While the Times article describes various tactics schools and therapists use to address mounting teenage anxiety and depression, one question not asked is this: If schooling is causing these serious problems for teenagers, then why are they going?
Tag: education
“Me Too” is a Branch Issue, and a Distraction
My first reaction to this campaign was a bit of umbrage on the part of lumping the many degrees of sexual harassment in with the many degrees of sexual assault. They aren’t the same. I shared that first reaction on Facebook in a couple of places and got some interesting discussion going. But as I thought about it some more, I realized what was going on here.
Words Poorly Used #111 — Echo Chamber
Confirmation bias, a fancier name for the echo chamber meme, is an important addendum to the human psyche. It becomes a bad quality when it is improperly used.
You Don’t Have to Be a Fool to Deschool
Growing up as a child, I remember watching “pro-education” commercials with slogans like “Don’t be a fool, Stay in School” or “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Where I’m from, the term “drop-out” generates just about the same effect as the term “dope-dealer.”
My Homeschoolers Love Worksheets, Because They’re 100% Voluntary
Unschooling, or Self-Directed Education, means giving young people the freedom and opportunity to direct their own learning, following their own interests and passions, using the full resources of real and digital communities, without coercion.
Did it Really Work For You?
You don’t have to be happy, but you probably shouldn’t be the person who talks about how important a product is for people’s happiness if your life looks like a glaring counterexample. If you’re going to fight for a particular point of view, then you should at least try to look satisfied with the life it gave you.
What a Tragedy
When people are young and very small, when their appetites are most ripe for learning, we tell them “now these are the important books that responsible people read.” Then we proceed to rob them of the most important components of reading: getting to be the one who chooses the book, getting to be the one who chooses when reading should be done, and getting to be the one who decides what parts of the book are worth remembering.
Schooling Was for the Industrial Era, Unschooling Is for the Future
The trouble is that we have left the Industrial Era for the Imagination Age, but our mass education system remains fully entrenched in factory-style schooling. By many accounts, mass schooling has become even more restrictive than it was a century ago, consuming more of childhood and adolescence than at any time in our history.
Talk Early, Talk Often
What can you as a parent do to help your children develop their language skills? Workbooks? Flash cards? No, my advice is much simpler. Talk to them. Talk early. Talk often. Talk about all the interesting aspects of your life together.
I Am a Voluntaryist
I am a voluntaryist, anarchist, libertarian, agorist, and capitalist. These are legitimate, effective ways of accomplishing worthy goals without resorting to authoritarian control.