Episode 109 welcomes Josh and Eve LeVeque to the podcast for a chat with Skyler. Topics include: their separate journey’s to libertarian thinking; the value of discussion groups; each of their police and state court experiences; crimes verse torts; authority verse loyalty; Thomas Jefferson Education (TJEd) and unschooling; phases of learning; having kids; marijuana; their new short term rental business; peaceful parenting and spanking; and more.
Tag: education
The Voluntaryist Ethnicity
As my family has traveled the country and met or stayed with other voluntaryists and unschoolers, I can’t help but notice certain general customs among people and families of this kind. Without putting anybody in a box or limiting how it is expressed or experienced, here is the voluntaryist ethnicity as I’ve seen it.
Why Unschoolers Grow Up to Be Entrepreneurs
Almost by definition, entrepreneurs are creative thinkers and experimental doers. They reject the status quo and devise new approaches and better inventions. They are risk-takers and dreamers, valuing ingenuity over convention. They get things done. It shouldn’t be surprising to learn that many unschoolers become entrepreneurs.
The Law of the Instrument
What is your favorite tool? Is it so familiar or compelling that you are tempted to employ it in all contexts? The law of the instrument illustrates this tendency.
German Police Are Cracking Down on Family Vacations from School – Is American Policy Very Different?
With Memorial Day Weekend here, many Americans have hit the road early to avoid traffic to their favorite holiday destinations, or catch a Thursday flight to make a weekend stay at Grandma’s less rushed. For some German families, who celebrated a three-day weekend last week, taking their kids out of school to get a jumpstart on the holiday ended with police airport interrogations and looming fines.
The Trouble with Abundance
Humans aren’t evolved to have or handle abundance. Our nature has a very hard time dealing with abundance. Our abilities, desires, motivations, tools, and everything about us were forged in an evolutionary history of extreme scarcity. What we are evolved for is the journey of survival in the face of scarcity, not the destination of contentment in the face of abundance.
Curiosity Is the Enemy of Conceit
Through the lens of curiosity, self-promotion and conceitedness become pretty boring alternatives to learning more and engaging with others. I’ll spend those first few minutes of conversation asking the questions. If my life story comes up as something valuable, I should know how to use it. But if I hardly speak a word about myself at a networking event or other gathering, it’s not such a great loss.
The Human Capital Purist Case Against Tax-Funded College
In the Soho Forum debate on “All government support of higher education should be abolished”, I heavily based my argument on the signaling model of education. But if I were a human capital purist, I still would have defended the abolitionist position – albeit less triumphantly. Here’s how.
Funding Higher Education Debate: My Opening Statement
Why should higher education receive government support? There are two main arguments. The first is the economic argument. Government support is allegedly economically beneficial not merely for individual students, but for society as a whole. The second is the humanistic argument. Economic effects aside, government support is vital for the promotion of intrinsically valuable ideas, culture, and values.
Freedom, Not Force, Creates Lifelong Learners
As author Ray Bradbury famously said: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” If we want an educated and engaged citizenry, with a passion for reading and knowledge and ongoing self-improvement, then perhaps “free choice” should be the norm rather than the exception.