Editor’s Break 034 looks at answering questions posed by our children, particularly difficult ones like, “Is God real?”
Tag: learning
How to Improve Good Leadership Qualities
Regardless of whether you’re already in a leadership position or you’re simply looking to improve your existing skills, being a driven and motivated leader is an essential skill to have in life.
Superstitions Regarding School
My family has been on our unschooling journey for going on six years now. Within that time I have had the opportunity to meet countless other unschooling parents, families and people raised with unschooling, both online and in person. What I have learned has revealed to me bit by bit the superstitious nature that is the belief in the necessity of school, or other forms of compulsory education.
Read for Reconfiguration
A book is not a trophy. It’s a tool for personal transformation. For Kafka, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.” Education isn’t a name dropping contest. It’s a paradigm-shifting process. It’s an opportunity to have our perspectives and presuppositions challenged from every angle.
Discriminate in the Lessons You Learn
Be very careful listening to people who believe in governing others, or who believe it’s OK to archate. When someone starts from a position that far off-base, you will need to be extra cautious in analyzing everything else they say.
Why The Degree is Dying (and Being Replaced by Something Better)
What is a degree? It purports to be a bundle of goods – knowledge, network, social experience, and a permission slip to compete for certain jobs. It’s only one of these. The permission slip, or credential, intended to signal your ability to employers, is the product. That is the thing being bought and sold. The rest is window dressing.
Practice Unabashed Curiosity
If you find it easier to engage new perspectives through travel, then travel far and wide. If you find it more fulfilling to curl up on your couch and read novels without ever leaving your apartment, stay local without guilt.
Never Stop Studying
If you want to be a successful professional, refuse to settle at your current level of intellectual development. Study your butt off and never stop challenging yourself to become a better thinker. If you’re content with the books you’ve already read, your career is already dead.
Why Most Homeschooling Systems Devolve, and Why You Can’t Plan a Startup
The notion of a year-long plan created in an Ivory Tower and imposed on all students of the same age without deviation no matter what market feedback is coming is absurd and tyrannical. Imagine an incubator like Y-Combinator paying some smarties to come up with The One True Business Model, roll-out schedule, target market, hiring strategy, budget, and action plan, and imposing it upon every one of the startups in their program. Oh, and demanding every company produce and sell the exact same product.
Self-Directed Education and the Freedom to Choose
Boston College psychology professor, and Alliance for Self-Directed Education founder, Dr. Peter Gray, writes that the freedom to quit is the most basic human freedom. He asserts: “In general, children are the most brutalized of people, not because they are small and weak, but because they don’t have the same freedoms to quit that adults have.”