Unschooling

I have recently been introduced to the concept of "Unschooling" and as a rabid homeschooling advocate and proponent of the elimination of all vestiges of the current public school system, I am horrified.

Horrified.

I'm not going into a lengthy disscussion of what constituted unschooling here, for two very important reasons:

1. Apparantly unschoolers can't define it themselves (off to a great start here, guys)

2. Google "Unschooling" to find myraid pages that are just dying to tell you about it. There are hundreds of supporting sites, and no significant criticism that I can find (yet).

Firstly, let me state that I thoroughly dislike the public school system. I feel that I was a sucess in public school at the mercy of several very excellent teachers and despite the standardized curriculum, not because of it. I would like to homeschool my children to ensure that they are taught to their level and are not held back by the "teaching to the lowest common denominator" that occurs in public school. The other reasons, of course, are so I can indoctrinate them fully to be little evil conservative capitalists AND get them a decent education in biology (no warning stickers on MY textbooks, no sir).

That said, I think unschooling is the worst thing to happen to children short of being kidnapped and forced into the Zimbabwian army. I'll keep it to one reason:

Life Sucks.

When you are an adult you get really fun things like taxes and mortgage payments and insane middle management. Not everything will or can be fun, blissful and personally fulfilling.

You will discover that once doing something you find fun, blissful and personally fulfilling is your job, you'll probably hate it. You will discover you need this green thing called "money" if you expect to live anywhere other than your parent's basement. With the skills you have been able to teach yourself from playing video games all day and watching TV for most of your life because your parents had this idea that you would spontaneously decide to teach yourself calculus at some point, you will be able to get a job in a horrid greasy place with an evil hairy oragutan-like manager who will most certianly not give a crap if you've "found your bliss" that day.

Out here in life, where the rest of us live, one must often do things they do not like, and often do these things for a long time, so that we may do things that we DO like later.

It's called delayed gratification. It's a real difficult concept, much akin to space plasma physics, and I understand that many may never fully grasp it.

Yes, it is so much easier to let little Johnny and little Suzy do what ever they like all day and pretend that they are getting an education. Lord have mercy on you when they turn 16.

Hat tip to
Parentalcation for finding me yet another reason to never sleep again.