Unschooled | Litsy

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

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This book is less about how education should occur and more an argument for homeschool/home education. I have nothing against home education and will probably end up educating my own children that way when the time comes, but giving a topic sentence about the Finnish education system and having the rest of the paragraph about home education does nothing to explain how or why Finnish education works as well as it does. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

GingerAntics As an educator and theorist, this book is of little value to me. This book is labelled as volume 1 and I can‘t imagine the need for more than the first few chapters of this book, forget about another volume. If you‘re looking for something to help you argue with your friends or relatives about your choice to home educate your children, with little depth to your understanding of your argument, this is the book for you. (edited) 5y

GingerAntics There were multiple occurrences (1-3 per chapter) of extra words added to sentences that are grammatically inappropriate. This feels very much like an amateur project to wax poetic about the superiority of home education as opposed to a professional presentation of ideas, arguments, and facts. 5y

GingerAntics #RosiThornton #Unschooled #education 5y

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Exbrarian I have yet to meet a homeschooler that chose that route because they thought they could provide a better education for their children. I could get behind that.
It's always done as some form of censorship. Don't want their kids exposed to those pesky facts that disprove their archaic religious views. Or maybe their lily white crotch goblins would be forced to interact with brown children. The horrific indecency of it! 5y

GingerAntics @Exbrarian I‘ve been lucky to know some that did homeschool to give their children a better education. I‘ve known some that couldn‘t afford private school, I‘ve known some that were bullied so bad they went with home schooling, I‘ve known some that were homeschooled because their parents really just thought they could do better for their kids. I‘ve also met plenty of the religious nuts you‘re describing, though, too. 5y

GingerAntics @Exbrarian I can actually say I‘d never met a religious nut or bigoted home school family until I moved to TX, and I‘ve yet to meet a home school family in this state that isn‘t that way. The same ones must exist (in theory), but I never met a home school religious nut back home although I‘m sure they do exist. 5y

GingerAntics @Exbrarian this book is also mainly focused on England, so that may be part of it as well. At one time I would have said they have fewer religious nuts, but now I‘m not so sure anymore. 5y

Exbrarian @GingerAntics Did I mention I'm from Texas? I was also a librarian in Arkansas for 2 years. It's almost as bad as it sounds.
5y

GingerAntics @Exbrarian that explains it. lol There are a lot of nuts around here. Part of me thinks, hey, at least Arkansas has a library! 5y

Chrissyreadit @Exbrarian I homeschool my children because we live in an area with a struggling education system and our public schools often allow religious discussion to occur. My children are both gifted and taking college classes for high school credit. I have met many people who homeschool for the same reason we do- a more appropriate academically rigorous education. 5y

GingerAntics @Chrissyreadit isn‘t disallowing religious discussion just another type of censorship? I still agree with the argument of this book, we actually need less academics for children (especially the younger ones) not more. We got too academic too early, it‘s developmentally inappropriate but we have to because schools need kids to pass a ridiculous test. 🙄 5y

Chrissyreadit @GingerAntics I have no problem with religious freedom, but some examples I faced included a 6th grade teacher who only used bible verses for handwriting, kids bullied if they did not belong to bible club, sex Ed is abstinence only and creationism is considered reasonable as a science topic. There are many other concerns- I was also told Catholics are not Christian. I am not a believer in the academic insanity either- instead of letting kids enjoy 5y

GingerAntics @Chrissyreadit good lord are you in Texas? I‘ve heard all of that in a public school here. Luckily the teachers all told me to sleep in class. Yeah, if I ever have children in Texas, they will NEVER enter a school building for any reason. That‘s all madness. Sounds like you‘re actually home educating for the right reasons. 5y

Chrissyreadit Learning they are given busy work. A lot of teacher time is busy with kids in survival mode, and classes are taught in the middle. I would have been in constant trouble due to boredom- my son loves physics and robotics and circuits and has been having conversations with a physics professor when he has questions since he was 6. My daughter loves Shakespeare and theatre and history and art, all of which she engaged in to her hearts content. 5y

Chrissyreadit They were in school until 1st and 3rd grade and pulling them to homeschool was the best decision- we are in WV. 1/3 of the children in the tricounty area are homeschooled. Some for religious, some for other reasons. We are academic unschoolers- my kids love to learn, but needed their education to be appropriate for them. I do not believe formal education should even start until 7 or 8 unless the child actively engages in it. 5y

Chrissyreadit Do you still live in Texas? For some reason I thought you were in England. 5y

GingerAntics @Chrissyreadit I agree with every bit of that. We are going in the wrong direction with when school starts. Earlier and earlier is messing kids up. It‘s ridiculous. No, I‘m originally from MN and moved to TX almost 20 years ago. Hopefully we‘ll be moving home next June. 5y

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

I have also heard this before. Our schools aren‘t broken. They are designed to create a society of unquestioning workers who simply do as they are told without thought or objection, who will only feel good about their work if they are told it is worth feeling good about by their superiors. Schools are doing exactly what the 1% want from the 99%.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

Today‘s illiterate voted for Trump.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education #illiterate #factcheck

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

Properly educated people form their own ideas and opinions, they do not follow the crowd. This is bad news for certain politicians.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

I‘ve heard this before. I don‘t feel like this book is really open to the fact that not all people can afford to home educate or feel comfortable doing so. So far, that is my one issue with this book.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education #homeeducation #homeschool

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

I‘ve watched teachers actively stop inquiry, even at the college/university level. I‘ve been taught by teachers like this. I love how everyone is on an “active learning” kick right now, but those same teachers so excited about active learning are the first to shut down questions.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education #activelearning #learningdoesnthappenatschool

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

Finland is consistently top in the world in reading, maths, and science. They also don‘t educate the way most other countries do.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education #finland #freethechildren

Butterfinger I agree with all your posts and quotes. I'm a teacher and I would stay till I died if I'd be given the freedom to teach students instead of bowing to government. I love Socratic seminar and STEM (student lead) but those tests, that determine my livelihood, are always there. The older I get, the more I enjoy learning new ways to teach and less I worry about my job. My scores are fantastic because I lean toward student lead inquiry based learning. 5y

GingerAntics @Butterfinger I bow to your courage. I think any chance I had of deciding to work in the K-12 world died when I read Free to Learn, and this is really just confirming for me that I‘ve made the right decisions. I grew up without all the tests and did just fine. We moved right before high school to a state that couldn‘t test enough and even I could tell you I wasn‘t learning anything and the tests were a waste of time. 5y

GingerAntics @Butterfinger When No Child Left Behund was enacted and everyone had to start testing, I called it Every Child Left Behind. I know I can never bring myself to inflict pseudo-education on children and I know I will never let my own children (if I ever have them) have it inflicted on them either. You‘ve got the right idea. These folks in government that haven‘t been in a classroom since law school (back when women weren‘t allowed) need to butt out. 5y

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Butterfinger Absolutely @GingerAntics children need advocates, especially nowadays. I wish more would realize it - including the teachers. 5y

GingerAntics @Butterfinger that‘s a good word for it. Kids need advocates. If only we could get the old men in government to listen to the advocates, the people who work with kids, instead of assuming they know best. I refuse to vote for anyone who supports universal pre-k. 5y

Crazeedi The whole thing of teaching to the test is anathema. Teachers need the freedom from paperwork and tests to truly teach the children. A good teacher knows how best to reach each child, and a government that mandates has no clue. As you say children aren't being taught to think and how to look for answers to questions. 5y

Crazeedi I remember in elementary school my 6th grade teacher assigned a term paper to me! (As I was bored in the class) so I got to research and write and learned so much. 5y

Crazeedi That would never happen in an elementary classroom now 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi they don‘t write papers in high school anymore from what we can tell. It‘s amazing the number of students we get at the college level who don‘t know what a subject and verb are, who can‘t form a complete sentence. I had one kid who didn‘t know subject-verb agreement, when I tried explaining it, it turned out he didn‘t know what singular and plural meant. 🤦🏼‍♀️ 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics oh my goodness that is so very sad and tragic for our country, how can one think for self and make decisions and discover thing? I'm glad to know ther are teachers like you who care, it must be difficult jon 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics job, lol. I was given access to teachers library in elementary school, because I was way past the books in the regular one, and my teachers knew to challenge me when I was bored in class. So very grateful for the small public school I attended. Education needs to return to the local level and to the teachers who know their students. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi I teach at the college level. After reading “Free to Learn” I know I can never move to K-12. I can‘t do that to kids. Teachers are so powerless now. If anything, we need to unstructure kid‘s days. Science proves this is better for them and for our future, but we keep structuring more and more. It‘s ridiculous. Even at my level, we‘re now paid by how many students pass our class. If you want to pay the bills, everyone passes. 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics so very sad. I'm sure you do an amazing job. I hurt for children who are not given the tools they need. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi right now, that is every child in America. Free to Learn and this book both explain why. I think this one does a better job of laying out how the current form of education worked well for producing factory workers but is utterly useless as giving kids the tools to be successful in the post factory worker job market. 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics 😭 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi yeah, it‘s not good, but the people who make these decisions keep pushing education further and further into factory worker status because more and more kids stuggle to succeed in the world outside of school. They don‘t understand that they‘re going in the wrong direction, but they don‘t care enough to actually look at the science because they‘re too focused on “when I was a kid bla bla bla.” 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics those jobs are gone, and there will be a great struggle until people wake up and educators get back control so the children can be taught the skills they are going to need. Parents need to wake up and demand changes from the local officials and get political shenanigans gone!! 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi most parents know that politics needs to come out of schools (some like it though), but very few parents understand that the education they received is wholly insufficient for their children. Education has been the way it is since the industrial revolution. Most parents aren‘t comfortable with the idea that children should be guiding their own education and THAT is the only way to make students self sufficient and self motivated. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi most parents are unaware that preschools are developmentally inappropriate for toddlers and actually dangerous to them and their futures. I‘d say 99.9% of people would outright reject the idea that their child should go to school everyday and choose what to do for the day instead of an adult or a politician. The idea that curricula need to be abandoned entirely is terrifying to people. It will never happen in the vast majority of schools 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi parents are more concerned with their kids doing what their peers are doing than letting their children develop naturally. It‘s perfectly natural that some kids will read at 4 and others won‘t do it until 9, and by the teen years you literally cannot tell a difference between the two kids. So a perfectly healthy child is thrown away into special ed and the early reader is actually held back from progressing naturally. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi it‘s wholly unnatural, but most people don‘t care or can‘t accept it, so the children suffer, the adults feel the kids are getting too pampered, and everyone loses. 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics I couldn't agree with you more. So the ones who can excel are dumbed down, and the ones who need more help are ignored or labeled, which does nothing but give schools the money they vie for. My teachers taught each child according to their abilities, which was appropriate for that time. I didnt go to pre k or kindergarten, but i was more than ready to start school 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics mainly because my parents allowed me to read, and because I was given time to be a child I learned other lessons as well. How do we solve this. Is there no one in positions of influence that understands? Or are they playing fast and loose because it's all about money. Chaching, chaching?? Local local local is absolutely imperative. Children carry labels forever, and they are diminished instead of encouraged. 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics a radical change is needed. And sadly I don't see that happening. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi it‘s all about money, of course. Schools want kids in their rooms because they get money for each individual kid. The tests are all contracts, so people are making money. Politicians are getting kick backs for all of this. There is no incentive to change this, unless parents just stop sending their children to schools that are part of this ridiculous system. The system will not change until parents stop buying into the current system. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi I don‘t see it happening either, because WAY too many people believe in this system. They might disagree with all the testing, but that‘s the only part they don‘t like. They don‘t understand or care about the damage being done to students and their futures. 5y

Crazeedi @GingerAntics the money being raked in by the testing conglomerates is immoral. It is a crime against or children. 5y

GingerAntics @Crazeedi the entire system is multiple, simultaneous crimes against our children. I agree with you on that. 5y

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

I never thought of our schools as coercive until I read Free to Learn, but the more I think about it and the more I read about it I completely agree with this assessment.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton

But let‘s just keep pushing for universal per-k. I‘m sorry, but I won‘t be voting for any politician who wants to promote continued damage to children by pushing more and more of them into pre-k. These people don‘t look at any of the evidence and just say stuff they think sound good.
#RosiThornton #Unschooled #education #harmsofearlyeducation

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GingerAntics

Unschooled: The World to Come | Rosi Thornton