to resources, summarizing what some gifted experts have recommended as measures to counteract perfectionism: Give permission to make mistakes. (McIntyre, 1989) Use ungraded assignments calling for creative, individual work rather than right/wrong answers. (McIntyre, 1989) Limit time that can be spent on an assignment, or number of corrections allowed. (McIntyre, 1989) Explain that schools are places to learn, not just demonstrate achievement. (Brophy) Explain that errors are normal, expected, and necessary aspects of learning (Brophy) Explain that everyone makes mistakes, including teachers and parents. (Brophy) Teach a child to measure achievement by progress over the past, rather than comparisons with peers or ideals of perfection. (Brophy) Create an environment of acceptance. (Greenspon) Talk about your expectations as a parent, and that you love your child for who she is, not because she meets expectations. Avoid putting pressure on a child to be perfect, including with oral tone and body language. (Hately) Don't add to the pressure with extra work or scheduling constraints. (Roedell) For example, don't overschedule a child with lessons and activities, leaving no time for free play. Don't pile on extra academic work to help a child reach her potential. Do not lower (realistic, achievable) standards of performance. (Hately) Make a child aware of mistakes a parent has made. (Hately, Rimm) Model lessons learned, and try to laugh at one's own mistakes. (Rimm) Help children understand that they can be satisfied when they've done their best. (Rimm) Use praise which is enthusiastic but moderate, thus conveying values that children can achieve. (Rimm) Use "excellent" rather than "perfect", "You're a good thinker" or "You do very well when you try" instead of "You're brilliant", etc. Explain that a child may not be learning if all of her work is perfect, and that making mistakes is an important aspect of challenge. (Rimm) Teach appropriate, constructive criticism skills, for a child to use with herself and others. (Rimm) Help a child learn to take constructive criticism. Read biographies of successful people who surmounted failures. (Rimm) Teach a child that routines and habits should not be so rigid as to be immutable. Model flexibility by purposefully breaking routines every so often. (Rimm) Explain that there is very often more than one way to succeed. (Rimm) Divide projects into beginning, intermediate and final draft stages, with perfection promoted only for the final draft. (McIntyre, 1989) For example, designing a product prototype will entail multiple stages of mockups, etc. that are not expected to be perfect, while still tending towards improvement of the final product (a.k.a. good perfectionism). Avoid modeling perfectionistic tendencies for a child. (Rimm) Avoid being self-critical. Make attempts to fail in minor ways in front of a child, and act like it is no cause for alarm but rather to try harder or fail constructively. Take open pride in the quality of your work, and the fact that you've done your best. Encourage a child to take risks, and find activities with safe opportunities for minor failure. (Hately) Find activities, such as sports, that a child is not inherently good at and has to work to master. Help a child set realistic goals. (Pyryt) Help a child to concentrate on those tasks that require extra effort and/or are high value. (Pyryt) This might include teaching a child that 80% of a reward often comes from 20% of the total effort. Help a child develop a capacity for constructive failure. (Pyryt) Any present imperfection should be seen as allowing for future improvement. Teach a child to know when to quit. (Pyryt) This is especially important with increasing amounts of information available for research online. Encourage a child to separate their own self-worth from their work. (Pyryt) Help a child realize that the commitment to excellence is a lifelong struggle, and the present circumstances are a step towards the future. (Pyryt) Remind a child that a grade only indicates the perceived value of an assignment from one teacher's perspective, matched against a particular rubric. (Pyryt) Discuss observations of a child's perfectionistic tendencies with educators and other care-givers. (Pyryt) Get professional help from a counselor or psychologist, if perfectionism is leading to other problems (OCD, panic attacks, eating disorders, depression, etc.). (Pyryt) Find a child activities that bring joy, independent of any success / failure metrics. (Pyryt)

We used Mind Benders and two Building Thinking Skills books (red and blue).

I apologize, and will bow out of further discussions in this thread but will continue to read with interest. Sometimes I get a bit of tunnel vision, and I can be excessively insistent on fairness. Sorry. :blushing:

It's not about buying into my definition; it's about accepting the standard definition without trying to skew things. Either play is play, and children learn some things, especially early on in their development, through play; or play is any enjoyment, when it makes more sense to simply say that learning goes well when it's enjoyable. Structured learning can be quite enjoyable even when it's not play; splitting nonexistent hairs helps no one, and clouds the discussion. You'd present your position in a much more straightforward fashion if you simply stated that an aim of unschooling is to make learning enjoyable. There's no need to confuse the matter with talk of play, in clearly inappropriate contexts. When someone exposes the inaccuracy, don't try to claim that enjoying a study of higher math turns it into play; just say that what you mean is that enjoying your study is a good thing. In part this is a plea for some unschooling advocates here to stop trying to come off as wiser than they are and stop presenting unschooling as having empirical support it lacks, and to simply discuss things in a down-to-earth and honest way. Oh yes they are. I recall someone in this thread stating for instance that children learn through play and that she "knows no other way". ETA: Ah, here we are, an unschooling advocate speaking in absolutes, asserting that unschooling is the natural way to learn, asserting hard facts without support, using rhetorical flourishes, and suggesting that her way is the only good way: I disagree strongly, just as I object to stating opinions in support of unschooling as fact without providing any support. One thing that has always struck me about unschooling advocates is that they have a hard time admitting that unschooling has any weaknesses at all. Children don't always turn out well-rounded? Well, when they get to college they will be able to fill in any holes as necessary; there is no value to a strong academic foundation that traditionally takes years to accomplish, or it is providable magically within a very short time on demand due to the intense drive of the unschooled. If that fails? Well, that person who failed out of college was just meant to be a handyman, or a garbageperson, or two-bit artist, and their true path just never included academics, as proven by their path. And so it goes; in addition a persistent thread is indeed that ALL people are naturally their own best teachers, even in childhood. It's specific to an educational context. No more of the sophistry and apologetics, please-- just accept that the previously presented cherry-picked entry had the key part left out for a reason. We can have an honest discussion, or we can go round and round on this, with me pointing out the truth and you trying to redefine the English language. It's simpler not to redefine the English language, and to just discuss things truthfully.

"Monkey platters" can be filled with healthy foods, but of course many unschoolers also let their children eat whatever they like, including junk foods. Here's a search on "monkey platter" and "junk food". One of my faves: :drool5::drool5::drool5: :nopity:

You just have to go by the dictionary definitions, and it can help to use a bit of common sense. Person A goes to a cubicle and does his drudgery-filled job each day. He does it for the money. Even an unschooler would not claim this was "play". Person B goes to a cubicle next to person A and does the same sort of job. However, Person B enjoys the work. When asked "Where do you work?", Person B is able to correctly identify his place of employment; he is not struck dumb by confusion over the dictionary definitions of "play", "enjoyment", "recreation", "work", etc. When asked, "What are you playing at, there?", he might even proudly retort that he does a good job, even though he enjoys it. Does Person B do the job just for the enjoyment, making it "recreation"? Of course not. He mainly does it because he gets paid; and even though he also enjoys having money, the fruits of his labor, that doesn't magically transform the labor into "play". Person B is so infectious in describing the merits of the job each day that eventually he wins Person A over. Person A thereafter goes to work with a song in his heart; though he now is convinced that he enjoys every second, he performs the exact same set of physical actions that he did previously. Though he enjoys his work, he is doing it for the rewards that come from work, not primarily as recreation. Like Person B, at no point is Person A struck dumb and unable to answer when someone asks where he works. When asked if his job is play, if he is honest, he replies that he works, though he enjoys his work. We can twist words all day long, but it doesn't get us anywhere valuable. In this specific discussion context, an unschooler making an assertion that children learn (or learn best) through play is basing it on information from John Holt etc., who by no miracle based their ideas on early childhoold free play-- doing the sorts of activities people mean when they use the word "play", not a twisted version that's presented here in this thread. Don't argue with me; argue with the words of John Holt if you must. The response is as stated: of course children can learn through play, but play is not necessary in order to learn and certainly not the way people normally learn advanced academic subjects such as higher math. Engaging in sophistry about people enjoying their studies, playing with (i.e. manipulating) models, etc. merely clouds the discussion. People learn best when they are focused appropriately on learning, and enjoying the process of learning is one way to achieve high motivation, but that doesn't mean all enjoyable learning is play.

Here are a couple of other definitions for anyone still confused about the meanings of these basic terms: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/play http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/recreation

Why don't you get it? I'm just sticking to the dictionary definition, instead of redefining "play" to mean "anything that's enjoyed". If you're going to cherry-pick a definition from the Collins English Dictionary, certainly not the last word on the definition of anything, you've got to include the whole definition to be honest: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/recreation "recreation [ˌrɛkrɪˈeɪʃən]n1. refreshment of health or spirits by relaxation and enjoyment 2. an activity or pastime that promotes this 3. (Social Science / Education)a. an interval of free time between school lessons b. (as modifier) recreation period Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003" It's quite simple. Rigorous study, even when enjoyable, is not play just because it's enjoyed; otherwise the word "play" loses its meaning. Nobody who enjoys their job tells their friends, except perhaps in a joking way, that they're off to play. Why do you think that is? Because "work" has a certain meaning in a particular context, for which it is a label; other words have different meanings, for which they are labels for thos other meanings. You can disagree, but you can't disagree and be right. Developing strong math ability, in the opinion of actual experts on the subject, is done by long preparation in laying a foundation based on years of study, not a bare-bones attempt to scrape by in adulthood when one's academic failings come to the fore. In addition though the unschooling community is rife with anecdotes about children acquiring whole bodies of skill in short order in adulthood, in my opinion it is simply dishonest to suggest that this happens often or that the results are as good as those obtained by laying a proper academic foundation. The way this would have to happen is that a child would have to lack any interest in a subject into adulthood, then build up knowledge of abstract concepts based on many that came before in a very short time. Sorry-- that's so obviously false that we can't have a reasonable argument over it. It doesn't work that way with math, nor with language skills. One could acquire a bastardized version of skill in these areas through quick study, but that's not mastery. There are self-taught people who achieve deep mastery, but that occurs through deep focus over time. Like it or not, there are indeed subjects that take a good deal of time to master. One does a child a disservice by letting their childhood inclinations, whether those are to play video games or create flies for fishing, realistically rule out whole areas of possible later study in college. This involves the tradeoff of a sound academic foundation for the hope that the child will gain so much in inner drive that the foundation won't matter; all the failure stories show this is a mistake.

It's really pretty decent now, much better than at the beginning of the year. I can't remember the last time I saw a reversal-- for a while he'd occasionally make them but catch them every time, leaving behind erasure marks. When he concentrates he can print as neatly as me, at least, though I'm not perfect either. :D

Preschool here (and before the start of any explicit math instruction), starting with games and puzzles, discussions involving logic, books, etc. The usual suspects for problem-solving enrichment include MEP (Sunshine Math is another freebie that's much less extensive but is also just problem-solving enrichment instead of a full curriculum), Ed Zaccaro's Challenge Math, Life of Fred, Singapore CWP/IP, etc.

I missed that the main program was CLE. I agree with Bill.

Then I would plow on ahead, compacting and telescoping away. The word "gifted" is just a label; though I have a feeling most children would work faster than a normal PS pace in math if properly instructed, your son certainly has a bent for it if he is working at double speed or faster. I certainly wouldn't hold him back, and after completing sixth grade I would plow on to the next topics without stopping to broaden. You can always find problem-solving practice and enrichment at the appropriate level.

No one suggested that learning and play are necessarily separate; that's a misstatement of an opposing position and nothing more. It's been stated that sometimes children should learn things they may not naturally want to learn, and that sometimes in life we need to do things that aren't fun, but those aren't the same as a bare statement that learning and play are separate. The disconnect occurred only because of the suggestion that all learning is and/or should be play, followed by an attempt to redefine that term.

You can adopt a practice of moving on only when your son demonstrates mastery. A lot of parents seem to not worry about mastering basic math facts, however, before moving ahead, as long as the student masters the facts within a reasonable time. My personal approach is to ensure mastery before moving on, especially since I know some effective ways to foster memorization of facts, but there seem to be some children who have an extra hard time with memorization of numeric facts. If I had one of those kids, I might well move ahead and concentrate intensively on mastering the times table etc. in parallel.

It's confusing only because there's been an attempt to redefine "play" to include anything that a person enjoys. It simply doesn't work; "play" is perfectly fine meaning what it means, and "enjoy" exists as a label for a different meaning. The two are not coextensive; one can be suggested, directed or even forced to engage in play actitivities, and one can enjoy lots of activities that are not play. I think the disagreement is more along these lines: some have suggested that a child should always learn through play, and followed up by claiming that any enjoyable learning activity is play; others disagree, feeling that play within the ordinary meaning of the word is play and that not all enjoyable activity meets that definition, and that while education is ideally quite enjoyable it need not always meet the proper definition of play. It's not play, since writing reports and doing copywork are not play in and of themselves. Your daughter was not playing a game or doing any of the other things referred to as play activities. The word "playing" means playing, not doing something one likes or wants to do, or chooses for oneself. In my personal opinion, not being an unschooler, this does not meet the definition of unschooling either; it's interest-led learning. One cannot school part of the time and unschool part-time; in that scenario one would just refer to the self-directed parts of the day as free time or something similar. Here, your daughter engaged in learning on a self-chosen topic, and you facilitated, including by making a substitution of assigned work for work related to her chosen topic. That's wonderful, but it's not unschooling because she also is schooled, and because you are imposing educational requirements (good for you and her).

Perhaps, but those aren't play by the standard English definition of the word. The fact that someone might use the word "play" in a random discussion of their work doesn't at all mean that any non-obligatory, self-chosen learning activity is play. That's the sophistry we're trying to get past here.

The common meaning of "play", including the decent definition from the dictionary that was cited before. When you redefine "play" in this context to just mean "have fun" or "enjoy", you discard the playing aspect and you just wind up with a synonym for "enjoy", or whatever else you've redefined "play" to mean. Play as used in discussing early childhood development includes many activities already mentioned: playing games, playing with toys, role playing, etc.; schooling activities have their own words to describe them. I think a previous poster painted herself into a bit of a linguistic corner by essentially redefining play to include any learning activity that's enjoyable. Traditional schooling and flexible interest-led learning (relaxed homeschooling) often of course include such activities. There's no need for unschooling to provide this. I did a quick Google search on terms related to "unschooling" and "play". Here is what I quickly found: http://childplay.wordpress.com/unschooling/ Makes reference to "free play", which of course would not include the sort of structured activities traditionally leading to higher math knowledge; no mention is made of a quadratic equations game either. :D http://saramcgrath.suite101.com/unschoolers-learn-naturally-through-play-a146974#ixzz1unArSwn7 "Play is useful, meaningful, and fun. It might include fantasy, make-believe, poetry, song, drama, art, and on and on. Children use these activities to explore and understand the world. They play at doing adult work. They play at finding their place and contributing to their communities." I suppose quadratic equations or other higher math might be learned through poetry, but it seems a round-about approach. http://sandradodd.com/playing "I have known people who stopped playing, but I was never one of them. In my last year of high school, my boyfriend who had already graduated built a kind of playhouse in the woods to be 'our house.' It was a hole under the roots of a cottonwood, dug out a little better, covered with branches and sticks found by the side of the Rio Grande behind the high school. I ditched school there a couple of times and met him. Was it dignified? No, it was like Neverland! In college I had another boyfriend and we had a running fantasy "plan" to live in the 1600s in England and run a really sweet, peaceful orphanage, filled with music. It wasn't long before I was involved in medieval doings with the Society for Creative Anachronism, which is an international medieval-themed life-size game. As with all games, and all playing, there was reality too. We really made things and learned music and researched and made clothing and armor. We cooked real food. Then we put on our new clothes and our new names and played elaborate games. My three children grew up around adults who played, not just putting on feasts and tournaments and building medieval-looking camps, but also playing strategy board games and mystery games, having costume parties when it wasn't even Halloween, and making up goofy song parodies on long car rides. " More play-as-games-and-fantasy. No play-equals-any-enjoyment aspect I can see there. Searching inside "How Children Learn", by John Holt, gave these results: Page 14 …and catch with my pencil my niece's prattle as she plays ab… Page 29 …sense and nonsense are mixed. Many children like to play a g… Page 30 …to spend some of their time doing the same: either trying to play by … Page 33 …the game would start again. A lot of the games little children play … Page 35 ... This is an absolutely foolproof game to play with little children… Page 36 ... likes to play is the "you-can't" game. Sometimes it begins wit… Page 37 …always was. An older child, playing this game, might well play it… Page 42 …playing this game with her. After a while, she invited us to play th… Page 43 After watching this a while, she insisted on being allowed to play ... Page 46 …run everything. Her big brother, a grownup to her, often plays a … Page 47 …and get rid of Lisa by giving her a few extra pieces to play with… Page 48 …on, or hears one mentioned, she immediately wants to play. Page 52 …them far in advance, but we probably will get them if we play … Page 54 ... If you can't play a game the way it is supposed to be played, … Page 55 …and a half old. I often used to watch him in his crib, talk to him, play… Page 56 …long in this spirit the babies will soon refuse to playor if they do, play… Page 57 ... now and then, in the middle of their play, casting quick glances at m… Page 64 It began with watching his older sister, Lisa, work it. She plays i… Page 66 …perforated rod, which in turn made the piano play ... Page 69 …come in, we would talk a little, and soon he would say, "Let's play … Page 70 …bored in school and went only to see his many friends, and to play… Page 71 …I took the bugle out. I gave it a tentative Nat or two (I can't play i… Page 73 They all do what I have described aboveif they have seen me play f… Page 88 …work in Bill Hull's fifth grade, he used to have the students play … Page 89 …why peek-a- boo games are such fun for small babies to play ... Page 90 …(mentioned earlier) was very small, I was watching him play. Page 112 ... Sometimes one of us, learning our part, will play the wrong… Page 124 …period. In that time the children could read, or draw, or play g… Page 127 …and, seeing that it had holes in it, like a recorder, began to play a… Page 128 …was happening that we did not understand, and let the little boy play … Page 130 ... she began to change the rules of the game, to play it in a diff… Page 131 …charts however she wanted, give her time to fantasize and play with… Page 139 …my hunches, but keep saying to myself, after every note I play, … Page 159 ... We had put up in the yard a tent for him to play in, and he immedia… Page 171 ... easily be taught both to record and play back on them with… Page 183 …was content to have me tow him around, or to hang on and play… Page 188 …sports period in the afternoon. Only in the afternoon could we play… Page 189 ... If, instead, they had had a chance to play with, and see, and… Page 195 …real likenesses of things or people seemed, as being able to play m… Page 218 …various colors, sizes, and shapes, with which children can play… Page 219 …digested them, so to speak, they were then ready and willing to play … Page 221 ... But she could not, or would not, play this childlike game. After som… Page 238 ... I always give her our old checks to play store with and she often… Page 239 …we spent many happy hours in various kinds of fantasy play. Page 242 ... just let the children play with them however they wanted, call… Page 244 …the children would learn faster if they were allowed to play free… Page 247 …the world around them, children use fantasy and play in ... Page 248 …very crude; they have little experience. But in their fantasy play… Page 250 …these children (and many others like them) do in their play i… Page 259 ... While an adult plays a piano or guitar, the children are invited, i.e. t… Page 280 …be interesting in school, say with fourth- or fifth-graders, to play a ga… Page 283 …announcers, as in every land, talked learnedly about the play… Page 286 …that language will be built. There are other ways to play the … Page 287 …game without answers, this what-goes-on-here game that I play… Page 298 …upside down, can or even wish to resist the temptation to play thi… I see an awful lot of references here to games. Perhaps someone who owns this book can chime in if there is any reference in this book to play equalling anything that is perceived to be fun. Work of course can be fun, but it's not redefined as play just because of that. Twisting words is not a way to have a useful debate.

That all sounds good, but is unconvincing as a redefinition of "play" in this context. "Playing around with a concept" and similar sorts of wordings are just attempts to skew things. When one's at work, one can call it "play" if one likes, but the truth is that it's an assigned task, not at all the sort of activity that people mean when they talk of a child playing. It's as I said: unschooling's claims about play are rooted in ideas about early childhood development; it's simply overstating the case to say that structured learning of advanced abstract topics is play. Words can be twisted, but in the end after the twisting is done, the original meaning has gone by the wayside. It's not such a harmful thing to admit that one is wrong.

I'm going by the standard meaning of the term "play", that's all. Sure, one can have fun learning anything; one can be amused by a concept one's studying in any sort of way; but feeling like you're having fun or being amused doesn't mean you're playing. I don't think most children would tend to learn quadratic equations just for their own amusement. I think I understand it well enough. I think what's going on with what I consider to be the misuse of the word "play" is that an idea about children learning many foundational skills etc. during early free time (actually playing games, playing with toys, roleplaying with other children etc.) is turned into an overarching statement about how children optimally learn all things. After that ensue many discussion board exchanges where some people attempt to show how even structured learning is play, and others keep pointing back to what play really is. I think that encouraging a love of learning is a great thing, and so is interest-led learning, which tends to encourage it.

Yes, it works only for you, not by the dictionary definition. Learning quadratic equations occurs as part of study, not "amusement, sport or other recreation". Nope. As I've stated ad infinitum at this point, a correctly conducted formal education ensures that a student receives a well-rounded set of skills, something completely unaddressed by unschooling. In any event your attempt to turn this point on its head fails-- the point is that since schooling works well, unschooling doesn't need to exist, especially with its many problems. A few outliers who were high achievers in spite of a lack of schooling doesn't disprove the value of schooling. In addition, if you actually read the page to which you linked, perhaps following up to actually learn about the lives of the people referenced, you'd learn that many of them dropped out of high school fairly late 17 etc.), so presumably gained something of value from their experience; returned later to school, after initially dropping out for family reasons; etc. Your page is actually unhelpful to this discussion, and certainly not helpful to prove any point you're attempting to make. You quoted research support for unschooling. Where is the support for the idea that children will study things in a well-rounded way, somehow bootstrapping themselves into solid academic foundations through play (or "play" as the case may be)? In your answer, please attack as unfounded the statements of the people on this site who have directly reported that their children won't tend to become well-rounded, may even watch TV to the exclusion of much else, etc. Actually, never mind-- you've already done that. When we're talking about the folly of letting children be self-directed self-educators and trust that they'll become well-rounded, it's just a red herring to draw a parallel to a self-directed parent. You see: completely self-directed student <> completely self-directed parent completely self-directed parent <> parent relying on educational resources and advice irony <> drawing a false parallel Yes, it's impossible to provide and will always be. Yet you've been strongly advocating for unschooling and against schooling, vaguely referring to research support for unschooling, but not providing any proof that homeschooling is a method that works well.

You have to read what I wrote a bit more carefully, and maybe I need to be more blatant in the future. A means of education should give a reasonable likelihood of success before it's chosen. That means that when you have scads of reports of failure, for common-sense and obvious reasons, you can't take anecdotal reports of success (especially the second- or fifth-hand reports about the unschooled miraculously shoring up their weak areas upon arriving at college) as proof that unschooling is a method that really works. My own take, after reading what I've read, in the absence of any actual statistically solid data, is that unschooling either fails a vast majority of the time to produce people with a well-rounded education, or else it's not true unschooling as implemented, i.e. the parents exert some control but conduct interest-led education.

No, it does not. I consulted a dictionary. I certainly can have. I am willing to exclude history's greatest minds that are unknown to us if you are. I suppose that in your corner we may place Ogg or whoever his name may be, inventor of the wheel, who was surely unschooled. In my corner are Einstein and just about all of the world's greatest minds-- as well as most of all of the rest of them, too. The points we may draw from this? That unschooling is not providing something that cannot be gained without unschooling, so it's not really necessary. No, it absolutely doesn't. It advocates letting a child learn what they like and also avoid learning whatever they don't like. That's a list of dropouts. It directly advocates the possibility of no academic education, if it's taken to the radical extreme. At its best, it's a completely self-directed education by someone who is not an education expert, who doesn't know what subjects should be learned in sequence for a solid math foundation, and who likely doesn't have completely well-rounded interests. I'm not responsible for how you perceive my words on this discussion board, but I'm certainly not angry with you. I think it's fair to say that I'm scoffing at some of the things you say, but I'm certainly not angry. I'm coming right out and saying the things I came right out and said; I'm not going back to edit anything. I don't think it's wise or completely honest to advocate such a hit-or-miss ideology for adoption by others, to present it as having research support when the truth is that there's no statistical evidence reported on it whatsoever, and to say that you're not advocating for it when you make such statements as you've made here.

:gnorsi: