Editor’s Break 068 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: free speech and propaganda, government intervention trying to solve real or fake socio-economic problems, the importance of free expression and why coercively prohibiting it can lead to violence, the unschooling parent’s goal of saying “Yes!” to their children as often as possible, advice to the world to not hurt people, to not take their stuff, and to not ask permission, and more.
Tag: schooling
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.
Mark’s Journey, Science, & Truth (1h4m) – Episode 106
Episode 106 welcomes Mark Anthony Rivera to the podcast for a chat with Skyler. Topics include: his short-term rental through Airbnb, self-directed education (unschooling), his passion for science from a very young age, his applied physics career, growing up a Democrat in southern California, discovering Ron Paul and libertarianism, putting premises and principles over political labels, objectivity and morality, defining our terms in argumentation and discourse, what natural law is, praxeology and economics, words and concepts as symbols, and more.
Dennis’ Journey & Writing for the Open and Curious (1h7m) – Episode 105
Episode 105 welcomes Dennis Pratt to the podcast for a chat with Skyler. Topics include: writing for the open and curious with respect and empathy at Quora.com, his personal growth nonprofit organization, growing up as a New York liberal with a socialist perspective, debating with a staunch conservative colleague focused on logical consistency moved both of them toward libertarianism, recognizing the use of indirect violence, cognitive dissonance, why the Socratic method of disputation enrages people, raising a daughter who went in and out government schooling and his battles with teachers and school administrators, and more.
Walk Out and Don’t Go Back
Today, students across America will join in a national school walkout day to memorialize the 17 people tragically killed in the recent Parkland, Florida school shooting and to advocate for stricter gun control laws. But what if they don’t go back?
Watching Children Learn Naturally
Watching children learn naturally, while following their own interests, is nothing short of astonishing. It shouldn’t be, of course. We shouldn’t be surprised that giving children freedom and autonomy, and trusting them to pursue passions most meaningful to them, would lead to deep and lasting learning. But Self-Directed Education is so rare in our widely schooled society that most of us don’t get the opportunity to see what learning without schooling (including school-at-home) looks like. Self-Directed Education, or unschooling, is strikingly different from schooling–in all of its various iterations.
Why I Love Being An Adult Unschooler
If you already know the term “unschooling” it is likely you (just like me) associate that term with children, adolescents, and teens. School aged people. We typically don’t think of adults as unschoolers, but sort of recently I was looking at my life and how I live it and had a realization… I am an unschooler, too!
Brandon’s Journey, Defiant Personalities, & Open-Mindedness (1h19m) – Episode 104
Episode 104 welcomes Brandon McKean to the podcast for a chat with Skyler. Topics include: working with his hands, childhood and adolescence, employment at a young age, woodworking, managing a crew, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers and David & Goliath, property rights and his Scottish ancestors, crime in society, responsibility, schooling, Christian values and agnosticism, Murray Rothbard, voting, freemasonry, open-mindedness toward the possibilities of deity, the afterlife, past life regression, and the paranormal, and more.
Information That Matters
Paul Saffo remarked that Samuel Johnson identified two types of information, that which you knew and that which you knew how to get. Saffo continues that in light of the Internet, Worldwide Web, and technology, we are now cursed with a glut of information, so we need a third type of information — that which matters.
Consolidation
I went to a “consolidated” high school. Franklin County Consolidated High School still bore that label when I transferred to it, in its second year. The process adjective was soon dropped as the little previous schools were forgotten. Names like Elkhorn, Bald Knob, Thornhill, Peaks Mill, and Bridgeport preceded that ugly, stark consolidated moniker. Economies of scale were sought. Franklin County beefed up its bus fleet, too. Many students now spent more than an hour a day riding on buses.