Tag: unschooling

Violence, Aggression, Gun Control, Talking Back, & Unschooling as Abuse (30m) – Editor’s Break 077

Skyler J. Collins (Editor)

Editor’s Break 077 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: are libertarians opposed to violence?; what he hates the most: aggression; why state gun control in any degree is a violation of the right to bear arms; whether or not children have a right to “talk back” to their parents, and the importance in doing so; why he unschools to hide his “abuse” of his children; and more.

Educated: A Must-Read

Kerry McDonald

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

Kerry McDonald

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.

Unschooling and Grit

Kerry McDonald

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?”

Propaganda, Interventionism, Free Expression, and “Yes” Parenting (35m) – Editor’s Break 068

Skyler J. Collins (Editor)

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.

Mark’s Journey, Science, & Truth (1h4m) – Episode 106

Skyler J. Collins (Editor)

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.

Watching Children Learn Naturally

Kerry McDonald

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.