A one-time gun-control advocate came to believe gun violence is not likely to be reduced by “sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves.” If more people would do what Libresco did, we might be able to have an intelligent conversation about guns.
Tag: learning
Why a Radical Libertarian Can Enjoy a Show About a British Monarch
Here I am, a radical libertarian, enjoying a show whose protagonist is the monarch of one of the world’s brutal and oppressive empires. How do I square that circle?
Unschooling and Workbooks
Just as we have crayons and paper, books and computers, yarn and playdough, magazines and watercolors, we have workbooks. They are nothing fancy–just the ones you can pick up at a local store or online (my gang seems to like Brain Quest)–but they are scattered around our home. These workbooks are available to the kids, just like all other tools and supplies, to use and explore as they like.
The First Hour: Creating Powerful Mornings
It’s easy to fritter your day away doing a thousand small harmless actions … but the essential actions get put off. The antidote, I’ve found, is putting a little emphasis on making the first hour of your day the most powerful hour. Treating that first hour as sacred, not to be wasted on trivial things, but to be filled with only the most essential, most life-changing actions.
Letter To a Prospective Homeschooling Parent
Welcome to the exciting world of learning without schooling! You have already taken the important first step in redefining your child’s education by acknowledging the limitations of mass schooling, recognizing the ways it can dull a child’s curiosity and exuberance, and seeking alternatives to school. Now it’s time to take a deep breath, exhale, and explore.
Self-Directed Education Is Instinctual
The key advantage of Self-Directed Education is that it empowers parents and children. Parents learn to trust their children’s natural learning instincts while tapping into their own instincts about how to best nurture their children’s growth. Children learn to trust themselves, retaining their innate creativity and desire to explore and understand the world around them.
As If It Matters (Because it Does)
Making the most out of your life even when circumstances are less than ideal is not some sort of ad-hoc consolation prize invented by motivational speakers. It’s literally the only possible way for our species to survive.
Life Outside the Cloister
Every time a person asks how homeschoolers learn about relationships or socialization, I think that some folks must believe a) that homeschooled kids must be stuck in the home all day, since their own experience is with being stuck in a cloister, and b) they must not realize that lots of life actually happens outside that tiny cloister in which they spent most of their early lives.
Games Worth Playing
It’s always worth creating and playing your own games, regardless of what you do about the web of other games intersecting your life. It’ always worth identifying the meta-game unique to you; your own search for meaning.
Reliable Sources
Where do you go to get reliable accounts of news, weather, and sports? I recently surveyed my students in 4 computer literacy classes regarding this information. On reviewing the results, I stressed to them that a “good” source was no better than its reliability, and furthermore its alignment with the goals of the seeker.