In the last four years, I have spent a lot of time rushing from one thing to another. By choice, I have brought in a lot of challenges and opportunities into my life. Ever-changing conditions, urgency, and “hurry” come with the territory. I’m alright with being hasty when I need it, but I don’t want my attention and time filled with rush. Here are some ways I’m keeping hurry from dominating my attention and time
Tag: learning
Where Worker Productivity Really Comes From
In the pre-modern world, workers got little education and had low productivity. In the modern world, workers get much education and have high productivity. Productivity (and education!) keep going up. If formal academic training isn’t the main reason, what is?
The Values and Traits Behind My Best Relationships
What are the values you most look for when forming relationships? Great question! Any answer I give here will be incomplete, but I have come to notice some patterns in my most valuable relationships. Certain values and traits also help me quickly pick out people I want in my “tribe.”
Educated: A Must-Read
From the first page, I was captivated and, cliché as it is, I truly couldn’t put it down. I read the book swiftly, entranced by Westover’s vivid depiction of growing up in rural Idaho in a religious fundamentalist, survivalist family. School was where the devil hides, often clothed as socialists, or so her father said. In piercing prose, Westover offers an eloquent illustration of conviction blurring into paranoia, ideology into lunacy. She describes how fragile those lines can be.
Unschooling and Writing
The reality is that sentence-diagramming and copying someone else’s writing template don’t create better writers. They create students who may meet contrived curriculum benchmarks and pass standardized tests. They create students who can play the game. With unschooling, there is no game to play. There is no manufactured curriculum or assessment. There is simply life.
Righteousness vs. Church; Education vs. School
Church attendance may or may not aid in the cause of becoming more righteous. Similarly, school may or may not aid in the cause of education. There is ample evidence that it hampers the process far more than it helps. But even school optimists will concede that learning and schooling are two separate things.
Unschooling and Grit
At a friend’s birthday party this weekend, the topic of unschooling came up. After I had explained, thoroughly I thought, that we don’t replicate school-at-home, that we learn in and from our daily life in the city, that the children’s interests guide their learning, that we live as if school doesn’t exist, the person paused and asked: “So do you give them exams?”
Ansel Adams Was Unschooled; How to Solve America’s Creativity Crisis
Ansel’s father recognized his son’s natural exuberance and determined that Ansel needed more freedom to thrive. When Ansel was 12, his father removed him from school and homeschooled him, granting him abundant freedom and opportunity to pursue his own interests and passions. At home, Ansel learned to play the piano, becoming a professional musician before devoting his life to photography.
Advice to My Children, and Everyone Else
I’ve given this entire learning experience some thought over the last few days, and the following stanza sums up my principles nicely: Don’t hurt people. Don’t take their stuff. Don’t ask permission. This is the advice I will be giving and reinforcing in my children as opportunity arises, and its advice I give to the rest of humanity. Let’s dig deeper.
The Worst Education System
Public schools are the worst education system imaginable. In addition to the trillions of dollars which are stolen to fund such a monstrosity, the curriculum itself is statist brainwashing beginning with the earliest forms of pre-kindergarten.